Within this micro-documentary is a transformative narrative of how my close friend Aden Starnes, also known as Aden Grace in the YouTube world, has built a community-based platform through her form of media known as ASMR. Aden conveys the meaning of ASMR as a healing process for herself and explains how she has taken on the role of helping others suffering from similar anxieties. As she notes within the video, the seemingly odd concept of ASMR— videos abundant with whispering, gentle hand movements and microphone tapping— entered her life at the perfect point. The overarching restorative theme throughout the video highlights the potential for ASMR to serve as an unconventional sort of therapy through its euphoria-inducing nature.

Aden completed her first year at the UNC-Chapel Hill amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The onslaught of loneliness, stress of school and her personal journey with anxiety has been greatly reduced by her community of ASMR artists and viewers. Her highly expansive outreach to viewers on almost every continent allows Aden to connect with and provide the same therapeutic content that she uses to assist with the daily stress of everyday life.

Take a look at the creative nuance behind Aden’s ASMR and her personal convictions with sleep deprivation, which are slowly healing with the use of ASMR to calm her mind.