I was watching in amazement this week as a colleague edited together a video for use on Instagram using only his phone. I was recognising why the age of the blog has truly sailed. Although it was obvious that the video editing took skill, and it took time, the output was so easy to consume. I could recognise, instantly, why thousands of followers migrate towards channels which produce video content.
It is quite easy to understand why people who, at one time,
would have read a manual or would have looked at a diagram, are now watching a YouTube video to try and get the same information. However, I cannot see myself producing YouTube material reviewing material which is also on YouTube.
Luddite I maybe, but I am not yet ready to give up on the idea that there is value in writing things down. Even if by so doing I am missing out on the more skilful operation of my mobile phone.
I hope, if you are reading this, you agree.
I have not changed the format of these posts for a while now (perhaps it is overdue for a change). This week, again, I recommend something from Calm for no better reason than I have a subscription to Calm and I listen with reasonable frequency.
(You should be aware that relatively limited free material exists on Calm and the following isn’t part of that).
https://www.calm.com/app/player/ns0e03Lo4U
Daily Calm
Recreating the Past
NARRATOR
Tamara Levitt
AUTHOR
Tamara Levitt
The tendency to want to re-live perfect memories, attempts to recreate the experience never quite measure up. Comparison of the new experience with the previous one tends to make it less enjoyable. Resisting the urge to compare can improve the involvement in the present by leaving the past behind.
For some time, I have been on the lookout for material outside of YouTube because I would rather like the ability to leave adverts far behind. In practice I have found the results a bit variable. In some ways paying up for a service to get an advert-free experience may be the better approach. But, assuming for whatever reason you do not wish to do that, I remembered that during lockdown I came across a track by Rhonda Magee who I recall had a good voice. However, of course, I could not remember where I had come across Rhonda.
It turns out that Rhonda has a website and that there is a part of the site dedicated to meditations. But sadly, this just redirects to YouTube: https://rhondavmagee.com/meditations/
However, I did find a podcast page with a recording which is quite open to a listen for free:
https://dharmapodcast.libsyn.com/dp-1953_rhonda-magee_metta-in-a-time-of-warmp3
There is a small amount of hiss on the track but I think there is enough material here to get an idea of the quality of the voice.
Recently when I have been reviewing professional YouTube ASMR artists, I have been going back into the past to re-listen to some tracks that I used to listen to years ago. At the time I was not sticking to a medical theme. The idea of reviewing ASMR videos had not even occurred, so the odd one has cropped up which is not even distantly medical. Today’s is like that:
ASMR Back Tracing w/ Scratch, Brushing, Buds & Oil Massage
So not even remotely medical then. Normal service will resume fairly soon.
It is from the channel WhispersRed ASMR. This has 1.12m subscribers, nine hundred and one videos, twenty nine playlists of which none at all seem to be on a medical theme. This could be the reason that WhispersRed has not appeared previously on this blog.
The video has notes (of course it does) and as usual (for a professional ASMR artist) these are extensive:
“10,592,056 views 3 Jun 2018 #whispersred #asmr
An ASMR Back treatment with nail tracing, a back scratch, brushing and oil massage.
Uploaded with love, Emma
Other back pampering videos –
• Childhood ASMR Triggers – #1 Back Tracing …
• ASMR Back Pampering | Brushing, Oil, Massa…
—————————————————————————————————————- 📚My ASMR Book – Unwind Your Mind: The Life-changing power of ASMR https://campsite.bio/whispersredasmr Published by Ebury/PenguinRandomHouse in the UK and Harper One in the US and Canada.
🎧 ASMR albums are available to download or stream on all services worldwide Search – WhispersRed ASMR 🎧
Spotify – https://spoti.fi/2EugqJo
Google Play – https://bit.ly/2JwXP34
Itunes – https://apple.co/2qhg6Zb
Amazon Music – https://amzn.to/2Ev7R0E
——————————————————————————————————————————————
💎Crystals & ASMR Gifts – https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WhispersRed
🌟 Merch – https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/wh…
🌺Other items from this channel – https://bit.ly/2ICABXR
🎤Live ASMR events – https://whispersredasmr.com/events/
——————————————————————————————————————————————
🌟Please LIKE if you do and SUBSCRIBE if you’d like to! This makes sure that new videos show up in your feed. Click the bell if you would like notifications for new uploads🌟
💜My other Channels💜
❥ Vlog Channel – / mypurplelife
❥ Channel intended specifically for younger audience at adult carer discretion – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgL7…
🌟Connect🌟
Website – https://whispersredasmr.com
Facebook – / whispersredasmr
Twitter – @WhispersRedASMR
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Email – emma@whispersredasmr.com
————————————————————————————————————————————–
🌹Contribute translations! – http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_p…
❥ To reach the UK & Ireland ASMR Community!
