About

Study With Me Clip (俺と一緒に勉強する動画 in Japanese), also known as Gongbang in Korean, is a series of videos in which people record themselves studying or working, usually alone and at a desk. While the main purpose of the videos is to simulate companionship while working, similar to Mukbang, the format has been used in various Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos.

Origin

The earliest known example of a Study With Me Clip was published by YouTuber ^[1] Sweet Flower on September 25th, 2015. The video entitled "勉強動画part1" (translation: "Study video part 1") features a female voice narrating a study session. The post (shown below) received more than 52,000 views in two-and-a-half years.

Spread

About a month later, on October 27th, YouTuber^[2] BlueTingles uploaded a video entitled "ASMR – Quiet Library Sounds." The videos are similar, however, rather than narrating the study session, the purpose of the video is for viewers to enjoy the sound of the video. As of April 2018, the video (shown below, left) has received more than 20,900 views.

Over the next year, the number of Study With Me videos grew. On October 29th, 2016, YouTuber^[3] hajime published his first "Study With Me Clip" entitled "【作業用】オレと１時間勉強する動画."Within a year and a half, the post (show below, right) has received more than 3 million views.

Several months later, on January 11th, 2017, the YouTube channel^[4] TheStrive Studies published their first video, "Study With Me--A Real Time Study Session." The video, which as received more than 195,000 views as of April 2018, is the channel's first in a series of Study With Me clips. In less than two years, the channel has amassed more than 79,000 subscribers.^[5]

On April 5th, 2018, Twitter user @youkou1116 tweeted tweeted ^[6] that a Japanese morning show had aired a segment about Study With Me Clips and broadcasted a portion of hajime's original video, adding the caption "はじめんでてたよお" (translation: "I was there at the beginning.") The post (shown below, left) received more than 100 retweets and 1,000 likes. That day, other Fans of the YouTuber also shared photographs of segment (examples below, center and right).

Following the segment, Kotaku ^[7] and The Daily Dot ^[8] published pieces about the videos.

Pomodoro Technique Sessions

Around 2017, "Study With Me" streamers and YouTubers began using the Pomodoro Technique^[9] in their videos, a technique in which you break your work up into manageable, 25-minute chunks with five-minute breaks in-between. One of the earliest of these was uploaded to YouTube^[10] on April 24th, 2017, consisting of seven hours of studying timed to follow the Pomodoro Technique throughout (shown below).

The trend increased in popularity over the next four years, resulting in many "Study With Me" streams and videos on YouTube following the technique by 2021 and featuring the word "Pomodoro" in their titles (examples shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References