I feel like I have uncovered a treasure of the internet in my discovery of Kluna Tik.
I get such a kick when I discover a creator who is highly successful and yet somehow very little is known about them. It’s my joy and honor to share with you what I’ve found…
ASMR and Foley Sound Effects
Kluna Tik is a YouTuber who creates funny ASMR videos. The Oxford dictionary defines the term ASMR as;
A feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound.
“ASMR is triggered by things like whispering voices, paper tearing, and scalp massage”
In Kluna Tik’s videos the ASMR sounds that he uses are based around the acts of eating and drinking. We hear chewing sounds, swallowing sounds, sighs of satisfaction and gulping sounds. These sounds are added to the videos in post-production (post-production is the extra work that goes into a video after the filming is complete) in a process called Foley.
In filmmaking, Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. These reproduced sounds, named after sound-effects artist Jack Foley, can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. Foley sounds are used to enhance the auditory experience of the movie.
So the sounds we hear in Kluna Tik’s videos aren’t actually the artist chewing on sand or cardboard. Those sounds have been produced using other methods. I enjoy imagining what inventive actions Kluna Tik has used to create his sound effects – I can envision him crumpling paper, rubbing cardboard together, stirring gravel with a spoon, rattling items in a tin in front of a microphone to create the impression that the non-food item is actually being consumed.
Pica and Playing with Your Food
Kluna Tik’s YouTube videos combine creative film cutting techniques, stop-frame animation and foley sound effects. As if that weren’t enough creative genius for the man; he also makes his own props – the pretend “food” items that he eats. In each video, the food, the crockery, the cutlery and even the table decor are made out of some non-food stuff such as play-dough, sand, balloons, paper, lego or tinfoil. Kluna Tik often “eats” the “crockery” and “cutlery” too. Here is an adult who has not forgotten the fun of pretending and playing make-believe.
By filming these videos from the first-person perspective, Kluna Tik creates the illusion that I, the viewer, am eating this egg made of lego – crunch crunch crunch. The viewer’s experience is delightful; it’s like being five years old again and playing make-believe with a friend. Here is a film-maker who understands that the viewer’s experience is the most crucial part of the video.
In psychology, the urge to eat non-food items is known as pica. People who suffer from this disorder commonly eat paper, plastic, metal and sand. The disorder is not as uncommon as we might imagine – during pregnancy, women often get an urge to eat non-food items that their body senses as containing minerals that are needed to develop a healthy human child. Toddlers tend to learn about the world around them by putting objects in their mouth to see if it tastes good or not – they only stop doing so because they are taught by adults that doing so is bad. Kluna Tik’s videos speak to the adventurous toddler in each of us – the inner child who remembers the joy of playful exploration in tasting new things.
In our modern society, we are told as children, don’t play with your food. Kluna Tik’s videos incite the rebel in every adult, whetting the appetite of our curiosity and feeding our urge to engage our adventurousness by trying to eat unusual, non-food items.
These fun and often funny ASMR videos give the viewer relief from the stifled questions that burn inside us all, the ones that usually start with I wonder what would happen if I…
In return for his efforts, Kluna Tik has gathered a following of 12 million subscribers on YouTube. He doesn’t have a website, and his Tik Tok and Facebook pages have only a couple of hundred followers. Here we have an example of an artist who has found his niche and become extremely successful in it. He doesn’t need a website or social media pages – everything we need to know about this creator exists in his videos; he is humorous, playful, enthusiastic, artistic, inventive and a powerful entertainer.
Go watch more Kluna Tik videos on his YouTube channel. I promise you won’t regret it. And you might as well treat yourself while you’re there by liking and subscribing to his channel.