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    Unwrapping

    It's quite a thing on YouTube, isn't it? And a lucrative cottage industry, by the looks of it. It's things like this that make me feel old.

    Anyway, I've got a some milk cartons to unpack. Would any of you cunts be interested in watching?

    #2
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    "Milk cartons", eh? Phwoar.

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      #3
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      More than lucrative. They estimate some of the unboxing stars are earning millions. I expect part of that is because the advertising coin for them is crazy - the main viewing age seems to be the under 10's.

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        #4
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        It's the banter I need to work on. 'Yeah, the carton is a perfect cuboid'. 'The finishing on the easy open thingy is first class'. That kind of stuff.

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          #5
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          Walter Benjamin would have had a field day with this phenomenon.

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            #6
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            What's the Venn diagram overlap between wrapping videos and ASMR videos? Are a lot of the unwrappers speaking in a very low, breathy voice?

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              #7
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              There is a very large union on said Venn.

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                #8
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                They estimate some of the unboxing stars are earning millions.
                The biggest ones have several million subscribers. That's, say, Jimmy Fallon numbers. And mostly highly impressionable, parent-pestering children.

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                  #9
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                  Until I had a teenage daughter, I barely knew 'Youtubers' existed. My education has been rapid. And a bit spendy.

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                    #10
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                    Walter Benjamin would have had a field day with this phenomenon.
                    Boredom is the youtube-bird-opening-a-kinder-egg experience.

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                      #11
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                      Here's one for your Venn diagram; two points of utter obscuria collide.

                      My sister was on a low-budget Canadian game show when she was 11 or 12. So, 1980/'81. It came and went, and maybe 50,000 people ever saw it.

                      Shane Dawson is my daughter's favourite Youtuber. He has 8 million subscribers and has written two bestselling books. He's a small industry unto himself.

                      Two weeks ago, my sister's gameshow appearance was featured prominently on a recurring bit he does called Creepy Game Show Hosts. As of t'other day, it had been viewed over 4 million times.

                      My daughter is thrilled to bits at her proximity to belated fame. My sister is a little less than tickled.

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                        #12
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                        What is this thread about. I don't understand.

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                          #13
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                          People upload videos of themselves unwrapping stuff they buy. Videos get millions of viewers. People get lots of money.

                          If I'm not mistaken toy companies and such actually pay people for unwrapping their products.

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                            #14
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                            I've only stumbled across this relatively recently, via the ASMR tangent referred to above, but yes it's one of those online phenomena that have had an exponential growth in the last year or two, François. I don't think I've ever had the desire to watch one of these videos for more than a few seconds, but they cover virtually every type of consumable from clothes and makeup to Marvel action figures to iPads.

                            "ASMR", in case you're extra puzzled there, refers to an odd phenomenon experienced by a minority (I assume) of people, wherein they get gently pleasurable sensations – a 'tingling' in the top or back of the head, or a kind of pleasantly soporific woolliness – from certain visual and auditory cues. No, bear with me here. It stands for 'autonomous sensory meridian response', i.e. it's an automatic, unconscious brain reaction: things that tend to trigger it are watching calm, repetitive movements, and/or the sound of soft/whispering speech and certain accents, together with 'mouth sounds' like the smacking of lips, salivary noises and so on that to other (most?) people would be undesirable microphone artefacts.

                            A key feature is that the activity needs to be essentially trivial and pointless, so as not to disrupt the mood by engaging conscious thought processes. So videos of people slowly and methodically removing small consumer goods from their packaging and rambling on about this process and their features at unnecessary length all the while can fit the bill rather well. Some YouTube practitioners therefore specifically aim for this 'market' by producing (point-of-view) videos where the handling and careful "unboxing" of the product is done extra ritualistically, nay fetishistically, with lots of superficially bizarre and meaningless stroking, turning and tapping of the cardboard/plastic/metal/bubblewrap/whatever to create the hand movements and incidental sounds that apparently trigger a lot of people's sensory response.

                            I say "apparently", because whilst I've discovered that I belong to the category for whom ASMR is a reality – though all my life until recently I didn't have a clue that it was a 'thing' not merely an unclassifiable sensation – and there really is a considerable Venn diagram overlap between the two fields, I have to say I can't give a toss about said unboxing videos myself, and the tapping-of-nails type effects send shudders down my spine not tingles. Different strokes, as it were, for different folks.

                            It seems Hofzinser started a thread about ASMR early last year (at which time the title would have meant nothing to me), but it only got one response and alas Hof has been missing in action around here since June I see, shortly after a flurry of posts in the betting thread. Hope he's all right.

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                              #15
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                              Ooh, that tingling thing has a name! Thought everyone got that. Boringish voices sometimes really hit the spot for me, from school assemblies to droning lecturers or technical consultants, it's been a little occasional compensation for dreary situations over the years.

                              Watching people unwrap stuff though, nonsense.

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                                #16
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                                Hof is alive and well on that Facebook they have nowadays.

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                                  #17
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                                  Oh good – I mean, he wouldn't know me from Adam, but it's just always slightly disconcerting to realise you're looking at a post by somebody who you suddenly can't recall seeing around the boards anywhere in ages.

                                  Heh, there you go LS, I've just graced you with the gift of knowledge that "that tingling thing" is, erm, a thing not just a tingling. It's the unwavering level drone of those voices on a boring subject that would do it, yeah.

                                  Looking back, from being a kid I associate the feeling more with visual cues: those calm, repetitive, rhythmic actions, in places with a certain pregnant quiet to the atmosphere. But I'll try posting that over on the ASMR thread so as not to derail this one further; you never know, someone might pick up on it this time.

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                                    #18
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                                    I don't get (get or have?) ASMR, but that is an interesting post, VA, so thanks!

                                    I've watching one unwrapping video as far as I can remember, a couple of years ago when I was trying to get as much information on what is now my laptop as I possibly could before ordering it (because even though my parents were paying, it was still a lot of money and I didn't want to waste their cash). It was sort of useful but I'm baffled to hear people watch things like that for pleasure. I remember sitting through the first minute (which felt like about five minutes) thinking, 'Yes I know what a fucking box looks like, just get on with it you twat.'

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                                      #19
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                                      Hahaha, yes that's roughly the point at which my patience with any of these things evaporates too Sam.

                                      If it were an ASMR-specific variant, it probably would have been about five minutes solid just spent fondling, scratching and tapping the fucking box, and all.

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                                        #20
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                                        'Sounds like this one's made of corrugated cardboard, with a laminate sleeve...'

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                                          #21
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                                          I'm surprised there are people who don't derive pleasure from sounds. Isn't that one of the rationales behind music after all?

                                          I recall sitting on the bus hypnotised by all the different sounds coming from the engine and the vibrations of the glass and the bodywork.

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