GETTING SCHOOLED
Parents warned new social media trend ASMR could be sexualising children with popular roleplay videos
PARENTS are being warned over new social media trend ASMR which experts say is potentially sexualising children.
Standing for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, the video category has soared in popularity with ‘ASMRtists’ now boasting millions of followers on YouTube.
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These videos often use relaxing sounds called 'triggers' such as whispers and tapping, or do roleplays such as haircuts or manicures.
The trend has many celebrity fans, including Cardi B, who have brought out their own ASMR videos.
But a lot of popular channels are run by children, who unpack toys, do make-up videos and eat noisy food.
Dr Thomas Hostler, The psychology lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), claimed the trend has been “hijacked”.
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He told : “I agree it’s kind of been appropriated into that sexual thing.
“Perhaps part of it is that maybe these role-plays have been used in porn before so there’s a cross-over.
“It’s been hijacked. To a certain extent, I imagine that’s what porn does to every major trend.”
ASMR has proved so controversial that China banned the videos last year, branding them “vulgar” and “pornographic”.
Dr Nick Davis, a senior lecturer in psychology at MMU, added there appeared to be a level of “discomfort” when children were involved in these videos.
He said: “But it can be pretty intimate and that’s why I think there’s a lot of discomfort about having children involved.”
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YouTube said: "Under our current policies, we remove ASMR videos featuring minors where there are contextual signals of being sexual/sexually gratifying, and age-restrict if the video features adults.”
One of the child ASMR stars, Makenna Kelly, who posts under , had one of her videos deleted.
Entitled ‘ASMR – SASSY Police Officer / Cop’, she was dressed in a policewoman’s outfit during a role play video.
Mak, who’s 14, has 1.6 million followers and had her account suspended for a few days, but it was later reinstated.
She claimed YouTube has now turned comments off on her videos.
But she hit out at the decision, she said: “I’m wondering if YouTube can find out that there are bad comments out there why do they have to punish the creator and all their fans?
“Because if comments are disabled no one can comment and you can’t see any of your fans comments.
“It’s not just the videos which are a part of the channel it’s the comments.”
While Mak is above the legal age to have a YouTube account, some ASMRtists are considerably younger, with Aoki Hunnicutt on a YouTube channel called ‘ASMR toddler' which has 35,000 thousand followers.
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