Maria Viktorovna
Personal information
Born
Maria Viktorovna

(1986-07-22) July 22, 1986
Lipetsk, Lipetsk Oblast, Soviet Union[1]
NationalityRussian-American
OccupationYouTuber
YouTube information
Also known asGentle Whispering
Channels
Years active2011–present
GenreAutonomous sensory meridian response
Subscribers2.21 million[2]
Total views1.02 billion[2]
100,000 subscribers
1,000,000 subscribers2017
Last updated: 10 April 2021

Maria Viktorovna[lower-alpha 1] (born July 22, 1986), known professionally as Gentle Whispering ASMR, is a Russian-American ASMR performer and YouTube personality. Her YouTube videos are considered among the most well-known and popular in the ASMR genre.

Early life

Maria was born on July 22, 1986, in the city of Lipetsk, Russia.[3][4] She has an older sister.[5]

Career

Maria recalls her first ASMR experiences taking place while in kindergarten in central Russia, and says she felt similar relaxing and "ticklish" sensations throughout her life.[6][7][8] In 2009, Maria had depression and anxiety during a divorce from her husband. While watching massage and meditation videos to relax, she clicked on a video of a woman whispering that was recommended by YouTube's suggestion algorithm.[6][9][10] This video triggered the same relaxed feeling she had experienced in her youth, and she continued watching similar videos to relax.[9] Maria recorded her own whisper video in February 2011, deleting it soon after. However, she continued recording and publishing new content; by the year's end she had amassed 30,000 subscribers.[6]

In 2014, Maria was working as an administrative assistant in a medical office, but by 2015 she was earning enough to treat her content as a full-time job.[6][9][10][11] Her channel reached one million subscribers in 2017, the first ASMR channel to do so.[12]

One of Maria's videos was sampled in the 2014 song, "Terrors in My Head," by Canadian electronic musician Deadmau5.[6]

Reception and style

Maria's ASMR videos are recognized as among the best and most popular on YouTube. In separate articles for The Washington Post, feature writer Caitlin Gibson called Maria "the premier celebrity of a controversial but increasingly recognized phenomenon" in 2014 and "YouTube’s preeminent ASMRtist" in 2019.[6][13] Maria has additionally been described as "queen of the ASMR genre,"[11] and "widely known as the grande dame of ASMR."[8] Her videos have been recommended by Irish Independent[3] and Thrillist.[14]

Maria has said that she tries "to protrude a motherly, comforting atmosphere in my videos," and make her audience feel "safe and protected."[15] She describes receiving thank-you messages from viewers with anxiety, stress, or sleep disorders.[6]

Personal life

After divorcing her former partner, Maria met her husband, Darryl, through a Facebook group for ASMR content creators. The couple dated for five years,[16] and married in September 2017.[17] Maria gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in 2019.[18]

As of February 2020, she resides in El Dorado County, California.[6][13][15] She is a certified massage therapist and formerly lived in Baltimore, Maryland.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Draw My Life :) ASMR". YouTube. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  2. 1 2 "About Gentle Whispering ASMR". YouTube.
  3. 1 2 White, Sophie (November 23, 2017). "'It's a kind of orgasm of the brain' - the new relaxation phenomenon". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
  4. ↑ Gibson, Caitlin (2014-12-16). "GentleWhispering and ASMR: The voice that triggers euphoria and seven". The Independent. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  5. ↑ "Draw my Life :) ASMR". YouTube. 2013-05-10. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gibson, Caitlin (December 15, 2014). "A whisper, then tingles, then 87 million YouTube views: Meet the star of ASMR". The Washington Post.
  7. ↑ Lopez, German (2015-07-15). "ASMR, explained: why millions of people are watching YouTube videos of someone whispering". Vox. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  8. 1 2 Dickson, E. J. (2020-02-20). "An Oral History of ASMR". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  9. 1 2 3 Miller, Jenni (2015-06-08). "Whispering on The Internet Is Paying This Woman's Rent". Cosmopolitan. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  10. 1 2 3 "Meet This Maryland Woman Who Makes A Living By Whispering". WAMU. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  11. 1 2 Castillo, Michelle (2017-02-19). "Inside the bizarre world of YouTube ASMR videos". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  12. ↑ CBC Radio (August 1, 2017). "ASMR community, devoted to whispers and soft sounds, celebrates YouTube milestone". CBC News. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  13. 1 2 Gibson, Caitlin (Feb 7, 2019). "Why stressed-out pregnant women are turning to ASMR videos for relief". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
  14. ↑ Downs, Ella (26 August 2019). "Where to Find the Best ASMR Videos on YouTube". Thrillist. Retrieved 2020-07-05.
  15. 1 2 "El Dorado County woman whispers the world into relaxation with ASMR". abc10.com. 15 February 2020. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  16. ↑ "💕 How We Met Through ASMR Community and Our Awkward First Date 💕". YouTube. 2018-02-14. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
  17. ↑ "Our Yosemite Wedding Getaway for Two". YouTube. 2017-09-17. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
  18. ↑ "New Mom Lessons Learned 🤷‍♀️". YouTube. 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2023-09-26.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Viktorovna" is a patronym; her surname is not known.
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