ASMR videos started as a fringe section of YouTube, but the industry has grown exponentially in the last decade — rough estimates say there are at least 25 million ASMR videos on YouTube alone, coming from at least half a million channels dedicated to the craft. In the last five years or so, ASMR videos and their creators have increasingly entered public consciousness, despite common misconceptions about what ASMR really is.
For some creators and viewers, ASMR just means whispering — but ASMR videos can be anything designed to elicit autonomous sensory meridian response, a tingling feeling in the brain that some people have in reaction to specific visual or audio triggers. ASMR fans (myself included) say that response helps them relax, stave off panic attacks, and most notably, fall asleep. A note on vernacular: The ASMR community uses the acronym in a lot of ways, including as a noun that refers to any content that elicits ASMR. For instance, I might tell my husband, “No, I can’t watch TV with you tonight; I’m falling asleep to ASMR.”
Gibi ASMR, aka Gina (who does not share her full name online), found early success with her ASMR YouTube channel, which she launched in June 2016. Known for her funny role-play, her costumes and cosplays, and her fast-paced videos, 29-year-old Gibi (pronounced “jee-bee”) has amassed a huge community over the last eight years. Her videos often turn up on YouTube’s homepage, or you might see her pop up as a guest in other YouTubers’ videos. Now, as her channel exceeds 5 million subscribers, she’s releasing her magnum opus: The entire movie Shrek, but in ASMR.
The full-length, live-action fan film premieres on YouTube on Wednesday. Gibi said that ideally, fans can set up Shrek and Shrek ASMR side by side and they’ll be perfectly in sync, shot for shot. For instance, where DreamWorks animated Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Shrek (Mike Myers) walking through a sunflower field together, Gibi and her team filmed B-roll with paper cutouts in a diorama-like setup.
This isn’t the first time Gibi has made an entire movie in ASMR. Her initial feature-length film, which premiered on YouTube three years ago, should give you an inkling of her and her fandom’s taste — it’s Bee Movie. She started that project after hundreds of days of one of her subscribers asking for it in the comments, then she figured out what she was doing during the process of making the film. Gibi told Polygon that Shrek was a natural next full-length for her and her subscribers. But for this production — which Gibi said she lovingly considers to have “school play vibes” — she had a much better idea of how to make the project work.
She told us that she and her team — editors, assistants, and her husband/manager, Ben — spent months scripting out the ASMR version of the film, creating shot lists, and determining which roles Gibi herself would play. Then, she cast her fellow ASMRtists (a common term for ASMR creators) in the important roles. She and her team spent the summer filming, with her as Shrek, of course, and a few in-person shoots with other important roles, like Batala from Batala’s ASMR as Donkey.
She’s kept her fans up to date throughout this process, including a video of her practicing her Shrek makeup and Instagram posts about the editing progress. She’s also opened up to her fans about her pregnancy along the way. She’s spent the last several months racing to finish editing the film before her first child is born: “NO, PLEASE STAY IN THERE LITTLE BUDDY, WE’RE NOT DONE WITH SHREK YET… KEEP COOKING…” she wrote in the description of her Oct. 2 upload, “ASMR What’s in my Hospital Bag?”
Polygon sat down with Gibi — who also co-owns ASMR-focused talent group Mana with her husband — for a video interview in August. We talked about ASMR’s recent growth in popularity, the monoculture around Shrek, her success as a YouTuber, and of course, Shrek ASMR.
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
Polygon: What’s it been like to watch ASMR become a familiar, common word after spending so much time having to explain it every time you talk to somebody about it?
Gibi: It’s been really refreshing to finally have ASMR be a household term. […] I remember that vividly as a high schooler, figuring out that ASMR was a thing. And then even when I started my own channel, which was maybe six years after I even discovered what [ASMR] was, I had to explain what it was to so many people. I mean, my parents, my parents’ friends, my friends, my boyfriend at the time, who’s now my husband — and it’s his full-time job, working with creators and ASMR people.
I frequently find that when I talk to people about ASMR, they think it’s a sexual thing. Have you found this? And can you speak to why there’s that misconception?
When I first started doing interviews talking about what ASMR was, that was 100% the second question I would get: “Is it a sex thing?” Because people just aren’t used to a lot of vulnerability and feelings and being comforted and having closeness with somebody without it being sexual. […] And the ASMR industry, I guess, does tend to be dominated by women, which, again, is not common in anything in the world. And I think, again, we kind of get targeted as, Oh, well, if it’s a bunch of women, it must be a sex thing. “All we’re good for” kind of thing, which is really unfortunate.
