#OnReplay Sunday

My mama don't like you... and she likes everyone.

MY FIRST VLOG! | Daily Vlog 1

Daily Vlog!

Come with me through a typical day in university and watch as I have many first world problems, such as having no cereal in the flat!

April's Album Of The Month: Meet The Vamps

British band 'The Vamps' have released their debut album today, entitled 'Meet The Vamps'. The 51 minute long album holds 15 tracks and has been long awaited by fans.

New Music: Five Seconds Of Summer (5SOS)

There's four of them, they're Australian and they've supported One Direction on tour; Five Seconds Of Summer are a perfect match for a teenage girl.

They're about to tour the UK (buy tickets here: [x]) and they've recently been scouring the country to promote their new single, 'She Looks So Perfect'.

The single has a catch opening which, teamed with an initial Harry Styles voice-a-like makes for an undoubtfully successful debut.

The band (Luke, Callum, Ash and Michael) rose to fame last year when they supported One Direction on their second and world tour following the release of the album 'Take Me Home'. '5SOS' were suddenly known worldwide by Directioners, who flocked to the band on twitter, increasing their popularity through word of mouth- er, tweet.

I just felt the need to share this song with you all as it's really catchy and cheers you up after a hard day of work!

Twitter: [x]

London Calling

Please forgive me for the clichéd post title!

On Monday I travelled down the M6 en route to London, capital of England and home of the Queen, Sherlock Holmes... and Boris Johnson.

The trip was arranged by the Media department at my college and only cost £90 for a one night stay in a three star hotel, a trip to the London Eye and a tour around the new headquarters of the BBC.

I've done a little montage vlog of the two days and I hope you're willing to spend 6 minutes of your time listening to Beyoncé and Ellie Goulding and watching some shaky filming and awful, rushed editing. Drop a comment if you like, drop a comment if you hate.

I'll probably do a written review below when I have the time to fully reflect, but for now, enjoy! (Video is at the top of this post)

Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder

This is a random one, but something I find really interesting.

The video above (and I hope she doesn't mind me embedding this) is the first episode in a series of vlogs from Jess, a university student with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or 'DID' for short.

I heard about her story from the BBC Three Documentary 'Diaries of a Broken Mind' which aired last July. It follows the lives of several individuals who all have a sort of 'mental health problem', from the likes of bi-polar disorder, to agoraphobia, to DID. When watching, I found it both fascinating and saddening how slight alters to one's brain or mind frame can cause such an overbearing impact on their lives.

Jess' story was the one that intrigued me the most, partly because she mentioned in the programme that she had an online vlog about her disorder. From watching her videos and doing a smidgen of research on DID, I've decided that it needs wider coverage.

DID is an issue caused predominantly through experiencing some kind of trauma. This can come in many forms and wikipedia (most trustful source on the internet... or not) states "people diagnosed with DID often report that they have experienced severe physical and sexual abuse". This trauma is too extreme for the brain to handle, and so it creates another identity, or 'alter', who irregularly or frequently 'switches' with the host (for lack of a better word) and brings forth a whole new personality into the same body. A quote from Jess - When you switch with an alter, 'You can either be co-conscious (means you can see/hear things that are going on but can't necessarily do anything) or not co-conscious at all, meaning the personality does whatever without you being able to see what it's doing.'

DID is a condition that is hard to prove. Imagine your friend having 'mood swings' and personality changes frequently and then telling you she has two (or more!) people living inside their body. I can bet you wouldn't be able to comprehend it.

What fascinates me about DID is the idea of several people sharing one body. I think it's amazing that the brain can create multiple identities inside one body, it just shows how powerful the brain is, and how we definitely don't use its full potential. But at the same time as being fascinating, I feel both happy and sad for people with DID. Happy, because they get to experience something only a few people ever will, and they're never alone - technically - they have their alters by their side for a long while. But I also sympathise with these people, as some have as many as 200 (or more!) alters living in their mind, arising at any moment and taking over their body. Imagine fighting to be able to control your hands, a battle you will most probably lose. Also, alters are entirely new people, stuck in a body that is not theirs. This is a sad truth, as they'll never be able to fully live their own life. Also, not all alters are kind and sweet. Since they are born through experiencing a trauma, some can be nasty and cause a person to be suicidal; or they may be suicidal themselves. As you can imagine, lots of problems are caused here.

I am not an expert on DID, but from what little I do know about it, I know we need to raise awareness so that people aren't singled out or bullied because they have an undiagnosed case of it. Mention it to a friend, have a discussion about it, share Jess' story. It's an important part of her life and needs to be known.

