Youtube, Dr, Pimple Popper, and the Human Body

Abstract: Pimple poppers around the world rejoice at the Youtube series, Dr. Pimple Popper, where they can experience a range of different ways to pop something out of the skin. A highly popular series that features videos of Dr. Sandra Lee, a certified medical dermatologist, who squeezes and cuts open cysts, lipomas, and any other forms of degenerative skin conditions. These videos are taken by her medical assistants, while she performs surgeries on her patients. Dr. Lee has gained a mass following as her views and subscriptions surpass a million. The popularity of her channel demonstrates validity of a research topic, as many speculations can be made about this channel’s popular appeal. This channel is a media and communications topic, while integrating other academic fields, as it transcends into symbolic constructions and perceptions of what is a clean human body. The perception of the human body has historically been abstractified and critiqued as a medium of interpretation or as a tool to execute systemic power. Now, we must ponder the current interpretation of the human body, as it becomes the focus of a popular Youtube series. This postulation can be explored through Michel Foucault’s medical gaze theory and Mary Douglas’s cultural theory on dirt. The utilization of anthropological and philosophical theories, applied to Dr. Pimple Popper, can give us answers about how Dr. Lee’s patients are affecting the way viewers make sense of their own bodies through visually graphic material.