“I’ve always had ASMR,” says Melinda Lauw, a visual artist and co-creator of Whisperlodge, a new live ASMR experience that has just landed in Singapore. “Even when I was very little and didn’t know the name of it or how to express it.”
A haircut, watching television, a teacher talking. These are some of the sounds and sensations that would trigger Melinda’s ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response. It describes the pleasant tingles – or as some call it, ‘braingasm’ – that some people get when exposed to specific stimuli, like hair brushing or whispers in the ear.
There’s no saying how many people around the world experience ASMR, but for the past 10 years, its internet presence has only been growing. Globally, YouTube channels like Gentle Whispering command millions of followers (and ad dollars) by making sounds on camera. And in 2019, the phenomenon was dragged into the mainstream by a Michelob Ultra Pure Gold beer ad at the Super Bowl.
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Trading skills
Melinda herself, a Singaporean who went to the UK and New York to pursue visual arts, learned about the term ‘ASMR’ at the age of about 13 when she received her first phone – and gained access to the internet for the first time. She’s been hooked ever since, even making ‘ASMR as art’ the subject of her final dissertation.
It was in New York that she met her Whisperlodge co-creator Andrew Hoepfner. He’s known for the immersive theatre experience, Houseworld, where 30 people enter a mysterious mansion, one by one. It’s a surreal, dreamlike journey where they get to meet and interact with the house’s strange inhabitants.
I've always had ASMR. Even when I was very little and didn't know the name of it or how to express it.
As Melinda tells it, Andrew’s Houseworld “accidentally triggered a lot of people’s ASMR” in one of its rooms. Andrew had no idea what ASMR was – he was baffled, but intrigued. So, his meeting with Melinda was fortuitous. “I wanted to learn how to make immersive performances. He wanted to learn what ASMR was. We decided to trade skills.”
Whisperlodge ran its very first show in 2016 in a good friend’s apartment in NYC. Like all good artists and entrepreneurs, Melinda and Andrew ran an iterative process – gathering feedback from friends after each session and using that to tweak each subsequent version of Whisperlodge. It was only two years later that they arrived at the Whisperlodge of today.
Too close for comfort?
The Whisperlodge experience in Singapore takes place in the unlikely industrial setting of Kapo Building, where Melinda’s collaborator, SainouSpace, resides.
The experience begins with a blindfold. Then, you are led into a cool, dark room and offered a cup of mysterious tea. Your senses are immediately on high alert, but Whisperlodge is designed to introduce you gently – with a strange and hypnotising performance that, thankfully, starts off at a distance. Soon though, you are led behind heavy drapes and into intimate rooms for one-on-one sessions with Whisperlodge’s guides. Expect to be touched, brushed, perfumed, and whispered to (with consent, of course).
Our guides appreciate the sense of slowing down and holding space for someone to slow down.
Do people get uncomfortable? “Yes, all the time, actually,” says Melinda, without missing a beat. “People are always more tense in the first room and we can sense it because we are so close to you during the show. By the third room, they are loose and open to the experience.”
And you’re in good hands. Melinda explains the criteria for Whisperlodge’s local guides, most of whom have theatre or performance arts backgrounds. “I would say that most of our guides have, number one, body awareness. And number two, they appreciate the sense of slowing down and holding space for someone to slow down.”
A shower of personal attention
And that’s what Whisperlodge is all about, actually. “We quickly realised that a lot of our audiences don’t care about ASMR or did not have ASMR,” says Melinda. “They just enjoyed getting personal attention, being cared for, and feeling relaxed.”
“That’s why we decided to change the focus away from feeling the tingles, to just giving the sense of feeling seen and cared for,” she adds.
And that was certainly my experience. Beyond the initial awkwardness and scepticism, Whisperlodge draws you in by making you feel like the only thing that matters. The guides bring your attention to minute details: feel the brush on your skin, smell the oil on your wrists, pay attention to how the crayon drags on paper. They treat you like a close friend and confidante too, leaning close to murmur personal stories. For someone who avoids eye and physical contact, I found I didn't mind it so much by the end of the session. I was certainly weirded out, but relaxed and more open to anything.
We decided to change the focus away from feeling the tingles, to just giving the sense of feeling seen and cared for.
“I think of it as atas (high-class) customer service. Because it’s all about the audience,” Melinda says with a laugh.
In Singapore, Dong ASMR has 567K subscribers on YouTube and counting – which hints at some popularity locally. But, God knows that Singaporeans can be a difficult bunch to convince. Why pay for people to whisper to you and touch you with brushes? It’s not a scenario that anyone’s been clamouring for, but based on our own experience of Whisperlodge, we think it’s best to give in to the process. Who knows – you might find yourself with a new ASMR obsession.
Whisperlodge is running intimate sessions of four participants per slot on September 17 and 24 and October 1 and 9. There are four sessions each day at 2.30pm, 4.30pm, 7.30pm and 9.30pm. General tickets cost $158 per pax, and are now available at SainouSpace's website.
