“Too tired to sleep”: ASMR, self-care, and contested rest in China's digital landscape

This article examines Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) in China as a site where rest and care are reshaped by governance, platform infrastructures, and commercial imperatives. Drawing on twenty-two months of digital ethnography on Bilibili, it analyzes how role-play caregiving, “study-with-me” sessions, and lifestyle performances offer sensory relief while simultaneously extending screen time and monetizing attention. Situating ASMR within China's expanding wellness economy and platform governance regime, the article shows that its appeal lies not only in its calming effects but in its resonance with longer traditions of sensory cultivation and contemporary ideals of struggle and self-optimization. The findings reveal a central paradox: practices intended to provide relief often routinize discipline, convert rest into a time-managed resource, and foster habituation (“immunity”) that increases demand for stronger triggers and longer sessions. Framing ASMR through the lens of technologies of the self and the pharmakon clarifies how intimate sensory practices become infrastructures of value extraction. This article offers a China-based account of digital wellness, highlighting how comfort and capture co-produce the politics of rest.