ASMR Hats (soft speaking, fabric sounds, rough brushing)
Holding a fedora-style hat in your hands is a bit like holding a dinosaur tooth - it so powerfully evokes a chapter from the past that it's a bit like falling into a time machine for a moment. Men's felt hats are visually iconic, and now, nearly completely absent (aside from western/cowboy styles, of course). I muse a little bit in this video about some likely reasons why hats largely disappeared from popular fashion.
I've had "do something with hats" on my video idea list since the very beginning of the channel. I've had a couple of dressy fedoras in my closet for many years, thanks to a large horn-based band I was in once that adopted a somewhat "zoot suit" aesthetic. Fun band, and great hats, but they got relegated to the closet on the band's demise, as they weren't something I could really make a part of my daily style at that time.
One thing about a felt hat that only ASMR-folks would notice, though, is that it makes a great sound when you hold it in your hands. Stiff, pressed felt is amazingly responsive when you touch it with fingers. Every little touch and brush of the fingers produces a surprisingly distinctive and textural sound. Part of my delay in making a hat video was my own doubt that I could capture these felt sounds well, to be honest.
Finally, just a couple of months ago, I discovered the hat brush, a very common tool in keeping felt hats tidy and free of dust and dirt. I had never seen one before, but it was the "a-ha!" object I had been waiting for. A hat brushing video would be the perfect "tinkering" video I was looking for, and would give me a great excuse to try to capture those felt handling sounds well for you guys.
The one caveat, though, is that the brushing action itself might come across as a "rough" trigger to some of you, which is not something I generally do on this channel. I wanted the task of brushing the hats to be real, not fake or staged, and it turns out that to actually dislodge the dust and brush it clear, you have to use a somewhat brisk motion. So, a kind heads-up on that, but I hope you enjoy the video with all the brushing and felt handling as they are.
Please check out my “The Junk Drawer" playlist periodically for new casual videos of behind-the-scenes stuff or extra content. Follow me on Twitter (@gaslampasmr) for additional content as well. Also, check out my interview on The Dirty Nerdy Show: • Gaslamp ASMR Interview
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