I had this drafted from last year but the sentiment still stands. What the hell is up with those “satisfying” videos?

Even though it’s been a year since I’ve noticed them, there are still promoted posts on social media that bother the hell out of me. They go beyond what I think is considered ASMR and straight into something outright insane.

I saw a couple of videos on Instagram and some recommended posts (that I always hide) on Snapchat. It’s always some woman with pretty nails digging their fingers into a jar of slime — which, by the way, grosses me the hell out — and that’s pretty much it.

I suppose I’m missing the point of ASMR. When I first heard it, back in 2015, I thought it was some niche thing. I thought, who likes it when someone whispers into your ear? It feels weird as hell. But then it blew up some years ago. In 2019, maybe? It was definitely everywhere in 2019 and 2020. I had a hard time avoiding them. I could appreciate some videos like crunching soap and slicing diced soap, but I stopped because I realized how wasteful everything is.

After that, I noticed a lot of other things like a hydraulic press destroying items, or a super-heated knife cutting into things, or a car running things over. (Not to mention the slime thing. God, please, stop with the slime. Especially the slime with the weird tiny balls in them. Stop it.)

They usually follow a similar trend. Something is shown, then it gets either pressed, crushed, and cut and burnt. And people watch that for hours, don’t they? Otherwise, the people who make those videos won’t be incented to keep on making them. This has to be a really profitable career choice, or they’d stopped sooner rather than later.

Why are people wasting things for clout? I’ve noticed this trend a while back, just people getting things and then destroying them for attention on the Internet. Sure, maybe their AdSense money covers their purchase, but what about others that need it? Are you going to donate a bunch of crushed soap? What do you do with all that leftover soap once you cut and crush it?

Everything seems like a waste to me. I get that you need to do what you need to do for your next paycheck, but really? Do you really have to waste all of that perfectly good, uh, soap? I know this might be a bit nit-picky since it’s probably not that big of a deal, but some people are straight-up crushing food underneath their tires and it’s concerning.

Maybe I just don’t get the whole “satisfying” thing. Maybe I’m too anxious to feel satisfaction from them. Or, maybe, I’m old-fashioned and I like to listen to rain sounds and snow crunching rather than slime and whatever else is out there.

Overall, I did notice a decline in these types of videos. I hope it’s because people have grown out of it and they’re going to stop doing them now. God, I hope so. They’re kind of irritating. I know I talked about the wonders of minding your own business, but I can’t help but feel annoyed when those videos are recommended to me every other post. Really, seriously, to each their own on what floats their boat. What I really want is an option to get these things forever off my recommended or related posts. I don’t want to see them. Stop showing them to me. It freaks me the hell out.

I also recently found out that food-wasting was a thing this time last year. Or, at least, it was noted to be a thing then. I’m pretty sure it’s still a trend now, especially since I’ve been shown multiple videos of white women preparing food in… interesting ways. Maybe, like the above-mentioned slime ASMR, it’s a fetish. Maybe people get their rocks off just watching that stuff.

Ah, well, the Internet is weird as hell. I won’t be surprised if people do like that. I probably just don’t get it. My basic, small brain self is unable to even begin to understand why some people like it. I just hope that it stops showing up on my timeline altogether, either because the algorithm finally picks up that I don’t like to see it, or because this “satisfying” trend has come to a satisfying end.