Aluminum cans slowly shredded to produce an "ASMR effect"

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/06/aluminum-cans-slowly-shredded.html

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Autonomous sensory meridian response for those wondering what ASMR stood for in this instance

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And for those, like me, who were still perplexed:

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Quieter, please.

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Thanks for the definition but I’m still confused. Do only certain people experience something when watching those videos? Or maybe it’s my shitty frequency response. I could be missing the part of audio spectrum that triggers it.

Yeah, it’s hard to explain. Sort of like a quiet, pleasant frisson. Some things work better for some people than others. The styrofoam box above, for example, was a dud for me.

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I have ASMR, and the video didn’t really trigger it for me. I didn’t even know ASMR was a “thing” until about a year ago, when I decided to try a google search to figure out why I get so relaxed at certain sound triggers.

If you search for ASMR on YouTube, you’ll get a ton of hits. There are people that make many, many, videos just for triggering ASMR. One woman had over 800k subscribers!

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One poet - I forget who - said that this was the effect of good poetry. I tend to agree.

Incidentally - as a vacation job I worked for a pharmaceutical company. One of their pieces of equipment was a giant, motorised version of this grinder which could convert sacks of granulated sugar into a fine powder - which was too dangerous to store in bulk - almost as fast as they could be tipped in. We are talking 25kg sacks here, not small paper sacks.
Back at U I was looking for something else when I found a textbook on designing these machines, so out of curiosity I opened it. The differential equations started on about page 3 and from there on it looked pretty much like an algebra textbook.
Serious engineering goes into these things.

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The real reason that damned safe still isn’t open!

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Is it wrong for me to want a hand cranked shredder?

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Robert Graves approvingly quoted A.E.Housman as saying that he could judge a poem by reciting it while he was shaving: if the bristles stood up, it was the real thing.

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Yes. Some people get nothing out of the videos at all, and for those who do get stuff out of it, some ‘triggers’ don’t work at all while others work particularly well. Common ones are crinkles like in the video, wet noises like playing with a piece of hard candy on your mouth or washing your hands, whispering, typing, chewing (this one seems to be really divisive. For some it’s amazing, for others it’ll ruin a video), fabric noises…basically any soft of quiet, not-unpleasant noise can do it I think.

Inevitable plug for my pick for 2016’s most internet video, which covers quite a few of the triggers through it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y6pW8pdjwM nothing will ever match the TB 303 for ASMR.

No. I would like one as well. A bespoke hand-crank shredder. Of Oak and Brass with hardened steel teeth to rend and process all that enters it’s maw.

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This is a problem on BB. Using acronyms and just assuming everyone knows wtf you’re talking about.

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FWIW, IMHO and - IANAL so TTWaGoS - but WTFBBQLOL?

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Or when that dope ass track gives you the chills :sunglasses:

Personally, I found these crinkles too ‘tinny’ for a trigger. ASMR is a pretty weird thing, though I was really glad to put a name to it.

Houseman! Got it.

I feel sad that I don’t experience this. OTOH, the sound of styrofoam squeaking, like in the last shot in that video, gives me negative ASMR