China announces crackdown on ASMR videos as pornographic

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/20/crinkle-crinkle.html

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Pop filters, the pixelation of ASMR “porn”.

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I guess this means the war on puns is finally over.

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I like ASMR but this makes me think I’m missing out on something.

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I’ve noticed a lot of the ASMR videos seem to involve conventionally attractive young women and deal with intimacy of physical proximity (roleplaying scenarios that involve close physical presence, like massages, etc. that aren’t relevant to the sounds) and emotional intimacy (therapy, romantic partner conversations, etc.). Some videos are ostensibly safe for work but in practice seem borderline pornographic (videos involving “mouth noises,” microphone licking, etc.). I presume there’s significant overlap with ASMR and actual pornography as well.
So it’s unclear to me if that’s what the Chinese are targeting, or if that’s just their original motivation but they’re incidentally also catching everything else in ASMR-land as well, because censorious dickbags tend to cast wide nets when they can get away with it (“just to be safe”).

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it’s like umami, but for your nerves.

also, we have a word for this already: Frisson - Wikipedia

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The Chinese Government against any kind of pleasure.

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I’m still waiting for science to finally crack Frisson Power Generation, so we can all feel good about using electricity. Come on, Science!

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Chinese Government, “We are having a harsh crackdown on pleasure!”

“Oh, do tell me more… [wiggles eyebrows]… Will it be… very… harsh?”

p016hk1r.jpg976×549 50.3 KB

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Hah, I’ll bet censors experience ASMR when they censor things.

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I’ve found that not only do these videos do nothing to trigger my ASMR, but what does trigger it is profoundly unerotic.

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Thank you so bloody much, Boris. I’ve just wasted 10 minutes of my life that I won’t get back, and I haven’t been so confused since I watched an episode of the Teletubbies.

I can’t even figure out what the connection point to the audience is. It feels like I’ve just watched 10 minutes of television “snow”, yet obviously a fair number of people appreciate it.

Is this like Teletubbies, where the cognitive processes of the target market are just too different? Or is whatever they’re doing to the actress’ voice supposed to be ASMR like?

There are tons of cultural phenomena where I can say “not my task in music” or “not my taste in narrative device”, but least I can figure out what preference the target market is supposed to have. This one has me as baffled as the kids in the video.

I feel old.

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I don’t see why this is news. Is it impossible some ASMR videos might contain naughty words and images? I’ve heard they can be pretty hot. Now, I’m opposed to censorship, but I don’t really think the Communist Party is listening to my opinions. Given that, why wouldn’t they crack down on certain videos?

China announces crackdown on ASMR videos as pornographic

  • False

China announces crackdown on pornographic ASMR videos

  • True

Can you spot the difference?

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Can China? Maybe this started with a few ASMR videos that crossed a line (whatever that line might have been). It’s still eminently plausible that the Chinese censors could have decided to simply ban all ASMR videos rather than bother with sorting through them to determine which ones have also crossed that line.

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I’m sure this will help explain, Interview with Poppy (You’ll have to sacrifice another 8 minutes of your life though.)

JK,it still won’t explain anything

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Poppy might be Mars Argo?

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might be even closer to the truth.

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