For everyone who wants to Van Gogh their ear off anytime they heard loud chewing, there's another person out there who gets off on the sound. YouTubers have begun capitalizing on the niche obsession, creating videos of themselves chewing, a microphone picking up every slurp, bite, and crunch. Science says these channels devoted to ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, are designed to send a relaxing, tingling sensation through your body — but, uh, this s#*t's weird.
In the two-and-half years since Spirit Payton started her channel ASMRTheChew, she's chomped on everything for viewers — lasagna, Pop Rocks, a taco bowl, Cheetos, you name it. But there's one food she keeps coming back to, and we can't blame her: pickles. "I got quite a few requests to eat another pickle — more pickles," Payton whispers (it's an ASMR thing) at the beginning of one of the videos. So that's what she then does: slowly opens a jar, sniffs some dills, comments on their size, and gets chewing.
You can hear literally everything, and viewers are equally disgusted and amused. The haters don't comment as much; they're bound to get lambasted by everyone else. But they exist: "Am I the only one this video makes angry?" someone mused. The answer's no, according to the 25,000 dislikes the clip has gotten. There are 83,000 likes, though, and kind words to back that up: "I felt the tingle while watching this! And I was soo relaxed I love it! 😊😍," wrote one person. Another agreed: Omg this video is giving me tingles. Love it so much. So soothing 🙂," they wrote.
We're big fans of eating pickles over here, but as far as the sound of someone else eating pickles is concerned, not so sure. Does it make you tingle in a good way or want to crawl out of your skin?
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