Companies like New York City Sloomoo Institute Slime Museum and Shop are in growth mode; the business started as a startup in 2019 and reported $30 million in revenue in 2023. Social media influencers like Original slimes and Karina Garcia They’ve built their brands (and huge followings) by posting homemade slime reviews and recipes on TikTok and YouTube.
Slime is undeniably more popular than ever. Millions of people find it fun and relaxing, and actively seek out ways to make it, buy it, and watch others do the same. It appeals to all ages; Gen Z kids, tweens, and even adults make slime and play with it in their kitchens, on their living room floors, in their bedrooms, and sometimes even in bed. All of this messy fun is accompanied by the added benefits of ASMR: improved brain function, reduced anxiety, or easier-to-manage stress related to breakups, work, and family.
From a business standpoint, there’s clearly money to be made. Elmers’ market research shows that college-aged youth consume 81 percent of slime content on social media, while #slime videos from all ages accounted for 360 million views by May 2024. At the same time, Sloomoo is expanding its reach, adding new locations in Houston and Los Angeles.
At the center of this positive push are bottles upon bottles of slime lovers’ favorite ingredient: Elmer’s glue.
“It’s funny to hear some people say that slime is back,” says Nikki Lesperance, marketing director for Newell Brands. “Slime never went away. It’s a new category in the market and it’s now part of our DNA.”
As part of a new marketing initiative, Elmer’s is launching a digital hub dedicated to slime making. The special website, called Elmer’s Creationsis packed with new slime recipes (Mello Mallow, Lightning in a Bottle) and features some new products developed just for this ASMR crowd. One of Elmer’s new products, Soft toysSquishies are soft, squeezable toys similar to stress balls, molded into the shapes of 12 different characters. They offer many of the same benefits of slime: the sensory experience of stretching and pulling, customizable colors and shapes, or the addition of visually stimulating elements like glitter. Importantly, Squishies kits focus on the manufacturing process rather than the resulting product.
When Craig Richard I was a kid, I grabbed a pillow, put on an episode of The joy of painting On TV, Richard falls asleep on the floor of his family’s living room while listening to the soft tones of Bob Ross’s voice and the delicate strokes of his paintbrush on the canvas. Richard didn’t realize then that those Bob Ross naps were facilitated by the calm of an ASMR high. Today, Richard researches biomedical sciences at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, and coordinates one of the largest databases of ASMR research in the world.
Since he began this work in 2014, Richard has been learning how ASMR works and why people of all ages have found it beneficial for managing stress, anxiety, and overall well-being. “We conducted a brain scanning study,” he says. “People watched ASMR videos during the scan. We could see which areas of the brain were most active. A couple of regions lit up and aligned with hormones I proposed, like oxytocin. The love hormone, the trust hormone, the cuddle hormone. It’s released when you receive positive personal attention from a kind or caring person.” In biomedical science, the release of hormones linked to receiving personal attention is called affiliation behavior, Richard says, citing the most common example of monkeys or apes grooming their loved ones. Watching a slime video that triggers ASMR, Richard says, evokes the same brain response as affiliation behavior.