Facebook Group – ASMR UK & Ireland – / asmruk
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Disclaimer – This video is not intended to replace any medical care, therapy or counselling that might be needed. The benefits of ASMR in terms of a therapy is so far anecdotal and in the early stages of published research. This video is intended for a mature audience for the purposes of mindfulness, relaxation and entertainment.
Product links – These are usually affiliate links. Anything you purchase through them will help in the running of my YouTube channels. However, I only link items I bought myself and/or use regularly.
#asmr #whispersred”
So, we have now discovered that WhispersRed is called Emma. Later on (whilst watching the video) we find that her subject is called Stephanie. Comments are permitted, and there are literally thousands of these. One that stands out for me is one that asks for YouTube to ensure that ASMR videos are not accompanied by loud adverts. A drum which I have been banging for a considerable time now.
The video is in excess of forty three minutes which is long for one we have reviewed of late.
It starts in full-on whisper mode accompanied by that strange mouth clicking sound that ASMR artists love so much. It is not off-putting though. At intervals it does get a little breathy for me.
There are of course noises not associated with the voice – nail clicking (these seem to go on a bit), hand rubbing, liquid noises, the sound of skin being brushed, squelching noises (I am not a great fan of these in ASMR videos, but I read comments that indicate some ASMR fans come to YouTube for just such content). This comes back to my theory that artists are hammering in every ASMR “trigger” that they have managed to think of in the hope of gathering more fans. I still feel that a video focusing on the gentle voice tone only would be more appealing but 1.12m subscribers seems to indicate that I am in a group of one…
The voice (as we might expect) is properly relaxing and I can hear why it was that I used to listen to this all those years ago. The pace is lovely, even slow in places; the volume is spot on. It is quite old-school now, in that there are not artificial breaks in the video to permit an (objectionably loud) advert to butt-in part way through. For me this makes the experience far more calming.
Around the half hour mark I did feel that I was ready to listen to something else, but then I was reviewing the video rather than trying to fall asleep to it. I’m sure if you’re reviewing it as a sleep aid you will find it is absolutely ideal.
Following the theme of recent blog posts, I will now turn to inadvertent ASMR (which has been the theme of this blog for some while now).
It probably should not be unexpected, but to me is still surprising, when people post medical videos some of the comments are from people who are really looking for a medical diagnosis. Perhaps this points to an area that people could home in on. A whole audience of people whose needs are not being satisfied and I doubt that they can be satisfied by those persons who are posting videos.
As you can probably tell from the above, we are back in the professional medical video category i.e. videos created with a purpose which is unrelated to ASMR. Historically some of these are quite good for ASMR purposes, some are barely adequate, and some are just awful.
But that is the reason this blog exists, to try and identify the odd diamond in all that refuse. Regular readers will have seen videos reviewed, videos trialled in the main Procrastination Pen playlist and videos retired into the Procrastination Pen archive list.
At the same time the video content is itself dynamic. We have seen videos, lauded by ASMR fans, removed on copyright grounds. Channels, apparently with thousands of fans, which disappear and some videos so popular that they disappear (often with their respective channel) only to appear again on another channel sometime later.
This blog will attempt to navigate these changes by maintaining a list of videos that can be played prior to sleep with the intention of allowing you to relax and minimising, as much as is feasible, jarring noises that might disturb that restful state.
Today’s video is listed in the order found, however, it is obvious from the title that it is the third in the series:
Neurology – Topic 3 – Sensory aspects of gait including Romberg’s test
This is a short video at less than four minutes. We seem to have arrived at the point in this review process where short videos have become the norm but I never know what I will find next, so you may find an hour-long video in the next review.
In common with the majority of professional videos we have seen recently this one has some notes: “20 Dec 2012
Sensory aspects of gait including Romberg’s test”
Not the most comprehensive notes but notes, nonetheless.
The comments, as usual, are a bit variable; I have previously concluded that permitting comments with a video is a brave move indeed.
The video is from University College Dublin and, as we expect, they have a YouTube channel eight hundred and twenty eight videos as at the time of review which is rather too many to examine in one sitting. Habitually such channels are university promotional vehicles which is exactly what we would expect.
