Dr. Pimple Popper has taken the internet by storm, displaying some of the most disturbing content that we simply cannot stop viewing.
Dr. Sandra Lee has seen it all, from a grandfather who lives ‘like a hermit’ in his home because he’s ‘ashamed’ of his large nose to a man who can’t wear clothing because of his ‘crocodile epidermis’.
The dermatologist and cosmetic physician assists patients across the United States with their skin issues, be it a “third boob,” a ruptured cyst stinking like “death” and appearing like “scrambled eggs,” or body bumps oozing “butter.”
According to psychotherapist Noel McDermott, it is precisely because they are so repulsive that we are so fixated with them.
The expert began by explaining that our fixation with these videos is associated with our “disgust response.”
He explained: ‘It’s literally a physical response that we have, that’s connected to our sense of morality.
‘It can be shifted around, like a compass setting. Essentially, our disgust response stops us doing horrific things, like murder or torture, so it’s our moral brake.
‘But it’s not set in stone, we can activate it by a number of things, and is very much socially determined.’
Noel explained that this response in our bodies can trigger hormonal responses, such as reward responses or the sense of relief we experience after viewing a scary movie and feeling secure again.
‘The body wants to balance the horror/fear feeling with a sense of wellbeing, which we can get through reaching out to somebody and holding their hand, and actually, what we’re liking about it is not the fear, but the fact that we’re motivated to reach out and hold someone’s hand and get that reward feeling.’
Noel continued by stating that similar emotions are experienced when viewing videos of cysts erupting or tumours being severed.
‘We place ourselves in front of a disgust response because subconsciously, what will follow is the sense of wellbeing, the sense of being “alright” in the face of something disgusting.
‘That sense of being alright is a way of testing that we’re in a safe place.’
As a result, watching gory videos provides us a sense of health and safety, as ‘we’re seeking the opposite reaction rather than revulsion.
‘The disgust takes our attention, but what it does is tell us to get away from that and go somewhere safe, and that’s what we do – we go somewhere safe emotionally.’
This sense of being in a safe place often depends on being ‘part of the flock’, which makes us feel even more secure and rewarded.
Moreover, the cathartic or gratifying experience viewers have when witnessing, for instance, a cyst explode is also related to the disgust response.
Noel said: ‘We go through a bell curve of feelings when we experience these disgusting things.
‘In a safe way, we rise and increase our excitement and stress hormonal levels to a peak and bring them down.
‘The coming down phase is really important – we don’t stay at that high level of excitation.
‘It’s the period of coming down which is satisfying, that whole bell curve is a very satisfying experience for us.’
He added: ‘And with any of those emotional bell curves, we are training ourselves to manage our feelings.’
That feeling of managing our feelings is ‘highly rewarded’ because we’re part of a ‘social species’, and often want to watch the videos because our friends do.
Noel said: ‘If our friends are talking about these things, we want to signal that we have similar interests.
‘It’s social peer pressure, which links to being a part of the herd and signalling that we’re a member of the group.
‘Even if it’s really uncomfortable, the fact that we’ve watched the videos and can then tell our friends that we “got through” it, means we’re likely to get social feedback, giving us more motivation.’
Some viewers prefer the ‘moist’ side of pimple bursting on the videos, while others prefer the ‘dry’ side.
According to Noel, each of the two is merely a predilection based on the bell curve.
He said: ‘The wet side is the coming up side of the bell curve, the dry side is the coming down side, and that’s a personal preference, whether they like the excitation or coming down of the energy levels.’
Dr Pimple Popper airs on TLC in America.
