ASMR...Whaaaaaat?

Always late to the party, we just started watching "The White Lotus." In the second episode, the two heinous, emotionless, mean teen girls get stoned and then do some "ASMR." 

I asked my wife, "What's that?"

She said, "Look it up, it's so stupid."

SOLD!

So, off to consult with my writing assistant, Ms. Google, I went. The results will astound you! I say, I say, ASTOUND you! (Read that in a Foghorn Leghorn voice.)

Get this...ASMR stands for "autonomous sensory meridian response." What a load of hooey explaining nothing. 

Let's break it down. "Autonomous" means the feeling is in your body. Well...of course it's in your body, Dr. Numbskull! Where else would it be? In a rock, perhaps? Now, I hear some of you New Age Wiccans (I have a HUGE following amongst the Wiccans), taking me to task over that and saying, "But, Stuart, usually feelings are in your mind." Well, yes, but where's your "mind?" In your body, dammit!

"Sensory" explains that your senses perceive the feeling. Again...duh. Do we really need a word telling us this? Isn't this pretty much common sense?

Here's my favorite: "meridian." The word indicates the energy of feeling in your body. Ha ha haaaaaaa! Who do we have to blame for THIS word? I'm beginning to see a lot of repetition here.

Finally, we have "response," which shows how a feeling is a response to stimuli.

I say, ballyhoo! We've got four fancy-pants words, all pretty much redundantly describing "feelings from outside stimuli." We could've easily shortened the acronym to "SR," and not missed a beat.

Now comes the fun part. We've broken down the high-falutin' acronym, signifying nothing, so let's chat about the "process." It's a "calming sensation in response to outside stimuli, a pleasant tingling that starts at the top of the head and works it's way through the spine and limbs." Examples of stimuli cited are whispering or someone playing with your hair (damn...I missed that ASMR boat!).

Back in my day (before color TV), we used to call it "goose bumps."

Blame it on Jennifer Allen, an internet chat frequent flier, who coined the term in 2010. Taking it a step further, in 2015, the first scientific study on ASMR was conducted. Craig Richard, a physiology professor at Shenandoah University compiled a survey of 30,000 applicants. He then formed (are you ready for this?)...the "ASMR University," an online resource for everything ASMR. (I wonder what it would take to get my Masters at ASMR University? I already have a BS in Goose Bumpery.)

A phenomenon was created. (Or so the ubiquitous "they" say...I'm pretty sure even cavemen got goose bumps, but why quibble?) 

And it has exploded. New words and cutesy nonsense group names are trending. "ASMRtists" are making online videos, trying to induce feelings by making sounds over a microphone. "GibiASMR," "GentleWhispering ASMR," and "ASMR Darling" have gathered millions of followers on YouTube and other social media platforms. The highly scientific noises created include whispers, mouth noises (I wonder if burps are considered spine-tingly?), chewing (gross!), page turning (at the lightning speed my wife smacks through a book's pages, it's anything but relaxing), and "finger flutters," a so-called popular trigger. I don't know about you guys, but I don't even know what a finger flutter is, let alone know if it makes a sound.

The end results are calmness, sleepiness, and a state of relaxation.

Maybe I'll become an ASMRtist and make a video featuring the close-range sounds of fingernails across a chalk board, pieces of Styrofoam rubbed together,  Gilbert Gottfried, Rosanne Barr laughing, the Emergency Broadcast System alert, and ancient Uncle Bobby farting in his sleep. (It's gotta be more lucrative than churning out novels these days.) I wonder if the ASMRheads would make me an ASMRlegend?

Again, let's just call it goose bumps. Or I'll even modernize a bit (not too much, mind you) and go with the same results from yoga, mediation, or a massage.

I suppose even physiologists and psychologists gotta eat, though. But c'mon, guys! Enough is enough! Quit making up new titles for old junk simply because there's nothing else new to study just so you can obtain job security! I call quackery! Tomfoolery! Shenanigans! But really, I call it goose bumps.

Wait a minute... Do I hear... I think I do! The sound of one of the dogs piddling in the hallway! Ahhhh...the wondrous release of ASMR.

While we're talking about tomfoolery, there's a whole lot to be found in the adventures of Zach and Zora in my comical mystery series consisting of three (so far...I hope!) books starting with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock. If you like your mysteries full of dumb male strippers and angry pregnant sleuths and a myriad of other nutty characters, I recommend you drop in at the Bone-In-Beef dance club where Zach is about to take the stage (until he stumbles over yet another dead body, natch). Nine out of ten priests recommend the books available here!