The presenter is flagged at the start as Professor Niall Tubridy, Consultant Neurologist
Sadly, the video has startup music. Startup music is the bane of any ASMR video research. In this case it is not as offensive as some. I have, in the past, weeded out videos purely on startup music. I am hoping that in the future YouTube will introduce a function which allows me to add parts of videos to the playlist; in which case a great many will be subjected to top and tail behaviour. i.e., removing any funky music inclusions from these videos.
Professor Niall has a great voice; there is minimal background noise, not your classic ASMR but it should be calm enough to be relaxing (funky startup music allowing). Sadly, there are periods where it gets louder as if Professor Niall is presenting to a lecture theatre. It is quite fascinating, which is not the reason we are here, but causes me to stick with it.
Thankfully there is no tail end music to this particular video. Good enough for the Procrastination Pen playlist I think, although I aways reserve the right to weed it out if after a few reviews it doesn’t stand the test of time. There’s a couple in there right now that I am mulling over with a view to foisting them out.
The channel is UCD Medicine which has one hundred and sixty-three videos. That is a few I’m sure you will agree. Small wonder then that the channel has 52.7K subscribers.
There are five playlists and none of those seem to be connected with Professor Niall or with Neurology.
However, scanning the list of videos there are at least thirty-one videos on this subject and probably a great many more than that. I’m not sure I would feature thirty-one videos at one time in a single blog post even if they were all to feature Hollie Berry. On that basis therefore I’ll select the first five (including number three, which we just reviewed) and the later videos can form the basis of subsequent blog posts.
Neurology – Topic 1 – Brief neuro anatomical background
We are now into classic cranial nerve examination – which has been the subject of several blog posts previously
This is less than three minutes and yet again with the startup music – grr.
This time Professor Niall seems a bit on the loud side. I have the sense that this video captures a presentation to a class.
The location does not seem to assist in this respect I suspect a large room with a slight echo via the microphone. I always wonder why lapel mics are not more frequently in use. But I imagine additional microphones=additional cost.
Neurology – Topic 2 – Brief neuro anatomical background with notes
This is really a re-run of the above with some notes as well – no doubt great for students but it makes no odds for us, I think.
Neurology – Topic 4 – Cerebellar Syndrome Examination
A much more substantial video in that it is nearly nine minutes but still short in terms of some of the videos reviewed previously.
I think we can now take it that all of these will share the irritating startup music. Here again we encounter Professor Niall at his best in terms of his voice. We discover that the patient is “Peter”.
Unfortunately, Professor Niall gets louder. It’s a shame because at the start the video is lovely and quiet. If only I felt empowered to take the video and edit it down but I have no doubt a number of solicitors would be delighted if I tried that and the Procrastination Pen would be added to the channels on YouTube that disappear without trace.
However, there are long periods where Professor Niall settles into what must be his default which is a lovely voice to listen to. Perhaps in the future I will look for other material by Professor Niall as there might be the odd one which is properly quiet throughout.
Now, the assurance that we would cover up to video five was made without understanding how the videos progress on this channel, whilst videos one to four were individual videos there is now video 5a to 5j with some of the videos appearing both with and without notes.
I feel it is fair therefore to split the approach to video 5 I think your attention muscles probably will have had enough if I push too far so I think as far as 5c in this blog item and then pick up a future blog item at 5d.
Neurology – Topic 05a Cranial Nerve 1
Here Professor Niall is obviously presenting to a class, it is loud. Again, there are moments where the voice is excellent. Each one of these videos is tantalising in that it is not quite excellent for ASMR but has the potential to be so.
Neurology – Topic 5a Cranial Nerve 1 with notes
A duplicate of the above video – with notes included.
Neurology – Topic 5b – Cranial Nerve 2
A truly substantial video in excess of eighteen minutes. It starts loud and continues loud. Fair doos, the guy at the back of the class needs to hear what you are saying but it makes it less than gorgeous from an ASMR perspective.
Here the patient, in fact has a better intonation for the purposes of ASMR (well he is quieter). I think his name might be Donnacha (with apologies to Irish readers if I messed that name up).
It is even possible that Donnacha may have a channel all of his own but that is for a future blog item if so.
Neurology – Topic 05b – Cranial Nerve 2 with notes
As before a duplicate video to allow for the addition of notes.
Neurology – Topic 5c – Cranial Nerve 3,4,6
A little over seven minutes in length but sadly no quieter. Shame about that classroom setting. I suppose we can take succour from the fact that there are no infernal air conditioning noises.
Neurology – Topic 5c – Cranial Nerve 3,4,6 with notes
With notes
And that’s it this time, I think I’ll come back and give it another try Professor Niall probably has a few gems to offer.
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
Until next time.
Photo by DeepAI
The Procrastination Pen 