My recommendation page on YouTube is a sight to see. There is a mixture of skincare, beauty, car, technology and talk show videos. Most of the time, I come across a video on my recommended page and I tend to enjoy it. However, during last summer, the recommendation page was extremely wrong.

That infamous day was when I clicked on a video by Trisha Paytas titled, “ASMR Apple Watch Unboxing.” I had never heard of ASMR: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. In my mind, I thought the video was going to be about some special edition Apple Watch I had never heard of, but little did I know I was about to be scarred for the rest of my life. It was a video of Paytas whispering in a seemingly sexual way while emphasizing every single little noise from the crinkling of shrink wrap to the clearing of her throat.

After watching the video I was so confused. Trisha Paytas is a controversial YouTuber, so I was not shocked t

hat she did it. I assumed that she started some new trend. However, I was wrong. Upon watching that video, I was recommended at least 10 ASMR videos every day for the next week. ASMR videos were a trend, and something that people clearly enjoyed.

The number of ASMR videos uploaded to YouTube nearly doubled in 2017, and according to SmartAsset.com, there are 11 ASMR videos posted every hour. This increasing trend of ASMR videos shocked me. Upon further research, I found the purpose of ASMR videos is for stress relief and relaxation. However, after watching that Apple Watch Unboxing, I can assure you that I felt neither one of those feelings.

In addition, I don’t see the purpose to ASMR videos because they seem less efficient. They are essentially the ideas from normal videos, but much more slowed down. Thus, when watching a tutorial it takes a lot longer to do each step. Each ASMR video heightens every sound, and each word is 

softly spoken, which is unnecessary. You don’t need to know what it sounds like to crinkle shrink-wrap to know how to remove it from a box.

I understand there are a lot of people who enjoy these videos. However, I would personally like to tell YouTube not to recommend these videos to people unless they go searching for them. I know I would have been saved a lot of time and energy had this video not been recommended to me.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Jai Sanghani [email protected].