I can definitely describe it as a virtual massage. If someone had never heard of what a massage was in their life and you said, “Well, you get into a dark room with a stranger, you take off your clothes, and then they rub your body. It feels really good. It’s not sexual, though,” you’d be like, “No, I don’t believe you.”
That’s such a good point.
A couple of actual studies have been done that show that people who experience ASMR have physiological responses to it, including a lowering of heart rate and things like that, that are quite literally the direct opposite of sexual arousal. So it’s nice to have science back that up.
Right. You’re trying to fall asleep, not the opposite. So on to Shrek. Let’s talk about the origin of the Shrek videos. I think maybe six years ago was the first time you posted a Shrek video. Tell me about the process of deciding to do that, specifically undertaking such a huge time investment in terms of the makeup.
It’s a very long story. Oh, let’s see — the highlights. I really love challenging projects and kind of following something that sounds fun to me. And I also really love interacting with my community. And there was one viewer years ago who started a comment thread, I guess, or trend. He said, “Day one of asking Gibi to do the entire Bee Movie.” […] I’m like, That’s actually really funny. And he kept it up for over a hundred days.
I think he just wanted me to do a Bee Movie role-play. But I was like, I’ll do the whole movie shot for shot. […] I don’t think anyone had ever, before that, recreated an entire movie in ASMR, but it’s fun to explore something that we all like, or are interested in, in our own medium. […] I made the Bee Movie, and because there were so many parts in the Bee Movie, I thought it would be a really good time to invite other people in the community to play cameos and play roles.
And it was so much fun. After it was done, it was a really big success, and people wanted more. And the natural progression was, obviously they wanted Shrek. If there’s anything else in this world that the internet loves more than the Bee Movie, it’s going to be Shrek, because I think the Bee Movie is like a meme. […] But Shrek is very unironically such a good movie. […] Everyone loves Shrek. I keep talking to people about what I’m working on like, “Do you know Shrek?” “Oh my god. I love Shrek.” Old people, people who aren’t American. […] It’s maybe a perfect movie.
The global unifier is Shrek. Everyone loves Shrek. I knew that this one would be much harder than the Bee Movie, because of the scope of the movie, and the makeup — and the fact that I was doing another one, I had to make it better. I had to go farther. So I knew this would be harder. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be, but we’re in too deep now.
I actually set it as a charity goal during one of my charity streams. I said, “Listen, if we hit this charity goal, I will do Shrek.” […] And I had already been working on it, because I was like, I think this might be inevitable. So many, many months were just the pre-production. […] And we’re in the filming stage now, and luckily, while I’m filming, my editor Dennis has been editing. […] It’s like we have a mini little production company putting this on.
It’s basically an indie film, what you’re producing.
It’s almost 80 other ASMR creators who have lent their time and talent doing cameos and other roles.
I’m excited to see who’s in there. As far as casting goes, did you cast based on what your participants wanted to play, or did you have specific ASMRtists in mind for specific roles?
What I found with the Bee Movie and what I implemented again in Shrek was, the best move is to let people cast themselves. So I would reach out to someone and say, “Take a look at all these characters. Tell me who you want, and I’m going to wait until you tell me before I send it on to the next person.” […] It took two weeks to cast, just because I was reaching out to everyone. I didn’t want people to have to compete for a role or anything like that.
And are you controlling what type of ASMR they’re incorporating in order to achieve that scene? Or are you kind of just saying, “Use your favorite triggers, do whatever you want”?
Our main goal is to be as close to the film as possible, because I want to be able to play the original Shrek along with our rendition of Shrek, and it matches up perfectly. We’re just doing it in whispering, and anytime we’re interacting with an object, it’s going to be quiet. So I filmed a tutorial for everybody, wrote out a bunch of instructions, et cetera, and then cut out everyone’s scenes, gave everyone’s scripts with their scenes and parts highlighted.
So I say, “Here’s your character’s folder. You’ve got your scripts in there, you’ve got your clips in there, you’ve got everything you need.” And costumes — if they needed to buy any costumes or props or anything, I covered that. Otherwise, they were free to do whatever they wanted, however they’re interpreting it, however they want to look. And I love seeing what people come up with for their costumes and their sets and stuff. It’s very funny.
So are these people getting paid?
