On June 3 2018, Makenna Kelly, a 13-year old from Fort Collins, Colorado, uploaded the video that propelled her to internet stardom. Entitled “Eating Raw Honeycomb – EXTREMELY Sticky Mouth Sounds”, it featured the teen chewing fistfuls of pure honeycomb directly in front of a microphone for 16 minutes. In the following months, it was viewed 12 million times. By October, Kelly had reached one million YouTube subscribers.
“I jumped all around and I celebrated with apple cider and it was just really, really fun… I got hy-per,” she laughs, stressing the syllables.
The video was designed for people who experience “ASMR”. Short for “autonomous sensory meridian response”, ASMR is a euphoric feeling certain people get from specific auditory stimuli. Those who experience it have different triggers – such as whispering, chewing or tapping – and also experience different bodily responses; some feel tingles, others become incredibly relaxed.
“I just tried it because I thought it would help out my channel and it did, yeah,” Kelly says of her honeycomb video. When she started her channel in March 2018, Kelly made more traditional YouTube videos – filming herself applying make-up and eating different foreign snacks. “It was exciting,” she says of going viral, “because I was like, this could actually be my dream, I’ve always wanted a lot of subscribers.”
While most girls her age earned their pocket money babysitting the neighbours’ kids, Kelly spent that summer in her bedroom filming 50 custom-made ASMR videos. She would receive daily email requests for bespoke videos, shoot the footage, receive the money over PayPal (ten minutes cost $50, whereas for $30 (about £23) you’d get a five-minute clip) and upload the video to her YouTube channel, Life with Mak.
“People asked for really weird things,” she explains, “like tapping on a TV or playing with string.” For instance, one stranger paid Kelly $50 (about £38) to film herself eating cookies and milk. In an 11-minute video, Kelly tapped on the biscuits with her vibrant pink fingernails before biting into them and slurping them down with a jar of milk. More than 300,000 people watched that video.
Kelly’s mum, 40-year-old veterinary physician Nichole Lacy, only found out about the teen’s channel a month after it was created, at which point she started to monitor it daily, handling the email requests. (Makenna is no longer allowed to look at the emailed requests she gets – two of which were “inappropriate” and promptly deleted.)
Life with Mak has a lot of subscribers — nearly 1.2 million — which means that Kelly now also has a lot of money. The teen earns revenue from adverts that play on her YouTube channel, sponsorships from brands, and custom videos.
Of course, Kelly — who was named one of Teen Vogue’s “21 under 21” in November 2018 — is not the only star in the ASMR internet community. The current largest ASMR artist, or “ASMRtist”, on YouTube, Taylor Darling, aka ASMR Darling, has two million subscribers and earns an estimated $1,000 a day in advertising revenue. Global megabrands such as IKEA, Sony, McDonald’s and Toyota have now all created ASMR-inspired adverts, and in October 2018, platinum rapper Cardi B made an ASMR video that went on to be viewed nearly 10,000,000 times. It’s no longer surprising that 75 per cent of children want to be YouTubers, but these kids don’t want to be the next beauty-blogging Zoella or game-streaming PewDiePie. They want to be the next brain-tingling ASMR Darling.
The term ASMR was coined in 2010 by Jennifer Allen, a 39-year-old penetration tester. “For years I thought, ‘Jeez, maybe I have a brain tumour or something,’” she recalls. From 1999 onwards, Allen searched steadfastly for others like her online. In the late noughties, she stumbled upon a SteadyHealth.com forum in which a user named okaywhatever51838 discussed a “weird sensation” that “feels good”.
“Nobody had any answers, so I decided to try to help everyone coordinate,” says Allen, who created a Facebook group to spread the name. “It’s been an exponential rise since then. I think because it’s a genuine experience that many people never had a way of qualifying before.”
For outsiders, ASMR has always been weird. “One thing that’s interesting about the ASMR experience is that it’s about close personal attention,” says Giulia Poerio, a psychology professor at the University of Sheffield who has undertaken multiple ASMR studies. Role-play videos thrive in the ASMR community – online, you can watch someone pretend to be your dentist, masseuse, or even a receptionist checking you into a hotel. “They’re basically a simulation of what would happen if you got ASMR in real life,” Poerio explains. “Multiple triggers are layered to get an effect.”
The bizarreness of this footage means ASMR isn’t without controversies. In June 2018, the Chinese government banned ASMR videos, branding them “vulgar” and “pornographic”. In August, PayPal began blocking the accounts of ASMRtists who received money to make custom videos (although the company later denied it has a policy against ASMR content). For those who don’t experience ASMR, the videos can seem fetishistic. Beyond the weirdness of whispering and making “mouth sounds” as in Kelly’s honeycomb video, some people nickname ASMR a “brain orgasm”.
