UDS

So, back in 2016, I wrote a post of which I was intensely proud. Its subject was the range of distinct emotions and physical sensations that I know by inward knowledge I have experienced, but for which there didn't seem to be any word at present in our language. At the time, here is one I described:

Whenever I am alone with someone and they become consumed, of necessity, with some task involving intense concentration -- doodling or writing, say, or showing me something on a map, or finishing the drafting of an email (I first remember experiencing this feeling while watching my kindergarten teacher check something in her calendar, for example) -- I have a tingling sensation of pleasure somewhere in my abdomen. It's not like any other sensation of pleasure one obtains from any other satisfaction, however. It is a ghost's pleasure -- a thrill of temporary non-existence. I can sort of hover there, peering over the other person's shoulder, with one foot inside my being and the other outside of it. Then they close the laptop or the sketch book or calendar, turn to me, and the feeling evaporates.

After I explained all of this recently to my friend Seanan, he suggested that maybe there was a German word for it, since they are so good at coming up with compound words that lack precise English equivalents. Failing in our efforts to find one, he made one up: Über-die-Schulter (over-the-shoulder). And we'd better go with that, since we have no other. 

Have any of you ever experienced it, that is, a touch of the old Über-die-Schulter? "Ah, I had such a case of Über-die-Schulter at that meeting today." I could see it catching on.

Let us call it UDS for short.

More recently, I heard online -- as one does -- about a phenomenon called ASMR. Apparently it's all the rage. It knew it had something to do with an experience of calm euphoria, induced by particular sounds -- chewing, whistling, tapping, etc.

I never connected this in any way to my UDS, however. Until, that is, a colleague mentioned it at work last week, and I was moved to head to the Wikipedia, and look it up at last.

There, under the list of potential "triggers" for ASMR-- I found the following: "Watching somebody attentively execute a mundane task[.]"

*GASP*

There is actually a word for it. I looked again at the physical sensations that are associated with this ASMR thing. They fit perfectly!

In a frenzy between meetings, I wrote to my friend Seanan -- he who first named the UDS syndrome. 

"Seanan, it does have a name!" I said. "It's a form of ASMR!"

"Of course," I hastened to add, lest I be caught out once again in being slow on the uptake, internet-wise, "I had heard of ASMR. But I never made the connection."

Some time passed. The excitement of discovering that I was not alone began to give way to the pain of realizing I was not special. 

"It's sort of disappointing," I wrote to him next, "to find out that there's actually been a scientific name for it this whole time."

Some more time passed. He wrote back: 'Don't worry. It's not actually science. It's a made up word that people use to sound scientific." 

*GASP*

A wave of cold pain washed over me. I went back to Wikipedia and opened the article. I discovered that he was right! ASMR was made up by people on the internet. It's not a medical term. It's a meme!

I had thought, in that first post way back in 2016, that I was describing something only I had ever named. That only I had to offer to the world. 

Then, when I discovered it had a name on Wikipedia, I had thought that at least it was a real scientific phenomenon. So I was mildly miffed, but I thought the fact that both I and the scientists had named this thing independently showed how great minds operate on a single wavelength. You know, like Newton and Leibniz. And Wallace and Darwin. And Kalecki and Keynes.

But no.

In reality, I had stumbled unintentionally upon an internet meme. A pretentious one at that. 

I felt immediately tainted. 

Then I read on, and the taint grew. 

It turned out that, given that this was a meme, it has also since become the basis for porn. 

Out, damned spot!

The internet took something I thought made me unique. And turned it into porn. Because of course. Because that's what the internet does. 

There is officially nothing that cannot be ruined by being taken up by mass culture. Huysmans has described this fact better than anyone. This was the sting I felt, realizing that my beloved UDS was in fact nothing other than the gross, tainted ASMR:

"[J]ust as the loveliest melody in the world becomes unbearably vulgar once the public start humming it and the barrel-organs playing it, so the work of art that appeals to charlatans [...] is thereby polluted in the eyes of the initiate [...] This sort of promiscuous admiration was in fact one of the most painful thorns in his flesh, for unaccountable vogues had utterly spoilt certain books and pictures for him that he had once held dear." (Baldick trans.)

Yes! "Unaccountable vogues." That's exactly it. That's what happened to me. That's how my UDS was ruined.

I expressed this to Seanan. He told me to post on the blog about it. So I am. 

Of course, if the public had seen fit to cite my post and dub the phenomenon UDS, rather than ASMR, that would have been another matter. That vogue would have been wholly accountable. That would have been merely genius getting its due.