Maria "Masha" Viktorovna (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Мари́я Викторовна; born July 22, 1986), known professionally as Gentle Whispering ASMR, is a Russian-American

ASMR An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)Marsden, Rhodri (20 July 2012), ''The Independent''. is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it ...

performer and

YouTube personality A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 200 ...

. Her

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

videos are considered to be among the best-known and most popular in the ASMR genre.

Early life

Maria "Masha" Viktorovna was born on July 22, 1986, in the city of

Lipetsk Lipetsk (, ), also Romanization of Russian, romanized as Lipeck, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Voronezh (river), Voronezh River in the Do ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. She has an older sister, Olga. During her childhood, Maria was active in

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

, and participated in several school plays.

Career

Maria recalls her first ASMR experiences taking place while in

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

in central

, and says she felt similar relaxing and "ticklish" sensations throughout her life. In 2009, Maria had depression and

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...

during a divorce from her husband. While watching massage and meditation videos to relax, she clicked on a video of a woman whispering that was recommended by YouTube's suggestion algorithm. This video triggered the same relaxed feeling she had experienced in her youth, and she continued watching similar videos to relax. Maria recorded her own whisper video in February 2011, deleting it soon after. However, she continued recording and publishing new content; by the year's end she had amassed 30,000 subscribers. In 2014, Maria was working as an administrative assistant in a medical office, but by 2015 she was earning enough to treat her content as a full-time job. Her channel reached one million subscribers in 2017, the first ASMR channel to do so. One of Maria's videos was sampled in the 2014 song, " Terrors in My Head," by Canadian electronic musician

Deadmau5 Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as deadmau5 (pronounced "dead-mouse"), is a Canadian electronic music producer and disc jockey, DJ. His musical style mostly includes progressive house and electro house music, ...

Reception and style

Maria's ASMR videos are recognized as among the best and most popular on YouTube. In separate articles for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', feature writer Caitlin Gibson called Maria "the premier celebrity of a controversial but increasingly recognized phenomenon" in 2014 and "YouTube’s preeminent ASMRtist" in 2019. Maria has additionally been described as "queen of the ASMR genre," and "widely known as the grande dame of ASMR." Her videos have been recommended by ''

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray backgrou ...

'' and ''

Thrillist ''Thrillist'' is an online media website covering travel. ''Thrillist'' was founded in 2004 by Ben Lerer and Adam Rich. In October 2016, Thrillist merged with internet brands ''The Dodo'', NowThis News, and Seeker to form the digital media ...

.'' Maria has said that she tries "to protrude a motherly, comforting atmosphere in my videos," and make her audience feel "safe and protected." She describes receiving thank-you messages from viewers with anxiety, stress, or

sleep disorder A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder affecting an individual's sleep patterns, sometimes impacting physical, mental, social, and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for diagnosing sle ...

Personal life

After divorcing her former partner, Maria met her husband, Darryl, through a

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

group for ASMR content creators. The couple dated for five years, and married in September 2017. Maria gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in 2019. As of February 2020, she resides in

El Dorado County, California El Dorado County (; ''El Dorado'', Spanish for "The Golden ne), officially the County of El Dorado, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 191,185. The county seat is Placerville. Th ...

. She is a certified

massage therapist Massage is the rubbing or kneading of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet, or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pa ...

and formerly lived in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

. She announced in a YouTube video on March 10, 2025, that she welcomed her second child, a boy, on March 3, 2025.

References

Footnotes

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Viktorovna, Maria Living people 1986 births Russian YouTubers Russian emigrants to the United States 21st-century Russian women Practitioners of autonomous sensory meridian response YouTubers from California