Dr. Pimple Popper

March 9, 2016 6:13 PM

A dermatologist finds fame among those for whom watching a pimple explode recalls the butterflies of a first kiss.
posted by DirtyOldTown (66 comments total)

I'll be in my bunk.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:33 PM on March 9, 2016

She and I went to high school together and were (and are) friends. She's fab. That is all.
posted by jscalzi at 6:38 PM on March 9, 2016 [36 favorites]

I'm sure her patients are glad for her work.

Her videos still fill a much needed gap.
posted by ocschwar at 6:40 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Her much needed gap exploded with pus and blood from her swollen...

Is Morrissey writing this down? Someone get Steve.
posted by adept256 at 6:46 PM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I fucking love these videos and I don't even know why. I am pretty squeamish about bodily products usually. I have never popped a pimple or extracted a blackhead on myself.

She really does have a great, calming bedside manner.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:57 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

ASMR body horror videos
posted by Auden at 7:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well that is certainly the oddest visual interpretation of The Messiah I've seen lately.


I'm going to have to bookmark this for after Easter dinner this year.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was introduced not long ago to Dr. Pimple Popper by my partner, as we groom each other after... the fun times.

I salivate like I'm going to harf watching these, but I'm oddly satisfied at the end.
posted by deezil at 7:08 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

♪ Nobody pops it like Sandra Lee ♪
posted by gatorae at 7:11 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I just watched a couple. One with a few blackheads and one with a large cyst. I feel...unsettled.
posted by OmieWise at 7:11 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yep- just went a link too far, and now I can no longer eat spanakopita.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:18 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

NOPE!

Not going to watch that.

Thank you very much.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:21 PM on March 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

People that enjoy popping pimples/watching pimples be popped are pretty high on the ol' list of things I will never understand. As a fetish or in pure innocence, the joy these people feel is completely foreign to me.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:37 PM on March 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

My partner, Lady Quietbottom, never fouls the air. It's the ghost-dog that sleeps with us.

This is like that. I would rather have ghost dogs.
posted by adept256 at 7:39 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I enjoy attending to my own pores (to the extent that I'm a little disappointed that I rarely get blackheads), but I can't watch videos of other people's poppings. It's less gross when it's your own.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:44 PM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm so into this in theory, as in, I love it in real life, but the videos gross me out. I've honestly thought about training as an aesthetician so I could have a part time job cleaning out pores.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 7:51 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am a person who likes this sort of thing - I remember when I was 16 I had a boyfriend who was covered in blackheads - just everywhere! - and eventually he had to tell me to stop fussing with them because he was covered in marks from me removing them. Showering also would have helped him but hey, 16.

I guess I am a dermatillomaniac, I will try to pop any growth that I find on my body, even to the detriment of my body, and I also have keratosis pilaris so I kind of attack my upper arms based on the idea that if there is a growth of sebum under the skin it should be removed, even though I know it won't help and will only scar.

It's an anxiety thing I think - you can't control the world but why on earth shouldn't you be able to control your own skin! The relief it grants is better if it's a big fat blackhead or ingrown hair or something instead of a tiny little whitehead or whatever - there is almost a sense of disappointment when that zit that's blooming to come to a head doesn't.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:51 PM on March 9, 2016 [26 favorites]

I get a vicarious sense of relief when watching these things.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:57 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is one of the ways I bond with my thirteen year old daughter, who is seriously trying to bust her ass on math and science so she could maybe be a dermatologist some day. Thanks, Dr. Pimplepopper!
posted by padraigin at 8:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

back in high school I had like an ingrown hair or something on my back.

cut to the early 90s, 8 years later. I'd toyed with the small bump on & off, but for some reason it felt ready to go.

Feet and feet of dry string-like goop came out over a couple of minutes of prodding. It was beyond glorious.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:11 PM on March 9, 2016 [9 favorites]

I had/have a cyst like that, Heywood. Popped it once and shit flew three or four feet up the wall behind me. I didn't even know how much pressure it was putting on my back until it was suddenly, and explosively, gone.

But it's gross af when it belongs to someone else.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:18 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

O, MetaFilter! Why hast thou forsaken me?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:42 PM on March 9, 2016

"People that enjoy popping pimples/watching pimples be popped are pretty high on the ol' list of things I will never understand. "

I don't even enjoy it, I just can't stop watching once I start because of the fascination factor even while I am physically squirming because it's so gross.