It’s definitely a passion project. It’s fun for a lot of people, and again, I’m so thankful for their time and their effort. So I was like, “If you buy anything for this, I swear to God, you better let me reimburse you. Please don’t spend too much time or energy on it. It’s silly. It’s supposed to be silly. It’s not that serious.” But for somebody like […] Donkey, I reached out to [Batala’s ASMR] and said, “Hey, you can play whatever part you want, but I would love you for Donkey. […] This is going to be a paid role.”
Because it was five days of filming. Donkey has so many lines. He’s in the entire movie. I cannot in good conscience ask anyone to do this for free. […] Whereas the rest of the movie, hopefully everyone was able to do it in a day or a sitting. Some people went really all out.
I’m not trying to do the exposure thing, but also, you clearly have millions of subscribers.
No, it’s very valid. Doing collaborations with other channels is a great way to get your channel out there.
What was one of the hardest scenes to film?
I had to choreograph and shot-list the choreography for the Merry Men scene, with Robin Hood and all of his dancing Merry Men. So that was a whole scene that, for example, my assistant Morgan — I was like, “You just have to take scene 27.” […] So she filmed herself dancing every single part so that she could show each — Merry Man 1, Merry Man 2, Merry Man 3 — exactly what you’re doing. Because we have to cut this; everyone has to be in sync. We’re sending this out to eight different people who are filming in their own homes. But it has to look cohesive. So that was a ton of work.
And then Fiona’s fight scene, right after that, was crazy. I’m pregnant. I’m like, 20 weeks pregnant.
Oh my god, I forgot! Congratulations.
Yeah, thank you. I’m filming a fight scene as Fiona. I’m doing a spinning jump kick in my studio, pregnant, and I’m just like, What am I? It’s fine. And I looked great, so no regrets.
Is this the biggest project you’ve ever done?
This is definitely the biggest project I’ve ever done, and I’ve done quite a few large projects. I think the Bee Movie took me a good couple months. I remember it being a large ordeal and saying that I would never do it again.
Here we are. I really underestimated this one, but I feel so passionately about making it good and doing justice to a movie that people love so much.
What are your experiences with Shrek?
I loved Shrek as a kid. My family and I, we would watch movies a lot, and Shrek was one that was on repeat for sure. It was just different, and it was funny, and it was so quotable and so relatable. Somehow you’re relating to an ogre and a princess and a talking donkey, and it’s just good every time you watch it.
And as I got older and older, I’d go back and rewatch my old childhood favorites and stuff. Some stuff you just like because it’s nostalgic, but Shrek was one of those where you watch it as an adult and you’re like, This movie is genuinely so good and so funny. Again, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Shrek at this point. I know every single line by heart, but some of them still make me laugh out loud.
Is there a copyright issue with filming an entire movie shot for shot?
Not that we know of. It’s obviously very transformative. A lot of the copyright issue lies with the music, so obviously we’re not using any of the music. […] I would be scared for DreamWorks to see this production, but I hope they see it for what it is, which is a love letter to Shrek.
What was it like, realizing that Shrek 5 was going to be made during this project?
Everyone was like, “Gibi, you manifested Shrek 5.” And I’m like, “Sorry, you guys manifested it.” Because it’s not a coincidence we chose to do Shrek as our big movie project. It’s because it’s so beloved and because everyone — everyone — wants more Shrek. It hasn’t aged out. […] I’m so ready. I’m so pumped. I think it’s clear, the world’s attitude toward the Shrek franchise. I just kind of miss them. I just wonder what they’re up to. […] There’s a whole Shrek subreddit, you know.
And is the plan to keep going with your channel? You’re about to have a kid, and I assume your life is going to change a lot.
I always said, “If people are still watching, I’ll keep filming.”
I hope so. Maybe the-back-of-baby’s-head ASMR. […] It’s really cool, because my audience has been with me for the past eight years, and a lot of stuff has happened since then. Moved a couple of times, got engaged, got married, got a dog, had another dog. Big life changes and stuff. That’s one of my favorite things — being a viewer and a consumer of other people’s channels, being a part of that kind of community. The longevity of some people’s online presence is crazy. And it’s crazy to know that I’m one of those people.
Since Polygon is a video game website, I always like to ask people if you’re playing anything right now.
I’m playing Hades 2. It’s so good. I will champion the Hades franchise until I die. And I’m playing Baldur’s Gate 3 right now. […] Sometimes I dabble still in The Sims 4, but most of my time has been dedicated to Shrek.
