Kasumi deletes her Twitter and Instagram accounts after coming under fire from viewers.

ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) videos abound on YouTube, where the aim is to trigger the pleasurable ‘brain-tingling’ response in viewers through sounds that set it off, like waves at the beach, a crackling fire, and eating.

These days, food ASMR has become so popular there are YouTubers who specialise in it, treating it like a sport that requires stamina, patience and preparation. Oh, and an abundance of food to tantalise both the viewers’ aural and visual senses.

In Japan, YouTuber Kasumi ASMR has been providing fans with plenty of food ASMR content to get their spines tingling in delight, munching on everything from McDonald’s full-moon viewing burgers through to matcha doughnuts on her channel since June last year.

Her most popular videos, however, are the ones filled with the crunchy sounds of fried food, like this one showing her demolishing a table full of deep-fried momiji dango sweets.

With over 30 million views on her channel, Kasumi is extremely popular, despite the fact that she consistently keeps herself out-of-view from the nose-up in her videos. That all changed this week, however, when an editing slip-up showed her entire face…as she turned her head to spit out a mouthful of food.

The clip above, showing Kasumi eating a whole lot of cheese tonkatsu, captures the moment when the truth behind the illusion was revealed. The scene was originally part of a video uploaded to her YouTube channel on 29 September, where it was heavily criticised in the comments section and quickly deleted after ten minutes.

Viewers had already screen recorded the incident by then, though, sharing it online and leaving comments like:

“Such a waste of food!”
“I feel duped — I thought she ate everything like a competitive eater.”
“Sorry, I just don’t understand the appeal of ASMR videos.”
“It feels great to eat a lot but everyone has their limits.”
“So spitting ASMR has become a new genre now?”
“Surely, this couldn’t be an editing mistake — that’s not something you’d miss while editing.”

Despite the harsh criticism, which became so intense Kasumi deleted her Twitter and Instagram accounts, a new clip was uploaded to her channel just a day after the scandal, and it’s become one of her most viewed videos to date.

▼ The latest video shows her eating onigiri rice balls and green peppers stuffed with meat.

While we may never know whether spitgate was intentional or an honest mistake, YouTuber scandals have proved time and time again that a bit of infamy often results in more view counts, so the incident isn’t all bad news for Kasumi.

Once the furore dies down, the food ASMR enthusiast will likely return with even more viewers eager to see what she has up her sleeve for them, and if it’s anything like the audio file of a voice actress farting, they’ll welcome her back with open arms.

Source: YouTube/ゆ via Hachima Kiko
Featured image: Pakutaso 
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!