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ABSTRACT
Pimple popping videos on YouTube draw a large number of views and comments. Using Critical Thematic Analysis, this paper analyses comments on the videos to understand why these films are so compelling for some viewers. Building on the insights of skin studies, I argue that the satisfaction that viewers experience is linked to (1) the nature of disgust (involving both aversion and fascination); (2) the visual close up framing of the videos (that produces a skin scape distinct from an identifiable person); (3) the nature of skin as a permeable boundary (such that acne is both inside and outside) and (4) the framing of extractions as a medical procedures (involving authority and ritual). Dirt is usually matter out of place, but in these films the waste matter that is pus and sebum is given a space of its own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This is not to claim that the meaning or understanding of “skin” is universal, nor indeed that the lexeme “skin” is universal (see Jablonski Citation2006; Howes Citation2018).
2 This was brought to my attention by my colleague Dr Kat Gupta (who also provided enthusiastic support). Some film offerings, not considered in this paper, are more surgical in nature, documenting the excision of large cysts and abscesses using anaesthetic, scalpels and curettes.
3 Because of the multimodal nature of news websites, these may include links to the videos themselves (see Parkinson Citation2015).
4 This could be discussed in terms of Anzieu’s skin ego, “the mental image used by the child’s Ego during its early stages of development to represent itself as an Ego containing psychical content, based on its experience of the surface of the body” (Citation2018 [1995], 43).
5 Douglas is not the first to have made this point. Thanks to Professor Naomi Segal for pointing this out. The formulation of dirt as matter out of place is to be found in Freud’s “Character and Anal Erotism”(Citation1989 [1908], 296)and can also be traced further back to a toast by then Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston in 1852 (see Fardon Citation2010). For a discussion of the formulation (including further examples of uses pre-dating Douglas) see Dollimore (Citation2001, 176 n. 6) and Liboiron (Citation2019).
6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8-XpiBpno [accessed 8th May 2017].
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36mbeXtL62w [accessed 8th May 2017].
8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aydMTAtHeE [accessed 5th November 2018].
9 While there is facility for conversation among viewers, this is not pursued in this paper (see Boyd Citation2014).
10 To do this, I made use of an online tool (provided by FlexMR).
11 Some comments included emoticons. These did not carry over into the scraped data and are therefore not considered in this paper. ASCI emoticons were retained.
12 Indeed, so pronounced is this power that there are online rumours that Josefa Reina has ceased posting films either because of public abuse or copyright issues. As of April 2020, however, she appears to have come out of retirement.
13 Across the entire corpus, there were 21 examples of this: JR 3; SL 4; EB 14.
14 There is an exception to this below as the comments for the Josefa Reina film have now been removed.
15 There were 25 comments on EB’s video coded “body part”. While some were simple questions, others contributed sexual comments or sexual slang because of the body part involved.
16 Anchorage texts point the viewer to a particular interpretation of the visual (iconic) representations (Barthes Citation1977 [1964], 156).
17 Dr Lee suggests it could be used as a coin purse. A dilated pore of Winer is a very large blackhead that is raised from the skin.
18 “Disgust, particularly when it is framed as contamination, pathogen, or death risk, can be understood as a subcategory of fear. However, although both are withdrawal emotions, their expressions, physiological manifestations, and neural substrates are very different” (Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley Citation2016, 828).
19 The aesthetic dimensions of disgust are taken further by Korsmeyer (Citation2008) who argues for the “sublate” as a disgusting corollary of the sublime.
20 Because of the nature of the data, it is impossible to know anything about the specific conditions the viewers suffer.
21 This may be analogous to the phenomenon of autonomous sensory meridian response (see Barratt and Davis Citation2015; Zappavigna Citation2020). ASMR is a feeling that some people experience watching or listening to particular kinds of media. Common examples include quiet whispering, grooming or other kinds of close attention given either to the viewer or an object.
Capable individuals utilise a variety of visual and audio stimulation – most typically through video sharing – to achieve a tingling, static-like sensation widely reported to spread across the skull and down the back of the neck. (Barratt and Davis Citation2015)
22 Since collection of the data, comments on this video have been disabled. The older comments are no longer visible.
23 It is also possible to find videos of the removal of earwax on YouTube.
24 Though of course, watching surgery has a long tradition (see Kneebone Citation2016).
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Annabelle Mooney
Annabelle Mooney is Professor of Language and Society at the University of Roehampton. Her previous books include The Language of Money: Proverbs and Practices and Human Rights and the Body: Hidden in Plain Sight.