- Blind social media star Molly Burke talks about losing friendships at age 14 — and turning to the internet for a sense of community
- After Burke lost most of her sight, she listened to makeup reviews from designers and learned what was “trending” in stores
- Now, after years of trial and error, Burke shows her followers “tips and tricks” for affordable makeup
When Molly Burke lost most of her sight at the age of 14, she turned to the Internet for solace. Now, with more than a decade of posting videos on YouTube, the social media star is returning the favor.
“When I went blind, I lost all my friends and I really struggled with bullying,” Burke, 30, told PEOPLE exclusively at YouTube’s women-only creator event celebrating the influence of women in sports and culture.
She continued: “It was really hard because I’ve always been an extrovert. I’ve always been very lively and friendly and I like to go to the mall with my girlfriends on the weekends and sleep over at our place and talk about boys and normal young girl, teenage girl stuff.”
When that happened, Burke — who was born with retinitis pigmentosa — no longer “had friends to do these things with.” She then turned to OG creators like Bethany Mota and Blair Fowler “who paved the way” for influencers like Burke.
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is “a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina, the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye.” It also causes vision loss over time, according to the National Eye Institute.
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“I thought it was such a powerful feeling that… They didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know I existed. I was just another subscriber or comment or review, but to me they were my friends,” she said, adding that ” made me feel less alone.”
“They helped me rebuild my confidence. And they gave me what felt like an affordable way to enjoy things like beauty and fashion now that I couldn’t see them,” she added.
So instead of window shopping and flipping through magazines, Burke would listen to these creators write makeup reviews and talk about “what’s hot” in stores.
“I would hear them describe the shade, the pigment, the undertone, the longevity, all the details. I could imagine what it was without being able to try it myself,” she said.
Then she realized that the Internet and these creators play two main roles. One is that they provided “an accessible window to enjoy things I could no longer enjoy the way I used to.” The second is a “sense of community”.
Molly Burke.
Araya Doheny/Getty
“I just thought those two aspects were so powerful in my own journey as a young girl trying to rebuild her life and find confidence and build relationships,” she said. “And so, when I was 20, I knew I wanted to be able to bring that same sense of community, belonging and access to other people.”
For Burke, that meant taking everything she learned from those influencers and creating that sense of community for her audience.
“I loved all those beauty girls, but they weren’t disabled like me,” she said. “When they did their makeup, they looked in the mirror. But when I did my makeup, I did everything by feeling.”
She continued: “So I wanted to use the years of trial and error trying to teach myself how to do makeup as a blind woman and be like, here, other blind people who want to learn how to do makeup, here are the tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years.”
At the creator event — which revealed that sports content uploaded by female creators on YouTube was up over 40 percent year-over-year — Burke reflected on her history with sports and said that despite her disability, she’s identified as an athlete her whole life.
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She grew up playing “just about every sport you can think of” and would go out of her way to find adaptive sports. To this day, she exercises several days a week and does yoga, pilates and traditional weight training.
There is no average day in life, but I try to be as independent as possible, she said. “And then I look for accommodation and help where needed.”
Meanwhile, YouTube’s VP of marketing, connected TV and creative studio Angela Courtin aims to create a blueprint for how the rest of the sports world will harness the power of creators through a partnership with the NFL.
“Women creators have a unique ability to connect with people in a deep and meaningful way,” she said. “They’re not just changing the way we consume sports content, they’re redefining who gets to tell a story, proving audiences are hungry for diverse perspectives and authentic voices. This is an invaluable superpower.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education