Culture
This official Pikachu ASMR is meant to be relaxing, we suppose
We're not sure who this is for, exactly. But it exists, nonetheless.
It's kind of crazy to think about, but at this point, Pikachu could be considered a childhood staple for multiple generations of kids. For a good portion of the population, the little rodent-turned-electrical conduit and its trademark, cutesy voice are synonymous with a calming sense of innocent nostalgia (nostalgia for a vast, well-oiled corporate machine's mascot, but we digress), so we suppose this official, 15-minute Pikachu ASMR video from The Pokémon Company will resonate with at least a few people out there. For the rest of us, it's made ASMR somehow creepier than before, which is truly impressive in its own right.
Yep, that's definitely the small, yellow furball cavorting around a sunlit living room, occasionally playing with a bouncy ball at off-putting audio levels, alright.
Oh, and this isn't the first Pokémon-themed ASMR release from the Japanese pop culture monolith, either. You can also "calm down" via Charmander sleeping by a fire or even Squirtle hanging near the beach, if either of those is more your speed. But hey, at least Pikachu is universally adorable (which almost wasn't the case, if you need this horrifying reminder), and in any case, it's definitely not as bad as that weird Pikotaro / Pikachu earworm from Hell, so we'll cut our losses where we can today.
As for us, there's only one Pokémon ASMR we truly enjoy: