Last night, I was downloading the newest videos from my favourite ASMRtists, and I noticed one of them was actually a live-stream. Normally, I'd skip over something like that. Live-streams tend to be fairly low in quality and involve the host performing supposedly sleep-inducing actions by request—most of which I don't find sleep-inducing whatsoever. This particular ASMRtist, however, is someone I consider to be a good all-around entertainer. She's a better-than-average actress, and a lot of her videos are quite funny, often in ways that seem very natural. In fact, I'd say she kind of has the air of a young Jennifer Saunders about her. So I decided to have a look at this live-stream and see what it was about, and I'm glad I did, since it turned out to be rather fascinating indeed.
The first half hour was the usual introductions and pleasantries, and the last hour was a discussion about how social media seems to have descended into a parody of a witch trial, with everybody looking for an excuse to brand everyone else a racist/sexist/homophobe/islamophobe/etc. The middle hour, however, was this young lady—who makes videos I use to get to sleep—having a direct discussion with the people who watch her, on the subject of whether or not she should go down the road of thottery.
The situation as she described it, is that she is a twenty-six-year-old woman, working in a crappy retail job, in a rural village, in Norfolk, England. She doesn't drink, smoke, or take drugs, and yet she still doesn't earn enough to move out of her parents' house—such is the state of the rental market in the UK. Her audience on YouTube has stopped growing, and while she thinks she might be able to pull new viewers in by taking her clothes off, she's worried that she might also end up alienating a substantial part of her existing audience. Interestingly, very few of the replies she was getting seemed to be all that negative. In fact, there were audience members sending in messages that were flat out saying stuff like, "Hey there. Big fan. Just wanted to let you know I masturbate to ASMR videos, and I really like you, and I would love to masturbate to videos of you doing ASMR in a bikini". An eye-opening experience to say the least.
In the end she decided that while she wasn't ready to go full-bikini, she might try wearing some low-cut tops, just to test the waters. Also, she completely ruled out showing her bare feet—which seemed odd to me. I know foot-fetishists are kind of looked down on, but you'd think that if you were negotiating taking your clothes off for other people's entertainment, footwear would be the easiest thing to give up?
Anyway, what do I know? Watching this thing play out has made me feel very old and very out of touch. What say youse?
3 comments :
I would definitely start with my shoes - and a low-cut top isn't really taking it very far.
I would also (even while knowing it's bound to be true) be more than a little uncomfy with men saying they masturbate to me and they would like to see more! No wonder the poor girl has mixed feelings about it.
It's funny, I fuckin' hate the idea that someone might be secretly watching or listening to me—even when I'm not doing anything … however …
I reckon that if I was filming myself and putting it up for public consumption, I'd get some gratification from knowing that at least a few blokes were out there tugging away. Dunno that I'd wanna talk to them about it afterwards though.
*Update* - Okay, so from what I can gather, amongst younger people now, light BDSM like choking, slapping, hair-pulling, and general sub/dom stuff is considered totally normally - while fetishists who like feet are considered more extreme than furries and people who piss on each other in terms or what people find weird and gross.
While I still don't understand why this is the case, it does explains why the girl from the video was willing to take her top off before her shoes.
???
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