I recently got to interview YouTuber ASMR Shanny who makes nothing great ASMR content on her channel named ASMR Shanny Which currently has 217k subscribers, 13k on TikTok, and 15.4k followers on Twitch for people who don’t know what ASMR stands for is autonomous sensory meridian response meaning a term to describe a tingling, static-like, or goosebumps sensation in a reaction to specific triggering audio or visual stimuli. 

Introduction 

           “My name is Shannon but I prefer to go by Shanny ASMR Shanny. I know a really creative name lol. I live in Michigan and I have my whole life. I am a licensed cosmetologist/make-up artist I went back to college after that for a Communications/Radio Broadcasting while in school I got a job as an I.T. Since I was constantly busy I didn’t really have time for things/hobbies and I was becoming depressed so I decided to make a YouTube channel. I had wanted to make one since I was in high school but since I had a rough schooling I was afraid people would find it so I never did. Fast forward, I decided to make one so I would have something to do for fun and here we are 5 years later. My favorite color is pink, I love Halloween and Christmas, I love playing videos, and I can’t think of much else haha.”

Question 1: What made you want to be an ASMR Artist on YouTube? And how much do you think ASMR has impacted people? 

              “ I would watch ASMR  and it would help with my anxiety and depression. I liked the idea of using what I learned in school for audio tech and the idea of helping people. Role-playing was always my favorite and seemed the most fun as time went on. I started cosplaying more because I’ve always liked that and adding it into my videos using my makeup skills it’s been a fun well-rounded experience.“

Question 2: How has ASMR impacted your life? And what has it taught you along the way?

                  “ ASMR has impacted my life in many ways. I get to be a stay-at-home mom now and be here for my kids 24/7. I get to create my own hours and I get to do something I love that is rewarding. I love knowing I am helping people all over the world. It has taught me better time management and I think overall made me a better, more mature, and sensitive person. I think in today’s society we all have a problem with dehumanizing people we are all chronically online and in a bad way it is easy to not think about others.  I feel nowadays we have a problem with main character syndrome, but we are alive we are all someone’s child, and we all have feelings, family, trauma, friends, experiences, interests, hobbies, etc. I feel like getting to interact with so many different people and hear how my content is impacting them or helping them has really helped ground me in that.”

Question 3: How has ASMR helped you with your ADHD? How do you overcome that when you’re working on videos? 

                    “ ASMR has helped me a lot to calm down and focus. I can get very unorganized and all over the place/scattered-brained but when I watch ASMR I can settle down for a bit and focus. It helps calm my anxiety as well. It’s hard-working from home on a channel while being a mom when I have ADHD and I am not medicated (by my choice). I find that even though I hate schedules and like to not have plans it really helps me to stay on track when I do have schedules and I force myself to follow them. It helps me stay organized and in the long run, it helps my anxiety and ADHD to have things done in a timely manner but it’s a lot of willpower and my husband pushing me to stay on schedule lol we have a Google calendar and I plan out my months day by day and try and stick to it. I’m also religious so praying/ listening to Christian music as well as ASMR and such helps calm down my anxiety and refocus me when I am having bad moments 🙂

Question 4: How hard is it to become the characters you’re playing in your videos? How long does each makeup session for a character take to do?

                         “ It varies but strangely enough I don’t find it that hard- not to toot my own horn or anything haha promise there are so many things I’m not good at haha but for some reason taking on a different character has never been that hard for me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m hypersensitive or what but I feel like I’m pretty good at reading emotions and jumping into them and out of them easily. That being said, if it’s a character with an accent I have a heck of a hard time. For those, I’ll listen to people with the accent talk for a while and practice it for a few hours or so before starting. I also do all my videos improv. Anytime I do a script I find it hard to connect or feel a character and it ends up sounding stale and looking fake on my end. I feel when I improv it can become the character and it seems more genuine in my opinion. For the makeup, it can vary as well. On average for a normal-looking character it takes about an hour but for full body paints like the avatar video or anything like that I have spent 7-8 hours or more trying to get it perfect.” 

Question 5: How much did your family support you doing ASMR? And how happy do you get that you get to do them?

                          “ My family thankfully is very supportive of my ASMR they sometimes tease me because they don’t necessarily understand it but they think it is really cool and a lot of them will watch them be supportive I get really happy doing ASMR because it feels like I am doing something helpful and the process is a lot of fun to see the end results.”

Question 6: What advice would you give someone who wants to do ASMR on YouTube? And how should they do it? 

                            “ My advice for someone would be to just start. A lot of people including myself prolong starting a channel for a multitude of reasons. Afraid of being bullied, mean comments, not thinking they are good enough, worrying they don’t have the right equipment, etc. but the truth is there are always going to be mean people and comments and there are always going to be nice people and comments doesn’t matter if you are a big channel, small channel, have nicer more expensive equipment, etc. Don’t let anything stop you from starting. I have friends with millions of subs who only use their smartphones and a Blue Yeti! If you want to create a channel just do it :). “