Molly Burke’s day-to-day activities consist of writing scripts for her YouTube channel, recording last minute B-roll, and assuring others that yes, being a content creator is a real job. She has an extensive closet and makeup collection to ensure that her followers will always see a fresh look. Every corner of her Los Angeles apartment, from her millennial pink coffee mugs to her glittering gold throw pillows, is color-coordinated and Instagrammable.
Oh, and she’s blind.
“OK, so before we forget, I need to get B-roll of my eyes close up for the video we filmed yesterday,” Molly says while rapidly texting about a thumbnail image. Her iPhone’s audio accessibility feature chants T-H-U as quickly as her thumbs whiz over the virtual keyboard. Then she squeals, “Yes! Shane sent over a new thumbnail!”
“Shane?” I ask. I’m sitting at her dining room table, surrounded by Anthropologie dishes — her guide dog Gallop is nearby eating a bright pink treat that matches the dishes. Molly and her mother, Niamh (pronounced Neave), are traveling over the next few weeks as Molly goes on a motivational speaking tour, which means she needs to film a month’s worth of content in only a few days.
“Shane Dawson,” Molly says as casually as someone could name drop a major vlogger with 13 million subscribers. “He’s doing some of my thumbnails.”
Things like video thumbnails, which are the stills you see before you play a video, and Instagram posts go over the 24-year-old’s head. “I think it’s frustrating sometimes,” she says, “I don’t know how important they are. Like, they mean nothing to me.”
Despite how dependent her whole career is on visuals, like posting high-quality photos on Instagram or picking the most eye-catching thumbnail for her vlogs, Molly is thriving. Her YouTube channel has more than 800,000 subscribers — it’s almost quadrupled since December 2017 — and she collaborates with YouTube stars like Casey Neistat, James Charles, and of course, Shane Dawson. And this is just the beginning for Molly. She plans on becoming the “Ellen for blind people,” breaking down walls built to keep people with disabilities out of mainstream pop culture — much like Ellen DeGeneres did for the LGBTQ community.
Considering the scandals shaking up YouTube in the past few years, from blatant racism and anti-semitism on PewDiePie’s channel to Logan Paul’s debacle in Japan’s “suicide forest,” content creators like Molly are a breath of fresh air — but don’t often get the media spotlight.
"I learned a long time ago that traditional media wasn't gonna invite me in their doors,” Molly says about her channel, “And YouTube didn't have to invite me. I could just do it."
Going blind
Molly was diagnosed with a rare eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa when she was four years old. She didn’t go blind right away. Her vision slowly deteriorated for the next 10 years. At first, she only dealt with vision loss at night or in dim lighting. Then she lost the ability to differentiate between colors, and she struggled to see the chalkboard during class. She went completely blind when she was 14.
YouTube videos about makeup tutorials and fashion hauls struck a chord with Molly when she was going blind because so much lifestyle content wasn’t accessible to her. When she couldn’t flip through glossy magazines or browse store windows, she turned to beauty gurus on YouTube. Makeup tutorials are descriptive by nature: explaining why certain eye shadow colors blend well with others, describing the shape and feel of brushes, and detailing what motions to use when applying foundation were all tips that Molly could actually understand because it wasn’t strictly visual.
"It meant so much to me, helping me discover how to love something I didn't know how to love anymore," Molly says, adding that she loved makeup and fashion before losing her sight. She lost friends as her vision deteriorated, and became an easy target for bullying. YouTube beauty gurus, she says, became her circle of girlfriends.
When Molly first got into YouTubing in her parent’s Toronto home, her mom had some reservations. "I was terrified ... I didn't know what she'd do in her bedroom with this camera." Molly jokes that she was tossing between YouTubing and camgirling, but ultimately chose vlogging over online stripping. (And yes, she’s kidding — she was always set on YouTubing.) As a motivational speaker talking about bullying since she was a child, Molly was already a natural in front of the camera. Moving to Los Angeles earlier this year to boost her YouTube career just made sense.
Molly has lived alone before, but her move to Los Angeles will be the furthest she’s lived from her parents. Niamh helped her settle down in the city in January, sleeping on the fold-out sofa in her living room, but plans to head back to Toronto in May. She used to fret about her daughter needing assistance, but with apps like Uber for transportation and Postmates for meals and groceries, she knows technology has Molly’s back.
"If I have to be blind, the 21st century's the time to do it!” Molly says.
Molly is even considering a series of videos where she would learn to cook with other YouTubers, but until then, she relies on Postmates and premade food from Trader Joe’s. “Hashtag not sponsored, but sponsor me,” she jokes.
