KFC Wants You to Chill Out With Fried Chicken ASMR

KFC wants you to indulge in some ASMR. The global fried chicken chain has launched a U.K. website called KFChill, devoted to the relaxing sounds of frying chicken, sizzling bacon, and simmering gravy. Per Eater London editor Adam Coghlan: “it is quite relaxing.” Just the thing, on another day of absolute political scenes in the United Kingdom.

Those in search of “finger-lickin’ good vibes” can either listen to an entire hour of each sound online, or download the clips for private indulgence. A gravelly voiced narrator implores listeners to do three of the following:

• “Relax... To the sound of frying chicken.”
• “Unwind... To the sound of sizzling bacon.”
• “Destress... To the sound of simmering gravy.”

Each sound has its particular qualities. The frying chicken is the most vigorous, as might be expected, with soft crackles punctuating the oil’s slow rumble. Sizzling bacon, meanwhile, is a soft spit; the gravy, meanwhile, a gentle simmer as promised. All three of them are, genuinely, pretty chill; they also all sound like various kinds of falling rain.

Users wishing to spread the trend are invited to autotweet the following message:

I’ve just relaxed to the soothing sounds of KFC at kfchill.co.uk.

ASMR — Autonomous sensory meridian response, which is characterised by a tingling sensation on the skin — has become wildly trendy in the western world of late, with videos featuring tapping, whispering, page turning, eating, and all of those things plus Brexit doing the rounds. The prevalence of ASMR food videos dates back at least as far as 2009, from the South Korean phenomenon, mukbang, in which a host broadcasts the act of eating a large amount of food to an audience. Heavily mic’d up versions focussed on the sounds of chewing and biting particularly crunchy foods followed — both of which are known triggers for ASMR. KFC even ran an equivalent campaign in the U.S. in 2016, which featured ‘The Colonel’ crunching into some chicken. No such luck for the U.K.