[g3e0]

> The guy's voice is almost a whisper, the ambient sounds from the garden or the forest or the road are oddly pleasant, and he's speaking pretty slowly, with none of these glitchy quick cuts you see in a lot of YT content. It's also unusually personal-feeling, like he's just talking to you.

This sounds very much like ASMR. I find the most relaxing/entrancing videos are the ones that are unintentional/not forced, although obviously personal preferences do vary.

[verytrivial]

I watched a video of a friend of mine who's become a semi-prominent Zen teacher. After a few moments of listening to one of his (rather lovely) pandemic/Zoom group meditations, it struck me that this was weirdly close to ASMR too -- intimacy, calm, human "touch". Philosophy too, yes, but the interpersonal dynamic is a mother cooing into your ear. I wonder if this resets you into some calm, receptive mood because that's an evolutionarily advantageous state to be in, and the cooing is a shortcut to it.