Since the pandemic has forced people to cease most interpersonal interaction, ASMR roleplay videos have been created in a new context. Where ASMRtists were once acting out normal interactions to be enjoyed on demand, these interactions have come to exist as remnants of the before times. It now feels less like mimicry of a real thing and increasingly more like playing pretend, acting out a memory of lost society.
The classic example is a haircut. This is a great scenario for ASMR as it caters to a variety of triggers for the audience; the personal attention of someone undividedly working on their appearance and talking close to the microphone(s), the sound of snipping scissors and the obligatory 3D audio experience of the hairdresser working from different angles around the head. A safe haircut amidst the pandemic is a very different experience, if it can be found at all. This results in ASMR haircut roleplays feeling like a recreation of an interaction that no longer exists. That we're just playing pretend and acting out something which is now implausible or impossible.
It brings to mind the image of children playing in the post-apocalypse. They might have images and recordings of what life was like before the world ended and maybe they'll play dress up and give each other pretend medical exams or take turns being each other's server at a make-believe restaurant. But these things don't exist anymore. They're just roleplaying a fantasy scenario which can't actually happen.
That's not to say that ASMR roleplays have traditionally been rooted in reality. Historical roleplays about world events, celebrity roleplays and sci-fi and fantasy scenarios have long been a part of the art form. You might even say a lot of romantic roleplays offer up unrealistic fantasies. The difference between those roleplays and the subject of this post is that as many mundane activities have become impossible in most people's lives, the definition of 'realistic' has shifted. Getting a haircut, especially as portrayed in ASMR videos, is, for now, largely a thing of the past. This gives these videos an eerie feeling they didn't have before. The context in which they are being created has changed the tone from sharing an everyday activity to essentially being period pieces, being set in a time before close, personal interaction became dangerous. Maybe they're even set in an alternate reality where the virus never existed.
Self-awareness is a common tool of ASMR videos. There's often a need to prioritize the triggering of ASMR over maintaining verisimilitude in the roleplay. A salesperson character who is showing the viewer a product might tap on it for extended periods, something which could come across as awkward and unsettling in real life. Fictional roleplays (as opposed to roleplays where the ASMRtist is, for example, performing real massage on a model/friend) are rarely expected to be fully accepted as real by the audience, but for better immersion, they should be able to employ some level of suspension of disbelief. When this gap between realism and suspension of disbelief becomes too wide, we reach an uncanny valley.
There are three main categories for ASMR roleplays based on the level to which they co-exist with reality:
- Roleplays which are possible and are presented as such. These include normal activities which are portrayed as existing in real life and are reasonably accessible to the audience. Things like talking to a receptionist, seeing a doctor or booking a flight.
- Roleplays which are not possible but are not presented as such. These include historical or fantastical scenarios which the viewer would never find themselves in, but the subject matter is treated as fictional. Things like living in Ancient Rome, talking to an AI supercomputer on a spaceship or being kidnapped by pirates.
- Roleplays which are not possible, but are presented as such. I think this will come down a lot to audience perspective and the extent to which they're able to suspend disbelief. Most ASMR videos are sufficiently self-aware to avoid falling into this category, but as things that were once part of regular life have become impossible, their treatment in ASMR roleplays largely haven't changed. Haircuts are still portrayed as unremarkable occurrences. Characters still meet up at parties and hug and do each other's makeup; they still live in a world which is safe, unchanged by a deadly virus spreading throughout the population. Another place to see this category is in unfiction, where stories are told as if they take place in the real world.
There is also the fourth quadrant wherein plausible scenarios are treated as if they aren't real, but I think this would largely be less serious roleplays that are mostly focused on the ASMR, with breaks in character and long periods of tapping and other triggers.
This phenomenon will subside as vaccines roll out and people return back to their daily lives, but in this very brief period, we can feel what it's like to be those post-apocalyptic children reaching back through time and trying to appreciate the mundanities of a civilization both familiar and intangible.
