ASMR for White Liberals
2019 · 2m
Directed by John Connor Hammond
Genres: comedy, experimental, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, provocative
A man whispers soothingly into a microphone, telling white listeners exactly what they want to hear: that Black people don't hate them and don't find them racist. A two-minute satirical ASMR video that is funnier and more cutting than most feature-length social comedies.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Two minutes of someone whispering white guilt away is sharper comedy than most things I've seen this year. The format does half the work.
Randall Otis's targeted-whisper sketch is built like a single, sharp epigram — the kind of comedic essay film that lives or dies on whether the writing has actual edge, and Otis usually does.
At 2 minutes 20, uses the ASMR format designed to soothe as the delivery mechanism for sharp racial satire — Randall Otis whispering exactly what white listeners want to hear is perfectly compressed.