“Every cut releases sweet puffs”: when AI gets into ASMR

Hypnotic sensory loops are currently taking over TikTok, fueling one of the platform's latest viral trends. They show a steel blade clinking onto a crystal fruit and then cutting through it, like a razor, with hyper-realistic cracks. "Some people call this pleasure a brain orgasm," says Valentina Tanni. An art historian who teaches digital media culture and meme aesthetics at John Cabot University in Rome, Tanni devotes a fascinating chapter to the ASMR videos that captivate millions of internet users in Vibes Lore Core —a book recently translated (April 24) by Audimat—and features a fascinating chapter on the ASMR videos that captivate millions of internet users. "ASMR is a form of eroticism focused on sensory perception," she explains in the interview .

When ASMR first appeared in the 2010s, it was simply short videos of people talking in low voices. They were meant to make you "come to your ears." They quickly became very popular and came in countless genres. "This type of content is getting stranger and stranger," confirms Valentina Tanni. "Some videos show people cleaning weapons, painting with their saliva, or acting out absurd situations involving a lobotomy or a contagious disease in the Middle Ages."