Photo: Drbimages, Getty
Believe it or not, there is a whole subculture of people really passionate about pimples.
Sandra Lee, a dermatologist in Southern California, calls the "popaholics" and their sickly – and yet intriguing – obsession to watch others do the dirty act of "popo-Catholicism." And it gives them exactly what they want – "pops", oozing blackheads, whiteheads and cysts of all sizes, shapes and colors.
Lee, a cosmetic and surgical dermatologist in Upland better known as "Dr. Pimple Popper," has attracted attention on social media, where she has published countless videos showing that she removed poppable things from the body of his patients. Now she has her own show on TLC of the same name – diving deeper into her patients' lives and the personal and close procedures she's performing on them.
"It's fascinating to me why people like this stuff," Lee told the Washington Post earlier this week, saying people told him that watching videos relaxes them and entertains them.
Since its premiere last week, which attracted some 2.4 million viewers, TLC's "Pimple Popper" aired two of the episodes, showing several patients learning their conditions and having various excrescences removed from their bodies.
"I think this will capture the interest of more than mere" popaholic ", that will convert people into" popaholicism "because I think She said that" it's not just a question of "pops" or surgery, as it shows the travels of her patients – something that she does not … typically get to see.
"It's so much what's m … interesting, it's to start with the grotesque, or something shocking or rude to so many people, but it ends up being a happy story, "she said about the series
. Heather Berlin, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said that "from an evolutionary point of view, it is normal to want to eliminate bumps from the skin" because these bumps could be parasites or other things. For some people, Berlin said that popping pimples or watching others stimulate the nucleus accumbens, the reward center in the brain that receives dopamine and gives people "a little bit of fun" . But, she said, to others, the behavior may seem disgusting; in these cases, she says, another part of the brain called the insular cortex is activated
. So why do some people find this pleasing and others repugnant? That, says Berlin, is not known.
Lee says that she realized that there was a market for pop-up videos a few years ago when she created an Instagram page as "a little window on my dermatologist world" . She said her page had not attracted significant attention until she posted a video of a blackhead extraction. People have gone crazy. "I thought it was very strange," she says, "so I did it again, and the same thing happened."
Lee discovered a subculture on the Internet, where tens of thousands of videos
Videos usually showed people "in their backyard or in their garage or living room and they had dirty nails – no gloves – and paper towels, and barking dogs and beer bottles half-open and people screaming anesthesia and things like that, "she said. She saw an opportunity to provide similar videos, but in a safe and sterile environment, so she began to record more extractions and even surgeries. "I knew that not everyone likes to burst," she says. "I think you get the opposite ends of the spectrum – the people who are obsessed with it and the people who are disgusted with it, but that's how it grew too because people were tagging their friends to show them and it's like that "
(Lee graciously advised this reporter to start with videos showing" soft pops "- bumps like black and white dots that do not require surgery – and then make their way until "hard pops".)
Lee gained a massive social media audience: 4 million on YouTube, 2 million on Facebook, 91,000 on Twitter and 39,000 on Instagram
But the decision to show everything on TV was not so easy.
Howard Lee, President and CEO of TLC, told the Post that although the dermatologist has become an online phenomenon, the network's leaders are asked how his world would be seen at the t
He said that they had to have a real discussion to try on our air. "
" We had absolutely nothing to do. We did not know if what Dr. Lee was gaining in life would distract viewers, "he said, noting that in the TV show," we're actually inside like a fly on his desk. "[19659149"Nousregardonscequ'ellefaitetcertainssontpeut-êtretropgraphiquespourcertainsmembresdenotrepublicetnousétionstrèsconscientsdecela"didilajoutéajoutantque"ilyapeut-êtreunfacteuroùcertainsspectateurssontsimplementdécouragésetpourtantbizarrementl'autremoitiédel'auditoireestcontraintparelle"
Now that the show was broadcast, the president said:" Dr. Lee was kissed by his audience. "
Lee said that she's always surprised by how she became Dr. Pimple Popper – a brand that led to a skin care line, a television show and, soon, a game. 19659149] "It's a madness," she says, but she's also "special." "I feel honored and humiliated," she says. "It's intimidating too, because I feel I represents dermatology in general and I want to make sure I represent dermatologists well, it has been a trick, I sometimes have to sit down and remember to enjoy it. "
—
Welcome to my channel! Dr. Sandra Lee (aka Dr. Pimple Popper): https://www.youtube.com/ watch? v = -xGoxECwrl4