Digital research spans worlds that exist both online and offline. Some digital research focuses on how digital interaction impacts the “real world” of users (boyd, 2015), while other digital research focuses entirely on the online interaction with no interest in the offline component of their lives (Boellstorff, 2008). For my research, I am interested in a little of each, though I am primarily going to access this through online methods.
ASMR came into being online, and since I am interested in examining the online ASMR community, it makes the most sense to examine the community online because that is where it exists. There is also an advantage to only interacting online with participants because it grants them a certain level of distance and anonymity that may make them feel more comfortable sharing their views and opinions with me. Furthermore, because many users adopt a persona for their participation in the ASMR community, they are more likely to affiliate with that identity in an online setting. This is the identity I am most interested in accessing for my research.
However, ASMR communities do contribute to a blurring of public and private, creating an intimate atmosphere in a mediated environment. As a result, these communities establish a sense of place for this virtual interaction. Miller and Slater (2000) explain the ‘virtuality’ of internet-based media as media that “can provide both means of interaction and modes of representation that add up to ‘spaces’ or ‘places’ that participants can treat as if they were real” (p. 4).
Although there are some ASMR experiences that exist in the physical world, the online ASMR community is the object of inquiry for my research and is distinctly different than physical ASMR environments. I first became aware of ASMR through the Netflix series “Follow This” that traces BuzzFeed reporters as they investigate their stories. In the episode devoted to ASMR, reporter Scaachi Koul explored the online community as well as the physical places for ASMR, which included a Brooklyn-based ASMR spa called Whisperlodge. In her article, Koul (2018) explains the difference in the online versus offline ASMR experiences:
“The internet has changed how we live — I think almost entirely in memes at this point — so of course it would change how much or how little we’re willing to give in a social interaction. But Whisperlodge forces you to play along, which is exactly why it can’t really translate into a pleasurable IRL experience… Online, ASMR works because you can turn your brain off and not worry about any of that other stuff; Whisperlodge takes the tenets of online intimacy — while also dragging along with it all the unpleasant parts of human interaction, like eye contact and small talk — and lets people get oddly close to your face” (p. 1).
Although there may be insights to be gained from conducting in-person interviews, I feel that maintaining the atmosphere of the online community trumps any benefits of offline methods.
References
Boellstorff, T. (2008). Coming of Age in Second Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
boyd, d. (2015). Making sense of teen life: strategies for capturing ethnographic data in a networked era. In Hargittai, E. and Sandvig, C. (eds.) Digital Research Confidential: The secrets of studying behavior online (p. 79-102). MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Koul, S. (2018, August 23). I love ASMR in videos, but I hated it in real life. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/asmr-videos-whisperlodge-netflix-follow-this
Miller, D. and Slater, D. (2000). The Internet: An ethnographic approach. New York: Berg.