Life

People Are Obsessed With This Weirdly Soothing Video Of Cilantro Being Chopped

by Brittany Bennett
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images News/Getty Images

There are many avenues of meditation. You can sprawl out on a mat in a candlelit yoga center, tuning your chakras to the vibrations of a gong. You can plug into your phone for a guided series. Or, if you're the internet, you can watch a video of someone chopping cilantro. The surprising method to finding your zen is uniting cilantro enthusiasts and haters across Twitter. Because even if you're repulsed by the aroma of the herb, apparently you can still be put in a trance at the sound of its stems being smoothly sliced.

I have meant for years to meditate more. It's been a positive intention in my consciousness but not so much as a priority on my to-do list. I tend to wedge the activity in between bigger projects like grocery shopping and, you know, work. The day zooms by and before I know it I've forgotten to count my breaths instead of Instagram notification. And so it's cilantro, surprisingly, that receives my deepest gratitude. For centering me, and so many others circulating the web. I didn't know that I needed this lullaby of the herb but I now welcome it into my daily life, giving it top priority on my to-do list, to help me inch towards nirvana, and maybe even some dinner inspiration.

While cilantro is to thank here, so is Rogelio — the hero behind the professional chopping — and Twitter user @atomic_era who posted everyone's new favorite way to tune out all the nonsense... nonsense like stress and cilantro haters. The story goes that once upon a time, according to the Twitter user in a Tweet, "I recently ... moved to San Diego and got a job at Chipotle. My dad made me originally record this video to send to my manager, so they can see how 'chingones' chop cilantro." Well, dad, now 4.6 million views have been racked up on the video so a lot more people than the Chipotle manager know how to soothingly prep cilantro. I might have been responsible for half of those views, to be honest. I'm taking meditation a lot more seriously now that it involves food.

This video has proven to be quite the conversation starter on social media. Twitter users who commented on the video, which is up to 1.9K, have pointed out that it gives off some serious ASMR vibes. The initialism "ASMR" stands for "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response". If you're unfamiliar with the term, ASMR as described by the ASMR University is, "a variety of soothing SENSATIONS (eg, tingles, relaxation, calmness, sleepiness) due to a variety of gentle STIMULI (eg, whispering, soft talking, light touches, methodical sounds)." It is essentially a shower of tingles that rain from the crown of your head down your arms and fall to your toes. It feels good. It adds a welcomed weight to your eyes that feels like you're on the brink of the best snooze of your life. And in this case, could possibly also make you really crave some cilantro topped dishes.

If you're at work, be warned that watching this video will have you dazed, so be careful not to drool all over you keyboard. Maybe it's best to tune into this mid-day meditation when everyone is on their lunch break. The satisfying snips of cilantro will ease all your troubles for at least today, so you might want to add one or fifteen views to the video's count.

Now that we all have our meditation material for the next month, we can all work on achieving our bliss courtesy of a much debated herb. Not up for debate? How satisfying this video is and how well Rogelio chops cilantro.