Fixation on skin, skin blemishes, and skin wholeness as a sign of purity appears in virtually every ancient religious text. I hypothesize part of the fascination of these videos is inborn human responses to unbroken skin as whole/clean/safe and rashy/cut/infected skin as dangerous or impure. Ancient texts are very concerned about body boundaries and the ways they can be broken -- food can make you impure because it goes in your mouth (probably your most significant body boundary break); words can be similarly dangerous because they come out. Poop, pee, menstrual blood, semen, all break body boundaries and require purity regulations. Ancient texts FREAK THE FUCK OUT when skin - whole, smooth, inside-convering skin - fails at its task and things (knives, insects) get in or other things (rashes, sebum, pox) get out that way. I swear there's a PhD thesis in there for someone who wants to trace purity beliefs around skin from ancient texts through Roman makeup and medieval pox scar coverings to modern pimple-popper videos. I think it's truly all the same thing and the relief of it is seeing an impurity excized from an important purity boundary. I think that's why it's such a satisfying relief. "Ahhhhh we have returned this man to a state of ritual purity by removing this skin-boundary-breaking blackhead and it was adequately gross that we really truly feel like we got something impure out of there."

Orrrrrr I've been stuck in the house too much this week and need to quit over thinking things. Also a valid interpretation.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:04 PM on March 9, 2016 [32 favorites]

Yep- just went a link too far, and now I can no longer eat spanakopita

Spaetzel's gonna be the tough one for me.

This was interesting, though. I'm on team "yeah, not gross if it's your own thingy."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:06 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Seconding the whole '3 foot' and 'suddenly and explosively' part of other folks comments.

I actually fit a referral to the surgeon for a consult with this most recent one, a sebaceous cyst. Despite having (supposedly) decent insurance, it being no more than a few cm in diameter, the surgeon saying that it is 99.99999% not cancerous (his obvious winkwink way of saying that I had zero to worry about there), and in a zero risk/easy area to remove area that would only take 15 mins of outpatient surgery ("no I can't do it just now, you'll have to come back on a Thursday")...

It was going to cost upwards of 1500 bucks to remove.

Yep. With insurance. Not high deductible. Insurance my wife gets through, I shit you not Emory University/Hospital. $1500 bucks.

"Oh because I guess it is listed as cosmetic," said I. He replies "Oh no, it is certainly not. It's general and necessary surgery, not classified as cosmetic at all."

Whereupon I went home and did the deed myself. This time (round two) it didn't come back. Feel free to pm me for lessons learned.

Fucking American healthcare 'system'.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:12 PM on March 9, 2016 [10 favorites]

I hope "Dr. Pimple Popper" is an intentional troll on Seinfeld fans, who ahem would be quick to correct the nickname.
posted by rhizome at 9:13 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh, and for those playing the home game (perhaps with judgemental significant others) the surgeon did answer my question regarding prevention/hygine causation with "nothing you can do, some people are just genetically inclined towards them, showering (or lack thereof), has been shown to have little to no correlation with incident rates".

So, yea, feel less bad if you get them every so often. It's not anything you are failing to do or doing wrong.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:15 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

RolandOfEld, your health care story is horrifying, and I don't mean the part about your cyst.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:16 PM on March 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

Men Without Hats have something to say about this.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:17 PM on March 9, 2016

more like "health scare," amirite?
posted by rhizome at 9:18 PM on March 9, 2016

more like "health scare," amirite?

Well, if it's just deep enough that you can't be sure it's just a pus-filled mass in need of a gnarly lancing, then yes.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:22 PM on March 9, 2016

The really grody ones (did I just say grody? me?) are the skin cancer removal photos, which both scare me and remind me to ask my PCP the next time I'm in for a routine checkup if I can get a referral to a dermatologist, especially as I spend a fair amount of time outside in the summer, cycling.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:23 PM on March 9, 2016

Once you've seen botfly extractions cysts are cute.
posted by benzenedream at 10:07 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter: cysts are cute
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:18 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

The pinnacle of impurity extruding feelings can be acquired by typing "mango worm" into YouTube, if one has a strong stomach.
posted by foxfirefey at 10:20 PM on March 9, 2016

One thing I noticed, particularly in the videos of older men, is how often the dr. or the patient would mention someone else doing the popping: usually a wife, always a loved one.

