How AI ASMR videos are captivating social media users on Instagram, RedNote and beyond

Yin Chenxi, a second-year postgraduate student, was working on her thesis one evening when her phone lit up with a notification from the Chinese social media platform RedNote, recommending a video tagged with words including “stress relief” and “cutting perfume bottles”. Exhausted from her work and in dire need of distraction, Yin opened the video. In it, a glass perfume bottle was sliced in two by someone with a knife. As the two liquid-filled halves fell away, a gurgling sound could be heard. This would not be possible in real life, but the video had been generated using AI. “I watched it over and over,” Yin says. “Every time the blade cut through, the sound made me get a sense of comfort, like a surge of energy that opened my pores, zipping through my body.” This type of video content, of a mundane action coupled with amplified sensory details like sound, can trigger an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) in viewers. This is a physical reaction, often described as a tingling sensation. While ASMR video content previously featured people doing things like whispering, crumpling paper in their hands or running their nails along the teeth of a comb, technological advances have enabled content creators to use AI video generators like Google’s Veo 3 and China’s QiMeng to create more unusual scenarios. On Instagram, a video captioned “Glass Kiwi Slicing ASMR” on the AISMR account has amassed more than 44.6 million viewers and almost 550,000 likes. On RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, #aiasmr is a popular topic. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AISMR (@a.i.s.m.r) Yu Mu, from China’s Hunan province, is someone who has capitalised on the growing trend. When he saw how AI-generated ASMR videos were rising on RedNote, he decided to try it out for himself, creating an account and sharing content made with Veo 3. His videos have taken off, with posts in his AI-slicing series gathering thousands of likes. Some comments on his videos praise the comforting quality of his content, while others note the strikingly realistic AI-generated footage. “It’s funny that people seem to pursue a sense of reality within a fake video,” Yu says. He adds that how well an AI-generated ASMR video turns out largely depends on the prompts or instructions that people put in. “When I first started experimenting with AI ASMR videos, I preferred to input very long, detailed descriptions. But what I found was that only one out of 10 videos turned out without any obvious bugs,” he says. “So, I tried simplifying my instructions. For example, when prompting it to ‘cut an apple’, I’d first describe the materials and directly say ‘slice the apple open’ rather than detailing every single cut motion inside the sentence.” He says that AI’s almost boundless flexibility can bring great joy to audiences. “Some videos even feature creative scenarios, like slicing through a volcano or ocean waves, rendering scenes you’d never witness in real life,” he says. Some viewers have said these videos are the perfect escape, not just because they relieve stress, but also because they can fulfil a visual curiosity. According to a 2018 article in the scientific journal Plos One, a study revealed that ASMR videos helped decrease stress and sadness levels in those who identified as experiencing such responses. Physiological measures, such as reduced heart rate, were also reported, indicating that ASMR may have “therapeutic benefits for mental and physical health”. Yin says the pressure of her studies often leaves her anxious and fatigued, but that watching AI ASMR videos has become a way to manage her stress. “These simple, repetitive sights and sounds allow my mind to temporarily switch off from its racing state and have a rest,” Yin says. “An interesting situation is sometimes, when I play those videos, the sounds are like white noise that keeps echoing in my head even when I’m spaced out, and I really enjoy that feeling.” Bo Chuxuan, from China’s Yunnan province, is an ASMR enthusiast who started watching ASMR videos when she was in junior high school. She says that AI-generated videos give her more than just conventional relaxation benefits. “Whenever I watch a fruit-cutting video, it often gives me a Pandora’s box vibe – you never know whether it’s liquid or crystal inside until it’s sliced open,” she says. “That sense of curiosity just keeps me watching.” As someone who is meticulous about details, Bo says seeing how neatly cut the objects in these videos are helps her relax and gives her a feeling of satisfaction. Interestingly, although a 2023 paper in the International Journal of Indian Psychology suggests that ASMR videos could serve as a useful tool in improving sleep, Bo says that they do not work for her as a sleep aid. “The AI-generated sounds, like knives scraping on glass or chewing, are a little bit intense for me, especially when I play them in complete darkness and silence before falling asleep,” she says. “A weird tickling sensation would creep over my body whenever I tried watching those before bed, so I had to give up.”

How AI ASMR videos are captivating social media users on Instagram, RedNote and beyond

AI-generated ASMR videos are taking over the existing ASMR trend, offering creative content that provides stress relief for many