00:12 DR.
SANDRA: I think that people have a strong reaction to pimple popping, whether they are
grossed out by it or they are enchanted by it.
00:20 COMM: Dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee has burst
into the limelight.
00:24 COMM: Better known online as Dr. Pimple Popper,
her videos get millions of views.
And she has almost half a million followers on Instagram and YouTube.
00:33 DR.
SANDRA: I really brought this sort of thing out of the closet in a way.
00:47 DR.
SANDRA: I actually have divided it into 2 main categories, there are soft pops and there
are hard pops.
And there are different people that like different things.
Soft pops tend to be more like the milder things, a lot of the blackheads being extracted
or melia which is like a very superficial cyst.
There is really no blood; it’s really very smooth and minor.
01:10 DR.
SANDRA: People who like the big pops, the hard pops; that would be cysts or abscesses
exploding, pimples being popped out of the skin.
These are usually excisions or surgeries that we do and there might be a little bit of blood
and there might be some stitching involved.
01:24 COMM: A year ago Dr. Lee began posting minor
operations online and her popularity erupted.
01:30 DR.
SANDRA: I mean, it’s become like something that I would have never imagined.
Instagram it just kept rolling, all these people were subscribing.
I just would watch my numbers go from 1000 to 20,000 to 30,000.
01:41 COMM: And her growing fan base soon opened
up a new opportunity for her patients.
01:46 WOMAN: You guys like this then .
01:47 DR.
SANDRA: Oh, I love it, I love it.
You are so good, you are so good!
01:50 DR.
SANDRA: I realized I could figure something out here because if we do these kinds of procedures
like blackheads and melia or cysts, they are not often paid by insurance because they are
considered cosmetic.
So I realized that I could offer my patients’ opportunity for me to get rid of these but
if they allowed me to film it, and then I wouldn’t charge them.
02:16 EMILY: I did struggle with acne in my teens
so it’s kind of like the last little thing that I have to get removed.
02:41 DR.
SANDRA: I call myself a high class popper because we like to do things in a very clean,
sterile environment and very calm and nothing crazy with shaky cameras and you know people
screaming.
02:52 EMILY: I really didn’t feel anything.
It was more the sounds I heard snipping.
It still surprises me that you know people want to see this.
03:00 DR.
SANDRA: What has been very interesting to me is the reasons that people give for why
they like it.
I have heard that it relieves their sense of wanting to pick themselves if they have
that pathological condition that causes them to pick their skin.
They actually will stop picking their skin as much while they watch my videos.
03:17 COMM: Dr. Lee now hopes that her videos will
help bring dermatology to the masses.
As well as acceptance to the thousands who enjoy her work.
03:24 DR.
SANDRA: I feel like with Instagram and with YouTube that people have found that they are
not alone.
People were hiding, you know, in their room at the computer sweating because they are
afraid someone is going to come in ‘cause it’s “pimple porn” and they now feel
like they have this community and it’s okay.
It’s okay to kind of like this and be into this