What if we had finally found the most satisfying video in the world?

D‘after the researcher Alice Lenayit was by noting the relaxing and strangely pleasant effects of certain visual and sound ambiances that the first followers of ASMR (for autonomous sensory meridian response) began to recommend and exchange videos likely to trigger this state in the viewer. Namely an automatic response from the sensory meridians (hence the acronym), described alternately as an “enveloping wave of well-being”, a “little bliss” or even a “true cerebrospinal guili”. If the ASMR genre is now popularized in the form of whispering videos, delicate and silky sound effects, kneading of modeling clay (or even all simultaneously), it was originally for fans of this sensation without name of finding something to “satisfy” this quest for epiphany.

It was while meditating on this desire for ecstasy that haunts humanity that I began searching for the most “satisfying” video in the world. Why take a detour to reach nirvana? Let’s click straight on the first link that appears. “Feast your eyes on…the most satisfying video in the world”, does not hesitate to flaunt the title of the work proposed by Digg, an American media aggregator of viral Internet content. At the table, therefore, for a feast of images.

Spirals of molten glass, can compressing machine, miniature electric train loop, efficiency of a high pressure cleaner… But who or what are we trying to satisfy exactly? Before we even notice, there are robots on assembly lines, military camouflage prints on a helmet. The automated uprooting of a field of carrots responds to the hypnotic movement of a marshmallow stretcher… It is the cold, precise perfection of mechanics that we celebrate here. Sorry, but there is deception in the merchandise, even though it is particularly sweet.

It was only through respect for professional ethics that I was able to go beyond the stage of a machine that separates the yolk from the egg white. Yuck.

Taoist approach

In truth, we will not know how many views have resulted in authentic satisfaction among the 19 million that have occurred since these 4 min 59 s of show were put online on February 12, 2016. Comments having been suspended, no one can now scream at the false promise. The dominant industrial aesthetic nevertheless indicates a desire to automate the production of the desired effect. However, if our brain is a predictive tool that enjoys anticipating visual and sound effects, as recalled by the doctor in neuroscience Albert Moukheiber in a recent episode of the show “Le Dessous des images”, on Artewould we not also be the toys of these epiphanies which could literally seize us?

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