Essay #3: ASMR and Aristotle: Soap-cutting, Catharsis, and the Tragedy/Trauma of Living
ASMR and Aristotle:
Soap-Cutting, Catharsis, and the Tragedy/Trauma of Living
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Objectcentric ASMR, relies on “a beautiful, orderly, contained kind of chaos” (Aggeler). The focus isn’t the human actor. In these videos, there is no talking. Just the sounds of destroyed stuff.
Glass bottles full of colored liquid are dropped down a staircase until they shatter. Industrial-grade hydraulic presses smash plastic toys. Shiny cars back up over water balloons, latex popping beneath the tires.
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At most, the actor might show their hands on camera: acrylic
nails tapping on a chunky keyboard. Otherwise, they are invisible. No skits.
Just crap.
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I confess: soap-cutting videos are my favorite. In this subgenre,
mass-produced bars of old soap are held up to the camera, a pattern carved into
them (usually by a knife). The ASMRtist/actor then drags a boxcutter down the bar
of soap, peeling away hundreds of soap-cubes. The sound is crunchy – a little
static-y.
Soap-cutting videos are controlled chaos. Watching someone
else ruin something reminds us that we have power over objects. They don’t have
power over us. It doesn’t matter that the soap is not fulfilling its “purpose” (to
clean dirty surfaces, to rid the body/hands of germs). If it’s satisfying us
(through its destruction), it has played its “role” in our human* drama.
After all, through the Western, Eurocentric/anthropocentric gaze, the ultimate purpose of all objects is to serve the human. Remember the Eden myth? It’s the colonizer’s blueprint, the original “ordering” of things. “Man” is given full authority over all living and non-living beings, free to use them as he wishes, free to name/categorize them as he likes. “Stuff” and “surroundings” serve Adam – he eats what he wants, roams wherever he pleases, tells the creatures what to do and where to go (Merchant). Adam’s role is to, yes, serve God – but it is also to use what God has given him: Eden. Eden (perfect stuff, perfect space) serves man, who serves God.
So…the soap in these videos is not living its intended
purpose (to clean). But because it’s pleasing us all the same (satisfying us in
its destruction).
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In my research for this essay – which largely consisted of watching
soap-cutting compilations on YouTube and Instagram – I was also reminded of Aristotle’s
Poetics. In particular, I was reminded of catharsis.
Soap-cutting videos are satisfying because they incite “pity
and fear” (Aristotle) in a viewer. They allow us to witness the beautiful destruction of an
aesthetically pleasing thing, purging our anxieties about
bigger, uglier demises (late-stage capitalism, the climate crisis) and offering a temporarily
regained sense of control.
After all, why bother watching the 5-o’clock news when we can give ourselves
a “brain break” by watching manicured hands slice into bars of Dove? Why watch
documentaries on the horrors of our current climate crisis when we can watch someone
squish Styrofoam? Why look at photographs of destroyed cities when we can watch
someone throw a Bud Light bottle off of a roof and break open to reveal glittery
water?
With soap-cutting videos, and objectcentric ASMR that relies
on the destruction of “stuff”, we regain our place in the “hierarchy”.
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We can pause the video at the beginning and let the bar of
soap stay whole, untouched, Edenic.
We can rewatch the video again and again: destroying the
soap, piecing it back together again.
Through spectacle, we cope with the tragedy and trauma of living
in an ever-changing world, placing our anxieties about the “uncontrollable”
onto a shrinking bar of soap. When the soap is gone, we theoretically feel
better. For a moment, we have escaped. But beyond the screen, reality is
waiting. The world is waiting. The tragedies and traumas are still there.
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For Claire: My word count is 600.
Citations and Sources:
Scholarly Stuff:
Aggeler, Madison. "Why Can't I Stop Watching These Soap-Cutting Videos?". The Cut. September 26th, 2018. Why Can’t I Stop Watching These Soap-Cutting Videos?
Aristotle, translated by S.H. Butcher. Poetics. e-book released November 3rd, 2008. The Poetics of Aristotle, by Aristotle
Merchant, Carolyn. "Reinventing Eden: Western Culture as a Recovery Narrative." from Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon. W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
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