I think this is a large part of the appeal of the videos: popping is love. grooming is love.
posted by yeolcoatl at 10:46 PM on March 9, 2016 [7 favorites]

The milia videos have all the satisfaction but less of the gross. Also, TIL what that huge blackhead I squeezed out from behind my mother's ear years ago would be called (dilated pore of winer ftw!) Thanks, Dr. Pimple Popper!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:47 PM on March 9, 2016

My poor husband has to put up with me attacking the ingrown hairs on his belly, where the waistband of his pants rubs. I find it strangely satisfying, especially when I'm having anxiety issues.
posted by sarcasticah at 10:56 PM on March 9, 2016

When her patients sign the release, do they know that their videos will be viewed millions of times for purposes unrelated to medical education?

Because if that isn't made completely clear up-front, it feels pretty exploitative to me.
posted by delight at 12:12 AM on March 10, 2016

Are you sure you're William S. Burroughs?
posted by univac at 12:50 AM on March 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I thought I would find this interesting because popping my own infrequent zits is kind of satisfying in a bubble wrap kind of way.

However, ABSOLUTE HORROR OMG.
posted by univac at 12:55 AM on March 10, 2016

I tried watching the video embedded in the article

not enough nope in the world
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:25 AM on March 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Related previous post
posted by TedW at 6:12 AM on March 10, 2016

Eyebrows McGee: "Fixation on skin, skin blemishes, and skin wholeness as a sign of purity appears in virtually every ancient religious text. I hypothesize part of the fascination of these videos is inborn human responses to unbroken skin as whole/clean/safe and rashy/cut/infected skin as dangerous or impure. Ancient texts are very concerned about body boundaries and the ways they can be broken -- food can make you impure because it goes in your mouth (probably your most significant body boundary break); words can be similarly dangerous because they come out. Poop, pee, menstrual blood, semen, all break body boundaries and require purity regulations. Ancient texts FREAK THE FUCK OUT when skin - whole, smooth, inside-convering skin - fails at its task and things (knives, insects) get in or other things (rashes, sebum, pox) get out that way. I swear there's a PhD thesis in there for someone who wants to trace purity beliefs around skin from ancient texts through Roman makeup and medieval pox scar coverings to modern pimple-popper videos. I think it's truly all the same thing and the relief of it is seeing an impurity excized from an important purity boundary. I think that's why it's such a satisfying relief. "Ahhhhh we have returned this man to a state of ritual purity by removing this skin-boundary-breaking blackhead and it was adequately gross that we really truly feel like we got something impure out of there.""

I realize that this is deep into your wheelhouse and well out of any of mine, but one thing that really made an impression on me reading the book of Job is that while Job gets progressively more bummed as God gets bandits to take all his shit, kill his children, scatter whats left of the community he is responsible for - and then gets pretty upset when his friends get all super judgey and God racks him with terrible pain - he only really breaks when God makes him gross. Like, his lament really gets super dark only when God makes him nasty, making his breath rank and covering him with hideous sores that make children flee.
posted by Blasdelb at 6:18 AM on March 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

For me, something that makes Dr. Lee's videos stand out is the combination of her professionalism and her pleasant demeanor.

This isn't some gross dudebro detonating his cyst into the bathroom mirror on a cell phone cam and then exuberantly swearing about it.

This is an actual doctor who uses anesthetic, proper sanitary procedures, controlled techniques, etc. And she's so damned comforting and relaxing. The overall effect is less, "Let's wallow in this disgusting thing!" than it is, "Do not worry: even this disgusting thing can be neutralized in the hands of a trained physician."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:46 AM on March 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yes. Also, Dr. Lee uses good lighting, some kind of non-headache inducing stabilization, and keeps the pimple centred in frame.

That said, it would be cool if she had some wandering dogs and bratty kids to fill out the soundtrack.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:40 AM on March 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

This isn't some gross dudebro detonating his cyst into the bathroom mirror on a cell phone cam and then exuberantly swearing about it.

