- INSIDER gathered some of the most-watched and most satisfying pimple popping videos of 2018 so far.
- Haters of pimple popping, turn away now.
- Warning: This post contains graphic videos and images.
Whether you love pimple and zit popping videos or gag even thinking about them, you have to concede that they’ve got staying power. The trend continues to flourish online, and the genre has even expanded to mainstream TV with the premiere of Dr. Pimple Popper’s new TLC series earlier this summer.
All year long, we here at INSIDER are combing through this ongoing influx of new popping content, looking for the very best cyst, blackhead, and lipoma videos.
And even though the year’s not over, we’ve already encountered some true gems. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of 2018’s best, grossest, most breathtaking pimple pops so far. Stay tuned as the months progress – INSIDER will keep updating this post as new and worthy pops pop up.
1. The perfect Dr. Pimple Popper DPOW
No list of pimple popping videos would be complete without some content from the genre's reigning queen: California dermatologist, YouTuber, and TV star Dr. Sandra Lee, a.k.a. Dr. Pimple Popper. And what better way to start this list than to highlight one of Lee's most-beloved videos of 2018?
Read more: How to know if a pimple is safe to pop or if you should just leave it alone
As of this writing her one of her most popular pops of the year, with 8.2 million views, is a video posted way back in January. It features a dilated pore of winer (DPOW) - essentially a giant blackhead clogging a single, super-stretched-out pore. Skip ahead to the one-minute mark for the first big squeeze.
2. The "50-year-old blackheads" around the eyes
There's something about advanced pimple age that makes a pop ultra-compelling. To know that a clogged pore hasn't been touched in years, or even decades, makes the removal of the gunk inside it all the more satisfying.
So it's no wonder that more than 2.4 million people watched this video featuring dozens of 50-year-old blackheads clustered around a man's eye. It was posted in March by India-based dermatologist and cosmetologist Dr. Lalit Kasana, who used a simple technique - two q-tips and gentle pressure - for the 14-minute extraction session. Can't get enough? There's another video dedicated to the blackheads around the patient's other eye.
3. The pore strip saga
Every once in a while a great DIY popping video rivals the offerings of the YouTube pros. This video, posted to Reddit's /r/popping community in April, is one such example.
It shows a woman peeling a total of 16 pore strips off of her boyfriend's back, dredging up hundreds of blackheads in the process. INSIDER interviewed Kevin Andrew, the man pictured in the video, who said his doctor blamed the clogged pores on sun exposure. Dermatologists call those types of blackheads solar comedones.
Millions of blackheads on the back from r/popping
4. The ear blackhead that's worth the wait
The 澄熒SPA YouTube channel - owned by a real-life spa in Taiwan - is a hidden treasure in the popping world. It has just 97,000 subscribers (compare that to Dr. Pimple Popper's 4 million) but often features the internet's most jaw-dropping inside-the-ear blackheads. Remember that viral video with two ear blackheads that turned out to be one giant super pimple? That was from 澄熒SPA.
Read more: Dr. Pimple Popper released a 7-minute compilation video with only ear blackheads
This year's 澄熒SPA videos haven't disappointed, either. The most recent, posted in July, shows yet another ear blackhead that spans two separate pores. It's excruciatingly slow going at first as the technician prods the skin with a pair of tweezers, but the payoff at the three-minute mark is worth the wait.
5. The 'extremely brave' patient with bumps on his privates
With 5.2 million views as of this writing, this video is from January is among Dr. Pimple Popper's most-watched of the year. But it's not about pimples at all.
Instead, it highlights calcinosis cutis - the scientific name for calcium deposits in the skin that manifest as small, covered bumps. The patient in this video happens to have hundreds of them, all located on his scrotum.
The bumps are painless and benign, according to a paper published last year in the Journal of Medical Case Reports. But Lee's video reminds viewers that even technically harmless growths can have very real, very negative impacts on a patient's life. (In fact, Lee recently told INSIDER that she's always tried to deliver this message in her videos.)
Watch Lee squeeze and remove the bumps below, and you'll see exactly why she called this patient "extremely brave."
6. The soothing extraction session
If you love relaxing popping sessions, you'll love following aesthetician Enilsa Brown. You won't find gushing blood or flying pus on her YouTube channel. But you will find dozens of lengthy videos in which Brown ever-so-gently cleans out clogged pores, explaining each step of the process in her soothing voice.
This acne-extraction video from January has drawn 7.5 million views, making it Brown's second-most popular video ever. The pimple she pops at the five-minute mark is one to remember.
7. The cottage cheese leg cyst
Perhaps the year's biggest popping news came in February, when Lee announced that she would be starring in her very own TV series on TLC, aptly titled "Dr. Pimple Popper." That's right: Popping has literally gone prime time.
The show follows Lee as she treats patients with skin conditions even more dramatic than the ones typically seen on her YouTube channel. The premiere on July 11 started with a bang - more specifically, with "the biggest" lipoma that Lee has ever removed. But the second episode featured a truly unforgettable cyst, filled with gunk that looked a lot like cottage cheese.
In the episode, a patient named Ronen seeks out Lee's help with a painful cyst on his leg that's been growing for decades. As soon as Lee slices into it, a waterfall of dead, wet skin cells bursts forth. The cyst's volume is simply astonishing.
Sadly, complete video of this pop isn't available on social media, but you can see a sneak peek below, and the entire episode is available to stream on TLC's website. This one is well worth taking the time to watch.
8. The cyst that looks like an eyeball
This Dr. Pimple Popper video from November is titled "A Pilar Cyst for the Books." That's not an overstatement.
The featured patient has massive pilar cyst - a type of benign growth that almost always occurs on the scalp.
Skip ahead to 1:53 and you'll see the cyst's wall peeking through Lee's incision in the skin. In that moment, it looks like a creepy, cloudy, zombie-esque eyeball. (On her Instagram page, Lee compared the growth to the one-eyed character Mike Wazowski from the movie "Monsters, Inc.") The rest of the pop is just as captivating. Don't miss the minor explosion of cyst gunk near the 4:03 mark.
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This post has been updated to include additional videos.