Jess' youtube: [x]
Jess' second youtube: [x]

ASMR

A few of you may have browsed YouTube lately and found videos or 'roleplays' with the word ASMR in their title. Please, don't judge these videos by the first 5 seconds, by your friend's jokes about them or by the comments underneath.

What is ASMR?

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or 'ASMR', is the tingly feeling you receive when you listen to a certain sound, see a certain image or action or smell a certain smell that 'triggers' you. This tingling may relax you, help you fall asleep or simply just feel nice and that is what makes ASMR so amazing.

This might sound complicated, but it really isn't. Have you ever felt a soothing tingling sensation over your scalp, or down your back, or even in your toes after someone has whispered something to you or after you see someone describe a concept with their hands? If the answer is 'yes', then you, my friend, have experienced ASMR. If the answer is 'no', then you're probably moving your cursor towards the 'x' button with a mildly confused expression spread over your face.

If you have never experienced ASMR - and most of us haven't - then please, check out the list of recommended ASMR artists (they're the youtubers who appeal to your ASMR needs) below and watch one of their videos. If you're new to the concept, I suggest you try one of their 'whispering' videos rather than a 'roleplay', as you may find the idea of someone pretending to be a doctor to help you sleep rather odd and this may put you off.

My Experience

I first discovered ASMR when I was scrolling through youtube's suggestions of recommended videos for me and I found one called 'Eye Examination Role Play for Relaxation (ASMR)' by a youtube channel owned by American ASMRist Heather Feather. I'm not going to lie, when I saw the word 'Role Play' I thought that the video had sexual content and stayed clear of it for weeks until one day I realised that it wouldn't be so high profile on YouTube and still exist with it's sexual content allowances and so I braved it and jumped right in.

I had no idea what I was watching, I found it very queer that people would watch these videos for fun. I didn't know the purpose of the video either, until half way through when Heather hold up a pad of paper with 'random' letters on and asks you to read them as part of the eye test. I hadn't even realised I was tingling until I read the sentences on the pad and it says something alike 'Hi! I hope you are getting tingles'.

And since then I have explored all the modern ASMR techniques; scratching, whispering, soft speaking, tapping, water sounds, chewing, sksksk-ing, blowing in your ears, roleplays... the list is surely infinite.

Relaxation

ASMR relaxes me every night, and I'm someone who doesn't even have a problem dropping off to sleep. If you suffer from insomnia or find it hard to wind down after a day in the office then ASMR might be the thing for you.

All I ask is you keep an open mind whilst watching the videos. The people making them are genuinely trying to relax you and if you take the mick out of them then you're wasting their time and effort. If you dislike the concept, simply do not revisit it.

Leave a comment with your opinion of ASMR! (Or a question if this post baffled you! ^.^)

List of ASMR artists (on YouTube):
- Heather Feather
- pigsbum53 (Nicole)
- SoftlyGaloshes (Bekah)
- TheWaterWhispers (Ilse)
- LauraLemureX (Laura)
- WhispersUnicorn

Summer In The City

Recently I bought tickets for the upcoming two-day festival, 'Summer In The City'. 
You may have heard of it, but if not, this event is the 'biggest youtuber gathering in London' and will take place on the 9th and 10th August 2014, in Alexandria Palace. 
Tickets went on sale on Wednesday 14th January and a weekend ticket cost £34 and sold out in a matter of minutes, although the event organisers predicted that tickets would not fully sell out until Friday 16th. The price has increased for tickets this year but seeing as my birthday is in July, I have persuaded my mum to pay the fee! Hurrah!

I've booked a nice hotel just 10 minutes walk away from the venue and me and my friend Kim are going for 3 days to London. By then we'll both be 18 so there's no limits... I can see this getting messy!

We haven't booked travel yet but I am trying to convince her that it'll be better (and more importantly, cheaper) to travel down by megabus. I've had a look at some prices and, if you can believe it, it's only £16 for a return trip down to London from Manchester. I know we'd be paying for a 5 hour journey in a confined space with little if no air conditioning and a toilet that's been violently exploited by an overweight middle-aged man but hey, it's cheap travel down to the capital of England and I'll take that!
The only problem we face is that Kim is claustrophobic and so I'm slowly trying to persuade her to face her fear in order to save £15+. I'm a good friend.

Seeing as it'll be summer, I'll be needing some lightweight travel clothes to keep me cool and so I will probably do a post on that nearer to the time, so keep your eyes peeled! 

I'll also do a vlog post on the whole event so you can see what I got up too, I'm very excited for it and now I have another excuse for wishing it was summer sooner!