Maria Viktorovna
| Maria Viktorovna | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal information | ||||||||||
| Born | Maria Viktorovna July 22, 1986 | |||||||||
| Nationality | Russian-American | |||||||||
| Occupation | YouTuber | |||||||||
| YouTube information | ||||||||||
| Also known as | Gentle Whispering | |||||||||
| Channels | ||||||||||
| Years active | 2011–present | |||||||||
| Genre | Autonomous sensory meridian response | |||||||||
| Subscribers | 2.3 million[2] | |||||||||
| Total views | 1.14 billion[2] | |||||||||
| ||||||||||
Last updated: 18 June 2024 | ||||||||||
Maria "Masha" Viktorovna[a][3] (Russian: Мари́я Викторовна; born July 22, 1986), known professionally as Gentle Whispering ASMR, is a Russian-American ASMR performer and YouTube personality. Her YouTube videos are considered to be among the most well-known and popular in the ASMR genre.
Early life
[edit]Maria "Masha" Viktorovna was born on July 22, 1986, in the city of Lipetsk, Russia.[4][5] She has an older sister, Olga.[6] During her childhood, Maria was active in theatre, and participated in several school plays.[3]
Career
[edit]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.[7][8][9] 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.[7][10][11] This video triggered the same relaxed feeling she had experienced in her youth, and she continued watching similar videos to relax.[10] 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.[7]
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.[7][10][11][12] Her channel reached one million subscribers in 2017, the first ASMR channel to do so.[13]
One of Maria's videos was sampled in the 2014 song, "Terrors in My Head," by Canadian electronic musician Deadmau5.[7]
Reception and style
[edit]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.[7][14] Maria has additionally been described as "queen of the ASMR genre,"[12] and "widely known as the grande dame of ASMR."[9] Her videos have been recommended by Irish Independent[4] and Thrillist.[15]
Maria has said that she tries "to protrude a motherly, comforting atmosphere in my videos," and make her audience feel "safe and protected."[16] She describes receiving thank-you messages from viewers with anxiety, stress, or sleep disorders.[7]
Personal life
[edit]After divorcing her former partner, Maria met her husband, Darryl, through a Facebook group for ASMR content creators. The couple dated for five years,[17] and married in September 2017.[18] Maria gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in 2019.[19] She announced in a recent YouTube video that she will be welcoming a baby boy in February 2025.
As of February 2020, she resides in El Dorado County, California.[7][14][16] She is a certified massage therapist and formerly lived in Baltimore, Maryland.[11]
References
[edit]- ^ "Draw My Life :) ASMR". YouTube. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
- ^ a b "About Gentle Whispering ASMR". YouTube.
- ^ a b "Draw my Life :) ASMR". YouTube. 2013-05-10. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
- ^ a b White, Sophie (November 23, 2017). "'It's a kind of orgasm of the brain' - the new relaxation phenomenon". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
- ^ Gibson, Caitlin (2014-12-16). "GentleWhispering and ASMR: The voice that triggers euphoria and seven". The Independent. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
- ^ "Pleasant Ear Exam ✨ ASMR Soft Spoken". YouTube. 2023-02-20. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gibson, Caitlin (December 15, 2014). "A whisper, then tingles, then 87 million YouTube views: Meet the star of ASMR". The Washington Post.
- ^ Lopez, German (2015-07-15). "ASMR, explained: why millions of people are watching YouTube videos of someone whispering". Vox. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
- ^ a b Dickson, E. J. (2020-02-20). "An Oral History of ASMR". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
- ^ a b c Miller, Jenni (2015-06-08). "Whispering on The Internet Is Paying This Woman's Rent". Cosmopolitan. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
- ^ a b c "Meet This Maryland Woman Who Makes A Living By Whispering". WAMU. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
- ^ a b Castillo, Michelle (2017-02-19). "Inside the bizarre world of YouTube ASMR videos". CNBC. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
- ^ CBC Radio (August 1, 2017). "ASMR community, devoted to whispers and soft sounds, celebrates YouTube milestone". CBC News. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
- ^ a b Gibson, Caitlin (Feb 7, 2019). "Why stressed-out pregnant women are turning to ASMR videos for relief". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 10, 2021.
- ^ Downs, Ella (26 August 2019). "Where to Find the Best ASMR Videos on YouTube". Thrillist. Retrieved 2020-07-05.
- ^ a b "El Dorado County woman whispers the world into relaxation with ASMR". abc10.com. 15 February 2020. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
- ^ "💕 How We Met Through ASMR Community and Our Awkward First Date 💕". YouTube. 2018-02-14. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
- ^ "Our Yosemite Wedding Getaway for Two". YouTube. 2017-09-17. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
- ^ "New Mom Lessons Learned 🤷♀️". YouTube. 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2023-09-26.
Footnotes
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