This is an actual doctor who uses anesthetic, proper sanitary procedures, controlled techniques, etc. And she's so damned comforting and relaxing. The overall effect is less, "Let's wallow in this disgusting thing!"

and...

That said, it would be cool if she had some wandering dogs and bratty kids to fill out the soundtrack.

Emphasis mine.

So, uh... well... I know these are just two observations among many about the nature of the types of these videos and their myriad of presentations on the internet. I do. But I mean, what do you want out of these people who are dealing with these body issues? I guess a fair request might be for them not to post them on youtube but, much like posts on the blue that are about posts that aren't actually offensive or wrong but may not really be to every persons's taste [like this one even], even as they are you could actually just not watch them and move on.

Or are you saying they should be more professional with the[ir] cinematography and staging and, as was literally said, soundtrack while fucking performing amateur invasive surgery on themselves (or their friend/family member)?

I mean, shit, as I said above, this is something folks (even with healthcare "protections" that they and their employer pay for) have to deal with when it is not a logical/sensible/practical decision or possibility to dump one to two thousand dollars into a solution like that provided by the M.D. in the videos linked. Folks that use this site even.

I'm not actually up in arms here, though it may sound like it, but as I mentioned, it fucking sucks to be alone and scared in a bathroom with a razor blade, tweezers, some rubbing alcohol/gauze, a fuck ton of toilet paper in the dead of night while the wife and kiddo are asleep (so that you don't stress them out or bother them and can actually focus on not somehow permanently scarring (which will probably happen anyway, even in a best case scenario) or harming yourself) while praying that you don't need to suture anything and wondering if you missed anything helpful from watching videos of both professionals and amateurs doing what you are about to undertake on your own and with only one free hand to do it with no less. Because that $1500 bucks just can't feasibly be found right now and this thing has to be dealt with somehow or the other.

If folks can find someone to help them with this issue, be a nurse while they do it themselves, or just hold a cell phone and giggle and act as sort of a safety mechanism in case they pass out or slice an artery or god knows what, power to them. Having been there and having needed relief, I won't judge them.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:08 AM on March 10, 2016

Whoa, whoa, whoa, RolandOfEld... I'm (and the first pull quote was mine, though not the second) not criticizing people for extracting their blackheads, popping their own pimples, lancing their own boils or what have you. As long as health care is so exorbitantly expensive in this world, that will remain a thing and I totally get that

I'm just saying it's less satisfying to watch as a YouTube product. Is that hard to understand? Pretty much any time there is a YouTube video of a pimple popping, cyst pop, whatever, it's being presented for entertainment value. Is it so odd that trained professionals might make a product that is more successful at that?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:39 AM on March 10, 2016

I'm not criticizing the budgets of people with DIY videos. I'm pointing out that watching a dermatologist work in proper conditions casts the entire thing in a different light. It takes it from, "HOLY SHIT! GROSS!" to "Unseemly thing defeated by science and medicine."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:44 AM on March 10, 2016

No, I get you, like I said, I'm probably not as up in arms as you think I am. It's just that the kneejerk categorization of non-M.D. content creators in this case as 'gross dudebro' is maybe a bit of an unseemly way to go about a topic that is already fraught with shame and difficulty that can be a bit hard to understand because of the ick factor involved.

Firstworld cyst problems I suppose.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:15 AM on March 10, 2016

Yeah, easy Roland. I'm shitting on the production values in home made pimple popping videos...that's mean't be sort of silly (and hoping to demonstrate some familiarity and affection for said amateur art form)
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:27 AM on March 10, 2016

the kneejerk categorization of non-M.D. content creators

That isn't knee-jerk at all. I still don't think you're following me. Maybe you just haven't watched as many of these videos as (rather shamefully) I have. I'm *not* saying popping your own pimples makes you a gross dudebro who should just pony up and hire a professional. I'm saying that the videos on YouTube (submitted for entertainment value) of said poppings do not represent a broad cross section of the totality of people performing DIY healthcare. Mostly, they're a lot of appallingly unsanitary pops done by people shouting swear words and whooping.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:29 AM on March 10, 2016

I mean, I once popped a dilated pore of winer on my stomach that left a hole you could have stuffed a blueberry into and I don't consider myself a disgusting dudebro. But then, I didn't film it in shaky portrait video on an iPhone while my drunk friends looked on yelling, "OHHHHHHHHHHH SHHHHHIIIIIIIITTTTT!" and then post it on YouTube under the title "SICKEST PIMPLE POP EVAR!!!1!!"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:34 AM on March 10, 2016

Though admittedly, I would, in fact, also watch that video. It wouldn't be as satisfying as watching Dr. Lee do it, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 AM on March 10, 2016

Maybe you just haven't watched as many of these videos as (rather shamefully) I have.

