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Two thoughts:

I'm in the right age bracket to make some money doing this, so hmmm,

and for some people, it helps. My girlfriend used to use ASMR when we were long-distance. It's never done anything for me, but other friends of mine also swear by ASMR to sleep.

ASMR videos trigger a pretty strong opposite reaction in me. I cannot stand those soothingly-whispering videos; it's like nails on a chalkboard for me.
Nails on Chalkboard is a subgenre of ASMR.
Me as well. It feels like a toddler chewing rice pudding in my ears.
“Someone pretending to care registers as someone actually caring for us” (as revealed by MRI scans).

Mr. Rogers did that all the time. He was a genius.

*except he really did care and was not just pretending.
What's to say the you tubers don't care in the same way? It's possible to do something for profit and care about the people you impact even if you don't see each one individually
The “pretending” has more to do with the fact that you’re not having a one-to-one interaction. If they were giving you “individual” attention via a speech at a convention rather than an intimate TV or YouTube broadcast, it would feel cheap. The only difference is technology which enhances the illusion. I’m sure they actually care about their viewers.
I was not referring to youtubers, I was simply attempting clarify the GP's statement.
It it were real, it could explain lap-dances.
17? That seems a bit young to be playing boyfriend to everyone online. I'm sure he isn't even the youngest aged youtuber doing this. Is this weird or just me?
Imagine if it was a 17year old female "child" doing that for a male audience.
No need to imagine, its quite common on youtube. There is no ourage... so far.
Older people may not be his intended audience. But, yeah it seems creepy when you think of 50 year old men watching the video.

But this problem is nearly universal to all boyfriend/girlfriend roleplay asmr videos.

What if the person watching is much older or younger(like an 8 year old or 50 year old) etc.

Youtube doesn't offer much in terms of setting an age group for an intended audience. You could tag is as mature, but that only splits it to 18+/ or not 18+. And even if someone were to tag their video as being for a specific gender or age group, there is no preventing someone from outside that group watching it.

It may be awkward, but it comes with the territory. Asmr artists on youtube have pretty much come to accept it.

You might not be able to enforce an age limit for the viewers, but you definitely could set an age limit for the youtubers creating this stuff.

But even regular ASMR embarasses me, so I guess these things just creep me out, regardless how old they are.

They are making videos and people watch them. Why does there need to be a minimum age for that?
The headline is quite oblique to the article, which is about YouTube shows that are role-playing boyfriend to the viewer. Basically, G-rated pornography.
"For every 1,000 views, I make $3,".

Not bad. Didn't think youtube ads would be as much as this.

I can confirm that this is accurate.

There are a few tiers and it varies seasonally. I run a YouTube channel with ~80k subscribers at the moment and I get about $3CPM (price per thousand). I actually make closer to $5 and even $6 around the holidays as ad prices go up.

But if you are just starting out on YouTube, you are given lower paying ads. You'll see yourself getting CPMs in the $1-$1.50 range. After hitting 50k subscribers it jumps up dramatically. The really premium ads are reserved for whitelisted accounts that belong to certain approved video networks and can earn $5-$8 CPM. These are generally channels with 1M or more subscribers.

Great to know. Thank you for sharing.

Would you know how adblocking factors into these revenues? It can be 50% on traditional web content depending on the demographic, but this gotta be dramatically lower on youtube.

For these videos, the article says the primary audience is women aged 18-24, probably in the US. Adblocking must be rescinding toward zero given the raise of smartphones and google Chrome, that can't block ads.

Just out of curiosity, when I block ads, does that decrease your CPM? I'm doing it either way, I'm wondering how they count adblock views.
Not the person you responded to, but according to (my memory of) this[0] video youtube only counts views where an ad plays (excluding adblock users and some views from people in demographics that have low advertiser demand) and it is not immediately skipped, where the option is there.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW0eUrUiyxo

I haven't watched the videos, but I have listened to a bunch of songs from pop music stars who seem to alternate telling me how terrific I am and how much they love me with guilt-ridden confessions of how they've been disloyal, followed by impassioned pleas for me to give them one more chance, before slamming me with a brutal goodbye and telling me that we are never (ever, ever) getting back together.
The next step? ASMR Hypnosis.
It's not a problem because the Listener controls the Play and Stop button. Now imagine a scenario where the listener has no control over Listening or Not Listening.