On April 5, a YouTuber known as Gibi ASMR uploaded a surreal track-by-track tribute to Billie Eilish’s debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? It’s not your typical YouTube pop tribute.
In the 38-minute clip, Gibi—who has 1.8 million subscribers and keeps her last name secret for privacy reasons—does not play an instrument or sing, at least not in any normal, hummable sense. Instead, she converts Eilish’s bedroom-pop bangers into the dominant language of the ASMR universe: close-miked whispers. Every sound and lyric is gently enunciated to maximize what is frequently referred to as “tingles”—the inexplicably pleasurable sensation some people experience as a result of aural or tactile triggers, like whispering or head massages. Throughout the mesmerizing, expertly produced performance, Gibi also stimulates the warm buzz of ASMR by rubbing her fingernails against a blanket, drawing in a sketchbook, and tapping quietly on a tiny mirror.
The video has amassed more than a million views.
Eilish isn’t just a goth-pop icon for disaffected teens. With her whispery vocals and woozy, bass-driven pop, the 17-year-old is becoming uniquely beloved among fans of ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response. Enthusiasts mainly turn to YouTube—a tingle hub with more than 13 million ASMR videos to choose from—to get their fix. Lately, a handful of those videos incorporate Eilish’s music. As one of the many comments beneath Gibi’s video puts it: “If u do ASMR and you don’t listen to Billie Eilish, do you really do ASMR?”
Over email, Gibi tells me that she first discovered Eilish through an ASMR cover of her song “lovely.” Then, when When We All Fall Asleep came out, Gibi was contacted by someone at the singer’s UK distributor, Polydor Records, and asked if she was interested in performing a read-through of the album. She immediately said yes. “I hope [Eilish] enjoyed the video and it didn’t freak her out too much!” Gibi adds. (While Gibi says she wasn’t paid by Polydor, she was offered free merch and tickets to an upcoming Eilish show.)
Gibi isn’t the only ASMR YouTuber captivated by Eilish. In November, a YouTube channel called Darkling ASMR posted a video titled “[ASMR] Softly Singing Billie Eilish Songs,” in which the star’s early songs are delivered in a breathy croon. And when Eilish’s full-length debut arrived in late March, another popular “ASMRtist” who goes by SophieMichelle ASMR released her own whisper tribute to the album—listening to it is like hearing someone stealthily record an audiobook in a crowded library.
The link between Eilish and ASMR makes a strange kind of sense. Eilish, like most ASMR creators, records in her bedroom, giving her work an emotional and sonic intimacy. She is young and female, as are the vast majority of leading ASMR YouTubers. And her approach to pop production is hushed and slightly dreamlike; the songs, while catchy, do not have blaring, screamable hooks.
“Billie Eilish’s vocals convey a sense of tranquility, which is further enhanced by her relaxed facial expression,” says Craig Richard, a physiologist who researches ASMR and even wrote a book, Brain Tingles, about it. “She is not belting or pushing out vocals, her volume is low key, and her tone stays level. Her voice and disposition may be eliciting comfort and calmness, which is reminiscent of ASMR artists on YouTube.”
Also reminiscent of ASMR: Eilish’s album begins with the slurpy sound of her Invisalign being removed. (Some ASMR fans enjoy mouth sounds; others detest them.) Both Eilish and ASMR seem to be particularly popular among Gen-Z—and both phenomena germinated on the internet, then spread to the larger pop consciousness.
Eilish could be the first major pop star whose work reflects, or at least passively benefits from, the remarkable rise of ASMR audio techniques. Though she does not seem to have addressed the subject publicly and wasn’t available to comment for this piece, critics frequently mention ASMR when writing about her work. Here’s GQ: “Eilish’s music is a weird mix of pop and punk, like noir ASMR that you can dance to.” And The Atlantic, summarizing the album’s production: “If this all sounds a bit fussy and like ASMR bait, well, it is.” And BBC Radio 1 host Jack Saunders tweeted this observation about one of Eilish’s recent hits: “Billie Eilish - bury a friend is like asmr to me.”
But does Eilish’s voice actually give Saunders ASMR? Well, no. “I didn’t experience tingles whilst listening to the song,” he clarifies over the phone. “But I certainly listened to it like I would listen to ASMR. The way she delivers it is so soft. And quite personal. Which is very similar to ASMR.” In other words, he didn’t experience ASMR, but he was reminded of ASMR—a small, but important, distinction.
It’s possible that ASMR has now entered the popular lexicon to the point that its meaning has been diluted. Anything that is quiet or vaguely soothing gets tossed into the category. (Yes, you might feel relaxed or nostalgic while listening to Dave Matthews Band; no, Dave Matthews Band is not ASMR.)
But other fans say they have gotten tingles from Eilish’s songs. Helen Holmes, an Observer reporter, says she’s felt it as a result of the singer’s “little giggles and intonations, and the way her intonation ‘falls off’ at the end of sentences.” On Twitter, Holmes coined a new genre category: “billie eilish is post-ASMR.” Victoria Kassab, an 18-year-old fan from Michigan, felt an involuntary shiver along her face and down her neck while listening to a remixed “8D” version of Eilish’s song “Bad Guy” that uses spatial reverb to give listeners the disorienting sense that the music is moving in circles around them. “Hearing her voice move between my ears, coupled with the way she sort of whispers when she’s singing, gave me the response,” Kassab says.
Richard, who has extensively studied both the physiological effects of ASMR and the triggers that summon it, is skeptical. “Music doesn’t generally stimulate ASMR,” he explains. “The reason is that music tends to stimulate emotional arousal—in short, joy—which is usually associated with increased alertness and heart rate. But ASMR tends to stimulate relaxation and calmness, which has been shown to be associated with decreased heart rate.” This is why popular ASMR triggers tend to be… well, boring: people tapping on microphones, unwrapping plastic, reading safety instructions. You’re supposed to be lulled into a trance, not shot full of passion.
That view seems to be supported by a 2017 study, in which more than 71 percent of respondents said that background music “inhibits strong tingles.” I sent Eilish’s music to the co-author of that study, Emma Barratt, a British researcher who has studied ASMR at length. Her verdict? “There are definitely some ASMR elements in here: the whispers, the finger clicking, the really strict rhythm of it,” Barratt explains. “Though our research found that background music in traditionally shot YouTube ASMR videos was generally found to be distracting, this might change when trigger sounds are organized into music, making the song the main focus rather than a distraction.”
This trend might be bigger than Eilish. Plenty of other artists have found ways to dabble in ASMR. Last year, Eleanor Friedberger created an ASMR-inspired music video. Cardi B, a known tingle enthusiast, filmed a whisper video for W magazine. And comedian Brandon Wardell delivered an entire ASMR-themed comedy album, in which the jokes are all whispered.
But while those excursions were handled with a wink and a nod, Eilish absorbs the tingly aesthetic into the whole of her art, without cheapening it or playing it up for laughs. Perhaps pop stars of the future will take explicit cues from ASMR culture. There’s a distinct possibility that as ASMR grows ever more mainstream, pop music might start to become quieter and more serene, reflecting the established audience desire for calming sighs and clicks instead of screams.
Gibi, for one, welcomes our new whispery pop-star overlords: “The generation of ‘chill’ is upon us! Thank goodness.”