In June 2018, Poerio conducted a study where she monitored the physiological responses around ASMR. Videos designed to trigger ASMR were played to 50 people who get ASMR and a control group of 50 non-ASMR participants.
“We found that people who experience ASMR showed significant reductions in their heart rates compared to non-ASMR participants,” Poerio explains, “These reductions are comparable to other stress-reduction techniques such as mindfulness and music therapy.” Poerio says this finding is crucial because reduced heart rates prove people who enjoy ASMR are not sexually aroused.
“I compare it to getting the world’s best massage, but no one has to be touching you because you can feel it by watching ASMR videos,” says Craig Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at Shenandoah University, and the founder of ASMR University, a website dedicated to ASMR news and research.
Richard, who is also the author of Brain Tingles: The Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria, estimates around 20 per cent of the population experience strong ASMR. What triggers people may come down to individual preferences. “The key to triggering ASMR is to create gentle sounds,” he says. Richard’s own triggers include eye exams and [the Netflix series] The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross.
According to YouTube estimates, there are more than 45 million ASMR videos uploaded to the site, and, over the past year, there has been a marked increase in children making ASMR-related videos. Richard hypothesises that our brain is probably more receptive to an unknown child than a strange adult, making it easier for some individuals to be relaxed by ASMR videos featuring children.
The question is, is it right for a child to trigger – as the title of Richard’s book puts it – “head-to-toe euphoria” in adults?
For instance, on her YouTube channel “ASMR Toddler”, five-year old Aoki Hunnicutt whispers, plays with her dolls’ hair and chews gum for delighted fans. In her most-watched video, she role-plays as a make-up artist by pretending to apply products to the viewer. (She also frequently gets distracted and picks her nose.)
“For me, something about when kids whisper, it’s, oh my god, it’s so relaxing,” says Desireé Hunnicutt, Aoki’s mother, who started watching ASMR videos in 2011. Hunnicutt says she was motivated to create the AMSR Toddler channel in order to help people. “I see comments where people are like, ‘Oh my goodness, I watch every night and it helps me fall asleep,’” she says. “To me that’s perfect, that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Most importantly for Hunnicutt, Aoki seems to love making videos. Like most five-year-olds, she loves trying on her mother’s lipsticks, but unlike most five-year-olds, Aoki was encouraged to rummage in her mum’s make-up bag – and a camera captured the results. “I put all the lipstick on!” Aoki grins, explaining this video was her favourite to make.
“If you can’t experience it you’re gonna either think it’s weird or you’re gonna think it’s creepy,” Hunnicutt says. Aoki – now playing with her toys in the corner of the room – thinks aloud. “IT’S NOT CREEPY!” she shouts emphatically (although it’s worth noting that with her childish rhotacism, it comes out as “cweepy”). Like many ASMRtists, she notes that these videos help people with insomnia, PTSD and stress. “I mean there’s always some weirdos in the world, but you can’t stop helping others just because there are those people.”
In October 2017, Anthony Fleck, a 24-year-old ASMR fan, reported a channel by a “little girl” YouTuber whose commenters asked her to suck on pickles and lick lollipops.
“I can’t speak for everybody but as an adult man I have no reason to ever want to watch a kid make ASMR videos,” Fleck says. “I saw her channel and it only took a few seconds of scrolling through the comments to see all these people asking her to do really perverse things that she obviously didn’t understand she shouldn’t be doing.”
Fleck reported the channel to YouTube and asked others in the ASMR community to do the same. “I reported it under child abuse, which you think would immediately throw up a red flag but the channel stayed.” Months later, the channel disappeared – though it’s unclear if it was removed by YouTube or the girl herself.
“I don’t think enough is done,” Fleck says. “This little girl was wearing sweatshirts with her school’s name on them, you have the danger of being doxxed, people finding out where you are.” Thankfully, Fleck feels the ASMR community look out for each other. “It’s just a little difficult because other than reaching out to get YouTube to do something, we’re kind of powerless.”
What does a YouTuber do when they want to complain about YouTube? They make a YouTube video. In October 2018, Makenna Kelly became the topic of outraged videos after she uploaded a role-play entitled “ASMR – SASSY Police Officer / Cop”.
In the video, Kelly wore a police officer costume and knee-high boots while wielding a baton. Her “sassy” behaviour – smacking her lips, singing the Pussycat Dolls song “Don’t Cha” and talking about Tinder dates – was interpreted as sexual by some viewers.
Instagram content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
“We got a lot of hate,” her mother says. “In the video she’s wearing a Halloween costume of super-thin fabric – and this is probably too much information – but she’s wearing a bra in the video, like a bralette, but it kind of looks like she’s not wearing one.” Makenna hides her head in her hands.
“So there’s all that stuff going around where it’s like, OK, but I can’t cut her nipples off for the video,” Lacy says.
