Learning Day: The Japanese Pornographer who Invented ASMR and One Other Simpsons Thing 🌭

What feels like an eternity ago, you and me really got into it over a metaphorical Flight of Simpsons Weirdness, which is to say three things. I showed you three things, all Simpsons-related, and in case you don’t recall you absolutely loved it. “Simpsons me again, Simpsman!,” you begged, cobbling the clumsy portmanteau together on the fly and through a thick haze of HomEros, which is a much stronger portmanteau. Now I’ve got two more Simpsons things I want to show you, and yet although they are both arguably even more fascinating…some part of me still refuses to type. Probably the fingers. The reason things feel so different is painfully clear. Between writing that first jolly column and sitting down to etch this one I suffered the birth of my first child, referred to hereafter as A. Baby.

Mr. Baby and I became acquainted through a friend of a friend’s vagina, and have since become very close, almost like family. And having that – that “almost-family feeling” – well, it changes you. There are some significant tax benefits, for example. But it also raises new and frightening questions: what kind of world will I be leaving to my heir? What kind of cursed Simpsons media will be molding him into the ideal man when Treehouse of Horror LV premieres? To answer that question, we must peer into the minds behind two of today’s most powerful Simpsons-intensive indoctrination delivery vectors: public education and YouTube.

And so, fingerefusal aside (which is a portmanteau whose elegance ranks somewhere between that of the previous two), the column must and will begin. If you can guess what I’m typing this with instead of my fingers, please don’t.

THE SEVEN DEAD-IDDLY-EDDLY SINS

Rock Eisteddfod was an attempt by the Australian public school system to get kids interested in dance, healthy diet choices, and abstinence from things like alcohol and ciggies, which is one of the stupid things they call them there. The program culminated in a yearly dance competition pitting high schools against each other for backroom betting purposes. As you might imagine, the vast majority of schools – basically all except this one I found – would do something tame and sensible, like a hiphop routine where they out-breakdance and shame a faggybutt (the Australian government literally reached out and made me call it that; I’m very sorry).

But when Harristown State High comes to play, they don’t not go immediately unhinged insane, as evidenced by the supernova eyes of their spokesperson, seen here explaining to the hosts that what they are about to witness is inexplicable and therefore she isn’t actually there and this isn’t even happening right now.

Obviously you know it’s a Simpsons thing, so let’s not obfuscate that fact. In fact, the Harristown routine starts with a valiant attempt to dramatize the intense creative anguish Matt Groening must have gone through while fucking around and giggling at his own doodles. Again, by contrast, your average one of these routines starts with some kids making a bunch of Australian flags form into a food pyramid of healthy snack options. Instead, overwhelmed by the Szyslakian despair of his task, Harristown Matt skips right past overeating, drugs and alcohol, or wanton sex, and attacks Australia’s problems at their root – ALL SEVEN DEADLY SINS FUCK IT. Like the mythical hydra, we must decapitate all the fell beasts at once and put the nation’s children back on the True Christian Path Matt Groening Intended!!!

Yep, it’s a government-funded religious guilt trip in the form of a High School Simpsons musical from dawn unduh, myte! We begin with greed, avarice, the lust for money. Who better to embody it than Springfield’s own version of famed plutocrat Mr. Snrub, Montgomery Burns?

There’s upbeat synth music, Burns juggles a little and piles up big stacks of cash – it makes sense! In fact, if things stay this grounded it almost feels like a stretch to target this for a column.

Has the part of my body I’ve been typing with instead of my fingers been perhaps a tad hasty? My ex-wife always said that part was hasty, if you know what I mean! My penis is the part if you don’t know what I mean. Indeed, as we work our way up the SIN-O-METER from Greed to Gluttony, even my famous typing penis is forced to admit this concept might work fine, actually?

Homer, Gluttony, sure. Makes sense. You got dancing beer and donuts, lead kid in a funny Homer costume…and look, they made the cooling tower! Cute.

Oh okay, there’s the bump. See, I knew it would be in there somewhere. Bart taking pics of sexy Lisa while a bunch of Lisa clones lunge through the darkness bears discussion. The staging doesn’t make it totally clear whether the above tableau represents Lust or not, but I’m going to give Harristown kids the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s going for a Pride/Envy combo thing instead. The point is, my penis should trust my fingers more. Frankly, lately they aren’t on the same page at all; trying to masturbate is like plunging a rock tumbler.

Next to take the stage is Margaret Simpson, who by process of elimination should represent Sloth, which is a pretty heavy trip to lay on a baby.

Hopefully she won’t develop any weird complex or need to overcompensate to dispel the perceived stigma of her slothfulness.

Then she backflips off a skateboard! It’s a classic Simpsons undermine. Why Bart is now a frog is a reference that goes over my head, much like Maggie as she continues to flip up up and away as if to say “Hey! You out there! Don’t be fat like Dancin’ Homer! Be skinny like a Backflip Baby getting violently shaken all around!” But it’s just as well the minors have left the room (except for two of them), for what comes next can only be described as an ideogram or kind of living hieroglyphic, the essence of Wrath and Lust conflagrating as one.

Also is Marge about to pop an understudy Maggie out? What’s with that pose? Anyway, Bart and Lisa roll away and Marge and Homer split into a domestic abuse situation on the left and violent humping on the right.

Like, they dance those things, but the message is the same: “Get it? Sex and rage are in each of us commingled? You know, the point of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence?”

“That’s true, we largely consider this a routine responding to A History of Violence.”

Just kidding. What they actually say after they’re done doing that to a bunch of other kids is – “This really opened our eyes to what children are watching on simple cartoon shows, for example The Simpsons. We’ve noticed that it’s not always a good message or a good moral coming through and parents need to realize this before they let their children watch it.”

