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LiveScience
LiveScience
Skyler Ware

What is ASMR, and why do only some people experience it?

Close up photo of a young woman gently running a makeup brush over a microphone, as if in an ASMR video.

A makeup brush swirling around a microphone, scissors gently snipping through thread, a person softly whispering — a search for "ASMR videos" turns up these and many more alluring sounds, and the catalog of videos has only grown since the phenomenon took the internet by storm in the 2010s.

But what, exactly, is ASMR, and how does it work? And can everyone experience ASMR?

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