The pair have no regrets about the role-play, which they scripted together and say is simply a comedy video. “It’s like, you can’t blame me for your mind working that way,” Makenna says. “It’s not my problem your mind is in the gutter and stuff.”
Two weeks after we speak, and seven weeks after it was first uploaded, Makenna’s “sassy cop” video is deleted by YouTube. The company made the decision to delete it a week after being contacted for comment by WIRED.
“We believe technology presents great opportunities for young people to express themselves creatively and access useful information, but we also know we have a responsibility to protect young creators and families and consider the potential impact of emerging trends on them,” said Claire Lilley, YouTube’s child safety policy manager.
“We’ve been working with experts to update our enforcement guidelines for reviewers to remove ASMR videos featuring minors engaged in more intimate or inappropriate acts. We are working alongside experts to make sure we are protecting young creators while also allowing ASMR content that connects creators and viewers in positive ways.”
YouTube banned Makenna’s channel for three days in November but reinstated it after discussions with the family. The company’s delayed decision against its largest child ASMRtist leaves questions about whether the phenomenon can be adequately monitored. Videos featuring the sexualisation of minors are banned by the site, and ASMR “mouth sound” videos now fall within this remit. Yet at the time of writing, a search for “child ASMR mouth sounds” on YouTube brings up hundreds of videos with a disturbing number of views.
Do parents or YouTube bear the ultimate responsibility for the safety of these young creators? While we wait for an answer, child ASMRtists are taking things into their own hands.
The website for ASMRtist United looks remarkably like it was created by a child – which it was. Founded in August 2017 by 14-year-old Jacob Daniel, the “company” offers advice to ASMRtists under the age of 18. There is a guide on how to filter sexual comments, advice on coping with cyberbullying and a post entitled “How do I stop my school from finding my channel?”.
“There a lot of young ASMRtists and I try to tell them, let your parents know,” says Daniel, who has 24,000 subscribers on his channel JacobJacob15. Jacob looks out for other ASMRtists (he also reported the channel of the young girl licking lollipops) and offers help to young YouTubers.
“Someone told one of our members, ‘Oh, I have your address, I’m going to give it to a bunch of paedophiles,’” Daniel says. “This member called me crying and sobbing and I felt so horrible.” The child told his parents about the threat and gave up making videos.
“I know I’m only 14,” Daniel says, “but we have strict, strict rules. If we get a report on anything, we report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We have a sheet of all the contacts… I’ve been on YouTube since I was about five. I’ve got a lot of hate comments so I know how to handle everything.”
Daniel’s channel is full of disclaimers. Under all of his videos are the words “Account Monitored and Managed by Parents”, which he says he wrote to avoid hate comments.
“He does things with the computer and editing that I know nothing of,” says Daniel’s 53-year-old mother, Parker Prunkl, with a toothless grin. “I know Microsoft Word and Excel but his editing… I think he’ll grow up into the film industry.”
Although Prunkl is proud of her son and helps him film videos and buy props, Daniel still seems very much in charge. When I first emailed Prunkl to set up an interview with her son, she was polite and excited. Daniel later confessed he was actually the one who responded to my email.
Jacob Daniel is clearly a savvy child – although excitable and eccentric, he talks soberly about safety on YouTube, clapping his hands as he tells children to “be, be safe”. He tells kids to use fake names, access their email with VPNs, and avoid making custom Skype calls with viewers. For all his intelligence, however, Daniel is still a child. He and Prunkl show off a series of wigs they play with at home – he dons a purple one with red horns; Prunkl shows me her doll. They talk excitedly about the pranks they play on the public, wearing the wigs to order food in take-away shops.
“I didn’t know he was gonna have a channel this big, I thought it was a phase or a little bit of a hobby,” Prunkl says. “This is a whole new world to me, the ASMR thing – to tell you the truth I didn’t know what it was and he kept explaining it to me until I figured it out.”
Daniel and Prunkl might have it figured out but, like Makenna Kelly, they still experience troubling comments. An older man sends Daniel letters and once drove past him on the street and shouted at him. Prunkl describes the man as “fixated”.
“In one letter he made a stylised JacobJacob15 ASMR logo and I looked a bit closer and I found out he took my channel name and basically put it on a swastika,” Daniel says. “And he said he was sending me a motivational armband. Now I know a lot about history, and I know who had motivational armbands.”
Daniel and Prunkl keep a folder full of this man’s transgressions and have notified the local police. “Sometimes it scares me,” Daniel confesses, quieter now. “It does scare me that this guy could be anywhere.” Similarly, Makenna Kelly fears that kids at her bus stop will follow her home and leak her address online. “I just go down to the clubhouse and wait ten minutes just to make sure nobody knows where I live.”
