ASMR's Brain Tingles: A 2007 Forum Post, Bob Ross and the Grooming Theory

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Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, the static-like tingle that starts at the crown of the scalp and travels down the neck, had no name until the internet gave its sufferers a place to compare notes. On October 19, 2007, a 21-year-old user posted on a health forum called SteadyHealth about a sensation triggered by things like puppet shows or being read a story, and replies poured in from people who knew the feeling. Early users called it a brain orgasm, a label many rejected, so in 2010 forum participant Jennifer Allen coined the deliberately clinical term, choosing meridian to mean a peak without sexual baggage. The episode also finds the sensation in Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway and in Bob Ross's palette knife scraping on The Joy of Painting.

Neurologist Steven Novella wrote in 2012 that the phenomenon needed fMRI validation, and a 2018 study led by Bryson Lochte found activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and the secondary somatosensory cortex, regions tied to social cognition and touch. Ohio State professor David Huron proposed a grooming hypothesis comparing ASMR to primate grooming. The episode then contrasts ASMR with misophonia and frisson, and follows its growth to about 25 million YouTube videos by 2022, a Swedish museum exhibition, and a Super Bowl beer commercial.

• A 2018 survey found the strongest triggers are lower pitched, complex sounds paired with slow, detail focused tasks
• Binaural recording uses two microphones spaced like human ears to create the illusion of someone whispering inches away
• Sources estimate about 60 percent of people experience ASMR, while others react with irritation
• Misophonia, the hatred of sound, shares nearly the same triggers, such as chewing and tapping
• Zoë Kravitz whispered and tapped a bottle in an ASMR themed Michelob Ultra Super Bowl ad