Dr. Pimple Popper – Dermatologist Films Herself Popping Zits

Dr. Pimple Popper – Dermatologist Films Herself Popping Zits, Becomes Internet Sensation

It's kinda awful to watch a big, fat, juicy pimple pop and ooze pus and gunk, isn't? YouTube sensation Dr Sandra Lee, showed on her tons of videos online how satisfying that can be. She regularly posts videos of herself popping her clients’ zits on her YouTube channel where almost 60,000 people already subscribed.

In Upland, California, Dr Sandra Lee is dermatologist at the Skin Physicians & Surgeons practice and a regular guest on The Doctors talk show, but online she is known simply as Dr Pimple Popper, a moniker she used when she started posting clips of her patients' extractions on her YouTube channel.

“I find this little subculture fascinating,” Lee said, in a recent interview. “I pop these things, and yeah they kind of make me feel good, they’re satisfying, but it’s not like I seek them out.” Dr. Lee offers to pop her clients' zits for free in exchange for them allowing her to post the video online. And she noted that no one has ever refused her offer.

At the beginning, she used her channel to feature segments from her TV show. She said that she first started posting short clips of popping zits on Instagram. She decided to put up a full-length video of a blackhead extraction on YouTube when the clips garnered a lot of interest in December. It instantly went viral with over 350,000 views. “I didn’t realise how big it would be,” she said.

“I was floored to discover that there are so many people addicted to watching blackheads extracted and cysts and lipomas excised!” she wrote on her YouTube page. “Now hopefully everyone wins! My patients get their pimples popped, and my popaholic fans sleep better at night, knowing that those blackheads were extracted.”

Dr. Lee said that she was such an amateur before she got famous on the internet. According to Lee, she has come a long way since she posted that first video. Now, she’s learned a lot more about the video making process and about her fans. She explains that there are two kinds of fans – those who like a ‘soft pop’ and others who will only watch ‘hard pops’.

“Some people just like blackheads, it’s like soft porn, a soft pop,” she told Racked Magazine. “And then there’s a hard pop, where people like more of a cyst.”

In March, Dr Lee posted a 'best of soft pop' video montage has been viewed more than 500,000 since it was posted last month. Now, she plans to do a ‘best of hard pop’ video, and will be uploaded on her channel.

Her videos aren’t only about popping zits. She tries to make them more relatable by showing the ‘human side’ of her patients and having them share their stories while maintaining anonymity. She revealed that one of her favorite patients is a person she calls ‘Pop’, who recently lost his wife due to chronic painful sickness.

“What’s amazing is that what started as a video of my squeezing the blackheads on his nose has transformed into the wonderful feel-good human interest story,” she told Daily Mail. “They were inseparable, and he has had trouble adjusting to his new life in an assisted living facility. He has both financial and emotional stress, and he tells a little of his story in his videos.”

Dr. Lee was touched after hearing the man’s story, then Lee’s followers on YouTube and Reddit asked her to start a GoFundMe campaign, so that they could help him financially. Lee started the page on April 15, and it has already exceeded its goal of collecting $5,000. It raised $5,665 in just eight days!

Dr. Lee doesn’t consider herself a ‘true popper’ though she has posted hundreds of videos, because she doesn’t enjoy watching other people squeeze their pimples without the right tools. “I don’t watch any other videos,” she said. “They all kind of gross me out! When they’re amateur, I don’t want to hear screaming, I don’t like that stuff.”

According to her, she uses clean gloves and a comedone extractor to pop acne.

Dr. Lee advised her clients to use a warm compress and prick the blemish with a sterile needle when it comes to a head. But she added that she can't ensure anyone that they aren't going to scar when they take matters into their own hands. It might also result in permanent scarring.

Apart from popping zits, Lee is also a skin cancer surgeon and a cosmetic surgeon. “People might construe that I’m addicted to this stuff, but I’m not,” she explained. “This isn’t everything that I do. In fact, it’s a very small part.”