So EITHER this was an anti-Simpsons routine, which is evidenced by Marge being the one to deliver the above buzzkilling monolog, or it was a pro-Simpsons, pro-Sin, pro-fun Ozzie creep-down I can really get behind. The only evidence tipping the scales in that direction is the subtle brilliance of starting your final line with “This really opened our eyes…” while dressed like this:

THE JAPANESE PORNOGRAPHER WHO INVENTED ASMR

Okay, so, unfortunately our investigation into what the schools are pounding into our kids’ brains, Simpsons-wise, was inconclusive. They say satire is dead, and I agree because I am unimaginative and was never taught close reading skills. Just kidding, I’m not! That was satire! Or at least irony, you gotta give me that. And now I gotta give you this, a video I first encountered in 2010 and have since rewatched in both good times and bad. All the time, that same question pounds in my brain: is this satire? What is this?

Nominally, it is a YouTube poop-style video of ideas for a potential Simpsons movie, the real Simpsons Movie having been announced the year prior. The intro music takes up half the video, will compel you to hit someone you thought you would never hit in your whole life, and is perfectly embodied by this freezeframe:

It’s “the kind of music you’d expect to be paired with imagery like that,” and I’m confident you know what I mean. As for the rest of the video, it’s a crudely-animated horrorshow I will now try and probably fail to adequately describe. In fact, I think this is such a writing challenge I need to get my penis and my fingers involved, like I do with my patented sex move “failed attempted anal because if it’s been a while you forget how awkward it actually is mechanically to get it on in there but I do really appreciate the token of intimacy and willingness to try things.” Works* every time.

Unsurprisingly, the star of the episode is a new character with a broad Australian accent. Clearly the animator was radicalized as a child by participation in the Rock Eisteddfod program. He introduces himself to Ned Flanders-through-a-Ren-and-Stimpy-filter as Fishbone or Fishface or something, then quickly dispatches him and takes up residence in his home. Shortly thereafter, the brutalized corpses of Rod and Todd are unceremoniously dumped from the second floor windows into the gutter.

Sorry, gut-diddly-uttler. Once Fishman has stripped the Flanders home bare of resources and presumably found and defiled Maude’s body, he swiftly moves on to the Simpsons themselves. In this reality, Bart is a little older, and a little less naive. Of course by that I mean he’s graduated from “El Barto” tags to “Fuck U Homer” and his usual pranks have been replaced by the simple but effective technique of throwing bricks at his father’s face.

Naturally, this results in some household tension.

And admittedly, some of the dialog about the modern legacy of Iran-Contra politicking is spot-on, but also here’s what Homer looks like:

If I know my anime, that tear means he’s sick, the snot bubble implies he’s flirting with Fishberg, and the butter smear across his bottom lip means he’s a pro and he’s ready to go. But Homer’s usual heady mix of Wrath and Lust isn’t enough to satisfy Fishbone, who angrily seduces Marge with lines that are so distorted and Australian I can’t transcribe them, then demands Homer move out, which he does.

He cries about it. The end.

Oh wait! I almost forgot that Homer comes back home at the very end to find Marge going full reverse cowgirl on Fishbutter’s churn-stick. Please note the pool of blood implying her defloration and Homer’s absolute all-timer cuck status. Homer then lets out the final line of the video, that rings clear and true like a sad sad bell in my head to this very day.

“Maaaaaaaaarge. You’re breaking my heaaaaaaaart.” Click, and be forever changed. WAY more than having a kid, by the way, which I can now confirm.

So, given that I will be offloading my son’s development to cool stuff like the above, I’d like to dive just a little deeper into the video’s poster, who goes by “virgin teen” on YouTube. His channel appears to have been active from 2002 to 2012, boasts 2.36 subs per video he’s released, and bills itself as “the official cannel [sic] of internet pioneer, millennial “asmr” inventor, cyberartist and patron saint of online, virgin teen.” Here he is reacting to the death of Michael Jackson.

And that’s the thing about virgin teen, who as I write this must be a virgin dad himself I imagine…he’s not far off about inventing ASMR. Because the invention and description of that phenomenon is widely credited to a 2007 post wherein a user named “okaywhatever” described the experience and it resonated with so many people that researcher Jennifer Allen conducted the first study into it in the 2010’s. Meanwhile, every single one of virgin teen’s videos is like the above – a static shot of him smoking one whole cigarette while he whispers about the nominal topic so quietly that all you can hear is lip on paper and whispers and vibes, man. Of hundreds of videos, turns out the Simpsons one stands alone amidst a sea of uncredited ASMR genius.

Some of v. t.’s videos predate the widespread use of the term ASMR, and include topics as diverse as “Re: Ask Olga K [Episode 7],” “Movie 17,” “Re: my internet’s gone down,” “Re: cat scratches parrot’s head,” “Re: Michael jackson has die – Michael Jasckson is dead,” and “Re: Yaprak Dökümü 71.Blm 1.Parça [www.EsenlerDizi.com].” Each is a susurrating soundscape he probably meant to be ironically funny, but which actually come off incredibly soothing because satire is dead.

But virgin teen lives on, as does the spirit of ASMR, as does The Simpsons, and as does A.Baby, whose own gravitational journey towards pop cultural artifacts that will mark the ages of his life has only just begun. But you know? I think we’re in good hands.

He also does a pretty funny twitter feed of Japanese porn titles!

*As decreed by the National Genital Board following my disqualification from the league, I must include an asterisk whenever implying my dick works.

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Michael also releases content through his outlet Small Beans, wrote a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel you can read or listen to, and launched a hyuuuuuge Simpsons project June 1st on the old Cracked YouTube channel, so look for that!

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