For these families, this is just another part of YouTube fame. “Him doing these videos, he’s putting himself out there. You’re gonna expect some people to do things if you’re putting yourself out there,” says Prunkl, “no different from a singer or a movie star.”
The left side of Makenna Kelly’s bedroom is just like any other child’s. Her silver and white bedspread matches a feature wall, she has a dresser with her own TV and her nickname – “Kenna” – is spelled out in wooden letters above the window. On the right side of her room, however, things are less ordinary. There are three professional studio lights and a tripod, a silver plaque congratulating her on 100,000 YouTube subscribers and a framed letter from Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s CEO. Sellotaped on the closet door is the fan mail.
“I love you so much!” writes 11-year-old Keeley, “you inspire me to keep filming videos.” Some kids have drawn Makenna, others have drawn her cats. One child sent ten dollars and asked to have their name mentioned in a video.
Audrey (who signs off as “your biggest fan”) writes that Makenna inspires her, but she’s scared to start making ASMR videos because, “I don’t want to be made fun of at school or something.”
Mockery is a problem for any child in the limelight – one of Jacob Daniel’s fellow ASMRtist United founders quit YouTube after being picked on at school. Kelly says there are rumours that one girl at school said she was “annoying”, but most people think her channel is “cool”. Yet Kelly isn’t just a famous ASMRtist – she is also a meme. On social media, people edit her videos into short clips and share them with relatable captions.
“She did not get at it first, she just kind of thought well memes can be mean,” says Lacy, who had to explain to her daughter what a meme was. “Now she thinks they’re hilarious, she’s seen a million of herself.”
Lacy is no cliché pageant mum. Lounging on the sofa with wet hair and a grey T-shirt emblazoned with a peace sign, she sits back, scrolling on her phone, to let her child speak candidly. She does not push Makenna to answer in a favourable way, nor is she pushing her daughter into stardom in pursuit of fame or riches. “She makes significantly more money than I do and works significantly less than I do,” laughs Lacy, sitting with her legs tucked underneath her on the large brown suede sofa in the middle of the family’s modest apartment. “She doesn’t have to babysit or dog-sit or anything, so it works out good.” Makenna smiles shyly, showing off pink braces. “I do want to babysit though! I like kids.”
“She has definitely set herself up for a good future, I don’t want to give exact figures,” says Lacy – who Kelly calls her “momager”. Lacy gives her daughter $300 (£233) pocket money every month.
“The rest of the money is in a savings account,” she says. “When she gets older, she’ll have the opportunity to buy a home, buy a car, within reason. She swears she’s gonna get a Lamborghini and we said absolutely not.”
“Hey!” Kelly retorts. “When I have the money I’m gonna get it!” She is an animated child, fashion-conscious in an off-the-shoulder dress, her brand new bob haircut swinging as she speaks. Her iridescent rainbow false nails flash in the November sunlight which her two cats – the hairless Gwenie and the hairy Aggie – are sunbathing in.
Kelly knows that she inspires other kids to take up ASMR – children at school ask for advice on how to make popular YouTube videos. At one football game recently, kids swamped Kelly for photos. “It was like… crazy,” Kelly whispers dramatically. “I went with friends and we walked past this group of cheerleaders and they all got quiet. They came up one after another and were like, ‘Let’s take a picture.’”
Emotionally, Kelly and Daniel seem equipped to deal with this backlash (Aoki Hunnicutt remains blissfully unaware of any negativity, and also much else about YouTube fame – at one point during our interview, she asks with concern, “Mummy, I thought we were going to do an interview?”). Yet while they are fine with their fame, it may trouble the young stars to lose it.
“We talked to her about how it’s good today but might be gone tomorrow,” Lacy says. With YouTube’s new, stricter regulations, child ASMRtists may be replaced by an as-yet-unknown breed of internet celebrity. Desireé Hunnicutt, for instance, is hoping that Aoki’s early start on YouTube will allow her to start a business. “I believe in Aoki figuring out what it is that she wants to do in life even early on and I hope it actually helps her,” she says.
With the summer over and homework to focus on, Makenna Kelly isn’t making any more custom videos. She continues to upload her regular videos two or three times a week, but doesn’t want to do it forever.
“I don’t know, I might continue doing YouTube for a few more years but I definitely don’t want it to be my job when I’m older, because I like going out of the house for a job,” she says, now restless at the end of our interview, telling her mum she’d like to grab some chicken nuggets (I wonder, will she film herself eating them?).
“I don’t really know what my future plans are, because there’s so many opportunities.” Kelly would like to be an actress, or a dermatologist, or a teacher – she’s young enough to neither know nor really care.
Whatever career path she chooses, however, one thing is almost guaranteed. Makenna Kelly will most likely be the first person to buy a Lamborghini with money earned from eating cookies and milk.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
