Self-Made Senses
Meet Dong ASMR, a rising YouTube ASMRtist, who empowers you to feel relaxed within the facilities of his own home.
Written by Shanice Ow | Photos courtesy of Tang Dong Li
Do you often find yourself having trouble sleeping? If you do, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) could be one of your solutions to making falling asleep easier. ASMR is a tingling sensation that can be felt in the scalp or the back of your neck when stimulated by certain “triggers”. Varying from person to person, one can experience ASMR across different types of triggers, such as the use of visuals, role-play and eating food.
Tang Dong Li, 23, also known as Dong ASMR, is a rising YouTuber specialising in ASMR. As an ASMRtist in Singapore, he lulls his viewers to sleep by portraying ASMR in his own crazy and spontaneous ways. He had first come across ASMR during his internship in 2019, when he was facing difficulties falling asleep.
“I chanced upon ASMR glow (an ASMRtist on YouTube) and everything started from there. I started to listen to ASMR to sleep, and I started to think of ways to do ASMR in a different light,” Dong’s face lit up as he recalled the start of his venture into the ASMR industry.
When Dong first started out on his YouTube channel, his mother was very supportive, whereas his father was not really fond of the idea as he has to stay up during the wee hours. “My parents and I have to stay up late at night from about 2am to actually record a decent ASMR video,” shared Dong about the odd timing.
His father was also concerned about Dong’s income stability as he wouldn’t earn as much, considering he was just starting out and it didn’t seem like a stable career. Even so, as Dong’s channel started garnering attention and growing financially, his father was less opposed to the idea and started supporting him more.
His creative ideas stem from inspirations by the sitcom Rick and Morty, as he described how the series incorporates “crazy” and “weirdish” things that manages to work out perfectly. A prime example would be the video featured on his homepage, “ASMR but I am Spiderman”, which has garnered over 450k views, something that he and his manager, Wong Li-Ann, had innovated on the spot.
When asked about how ASMR can empower its viewers, Dong replied, “ASMR actually helps a lot of people with their anxiety, fears or things that help people to fall asleep, and make people much more relaxed.” He explained that for some people who are unable to experience a certain type of stimuli through ASMR, they would have to go through different kinds of triggers, as some people may prefer water sounds, mouth sounds, white noise, etc. “Those (ASMR triggers) actually empower the people who watch ASMR a little bit by making them feel much more at ease,” Dong stated.
Furthermore, the ASMR community has been growing significantly and it seems like it will continue to do so. Dong revealed that he has been receiving a lot of new creators’ messages wanting him to host a small video to boost them up. He mentioned that since ASMR videos are easily accessible within one’s home, the ASMR community could expand everywhere and at any time.
With self-taught editing skills, Dong hopes to hone his skills by gaining more experience and meeting new creators in Singapore by venturing out to different media outlets in the future. He also plans to expand into a variety of content, namely vlogging.