Let me tell you, when you're going into things knowing you're next and in the driver's seat and don't want to fuck up you consume as much information as you can, like it or not, to learn what you can about how to deal with the upcoming gore. So, I won't get into a pissing match as to who has watched more of these videos but this isn't necessarily as unfair of a match as you think it may be.

And I honestly do get what y'all are saying with regards to mentioning bratty kids and numerous dogs and how that compares to the clinical setting and bedside manner of the Doc's videos. I just think it's kinda easy to see how that's not all that far from a disposition to point and laugh at the plebes that don't know any better because look how unsafe and uncultured they are with their methods, grainy videos, and foul language.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:39 AM on March 10, 2016

No one at all has said anything remotely resembling, "HA! HA! Plebs can't afford a doctor." The assertion being made is that seeing these skin issues dealt with conclusively in a calm, clinical setting rather than attacked haphazardly at home while laughing at how gross they are provides a more relaxing, comforting viewing experience.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:44 AM on March 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

No one at all has said anything remotely resembling, "HA! HA! Plebs can't afford a doctor."

I agree. If someone thinks I brought that strawman to the discussion then I hope I can communicate better in the future.

The assertion being made is that seeing these skin issues dealt with conclusively in a calm, clinical setting rather than attacked DIY at home while laughing at how gross they are provides a more relaxing, comforting viewing experience.

I find that a much better, and significantly different (hence my comments and concerns above), way of putting things than what was said in your comment here. I think the lack of the use of the words 'gross dudebro', among other differences, makes a world of difference. Thanks for clarifying.
posted by RolandOfEld at 9:52 AM on March 10, 2016

As a gross dudebro I am hella offended.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 10:42 AM on March 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

OHHHH SHHHHHIIIIIIIT, BRO.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:43 AM on March 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I salivate like I'm going to harf watching these

Ditto. Why is that??
posted by progosk at 12:42 PM on March 10, 2016

"Like, his lament really gets super dark only when God makes him nasty, making his breath rank and covering him with hideous sores that make children flee."

Oh, for sure. Whenever the Bible wants to signal SHIT JUST GOT REAL, it goes for the skin problems. Boils are one of the 10 plagues visited on Pharoah and the Egyptians by Moses; Jesus heals multiple lepers; Leviticus 13 is FIFTY-NINE VERSES on skin diseases and exactly how purity-defiling various forms of skin diseases are. (Leviticus 12 is purification after childbirth and it's over in 8 verses, lickety-split.) And of course that's not the only section in the Torah on skin diseases, just the longest continuous bit.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:00 PM on March 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Whenever the Bible wants to signal SHIT JUST GOT REAL, it goes for the skin problems.

Translated: "PEOPLE WILL KNOW"
posted by rhizome at 1:05 PM on March 10, 2016

Well, it makes sense. Everyone gets skin blemishes but astonishingly few are smote from the heavens.

I mean it doesn't even make a good verse "And the LORD said "GO INSIDE OR SOMETHING JUST NOT UNDER A TREE" - pretty much wraps it up.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:46 PM on March 10, 2016

I always thought it was unfair that Moses' sister, Miriam, gets a horrible skin disease for disapproving of Moses' new wife, a Midianite while Aaron, the Golden Calf crafter, gets a priesthood for him and his descendants. Not even a pimple! What a punk.
posted by jadepearl at 4:31 PM on March 10, 2016

I feel like the enjoyment I get watching these videos is kind of the opposite of trypophobia. Trypophilia, maybe?
posted by MsMolly at 7:56 PM on March 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

That embedded video made me hyperventilate (not with pleasure). Aaaaaaaaaaaa!
posted by Omnomnom at 7:59 AM on March 11, 2016