Niamh finally came around to the idea of Molly as a YouTube personality after attending VidCon three years ago, about 10 months after Molly started YouTubing full time. There were so many people "sharing really vulnerable parts of their lives," Niamh says, "And trying to help other people. And it was just phenomenal."
"I think there's a lot of people in older generations who have this misconception that all YouTubers are narcissists,” Molly says. “They don't see the content as trying to help each other.”
"Do you see your channel as a form of activism?" I ask, and Molly nods furiously while chewing pita chips, taking a lunch break between between shooting. "I see it as an outlet to educate, break stereotypes, push boundaries," she says, "To build community out of the group that is so easily isolated in society."
"They helped me in a way that nobody could have understood a makeup tutorial would do."
She emphasizes that there are creators like her who are geared toward community building, naming Kati Morton, a licensed therapist who runs a channel about mental health, and AsapSCIENCE, a duo who make educational content about science. This is the content, Molly says, that "clearly provides some kind of education or support."
But content on beauty channels — content that people are quick to write off as vapid or shallow — still serves a greater purpose for marginalized communities, she says.
"The beauty gurus were my only friends when I went blind," Molly sighs, "So they helped me, and I'm just one person. They helped me in a way that nobody could have understood a makeup tutorial would do."
Making positive content
Molly’s fed up with the constant coverage of YouTube scandals in mainstream news describing provocative, sensationalized vloggers as “young people who are making content that can be harmful.” For Molly, the coverage only “pushes that negative view of social media.”
But what does she think about vloggers like Logan Paul, whose content is made to get a reaction? Molly chooses her words carefully, biting down on a spoonful of rice while she thinks of a way to say what she really wants to say.
"Be careful," Jake Roque, one of Molly’s best friends and collaborators whose helping her make content before her trip, lightly warns.
"I don't want people to look at me and be like, 'Oh my god, her life used to be so difficult but now it's perfect.”
"It's not for me," Molly says, "It's not what I choose to watch."
She says her viewership is primarily 18 to 24, and she still refrains from swearing on camera. “Even though, at 18 to 24, you’ve heard the F-word before,” she laughs.
"I don't want to promote drama,” she says, “I don't want my life or who I am to be sensationalized."
Molly not only strives to be a role model for her followers, but a realistic one. She posts Instagram photos that have been untouched by filtering apps, and she makes a point to vlog both with and without makeup. She even pokes fun at the challenges she deals with as a blind person, like tweeting about accidentally biting into a lemon instead of a potato.
Tweet may have been deleted
"I don't want people to look at me and be like, 'Oh my god, her life used to be so difficult but now it's perfect,” Molly says, “because that's not reality. It's a lot better than what it was, but life's always going to be ups and downs."
Challenging stereotypes
Molly doesn’t use a cane or walk with hesitation. Her eyes are still light sensitive — she loves things that sparkle because she can still see the light bouncing off — but she doesn’t wear sunglasses unless it’s painfully bright out. Her guide dog wears a harness instead of a vest, so many people think she’s faking her blindness. She even has a video called “Top 5 Reasons Why People on YouTube Think I’m not Blind.”
She’s endlessly frustrated with people who register their pets online as support animals when they don’t really need the help because it invalidates the need for actual service dogs. It took nearly two years of training and $40,000 of resources for Gallop to qualify as a seeing-eye dog. Even then, Molly’s need for the dog is challenged at stores and bars because she doesn’t “look blind.”
“My dog isn’t this fun toy I bring around. My dog is my mobility tool,” she says, “I can’t function without my dog helping me.”
Molly’s had years of practice to adjust to her different abilities — especially in makeup. Although her channel focuses on education and activism, she frequently posts beauty hauls and tutorials, too. Instead of doing her makeup in a mirror, her application technique is purely tactile. In her “everyday glow” video, she explains how she applies blush and eyeshadow by feeling the contours of her facial bones. In a video with teen makeup guru James Charles, Molly uses touch to expertly identify all of his products down to the brand. “It’s matte,” she declares after feeling a peachy MAC blush, “You can tell by the texture.”
In a Q&A video she made in February, she said that even if there was a miraculous cure for Retinitis Pigmentosa, she wouldn’t take it: “I am comfortable and happy and content with being blind.”
Which is why she hates the roles that blind people play in film and TV.
“Every time there’s a disabled person, [the plot] like hinges on their disability, like that’s their whole schtick,” she says. Pretty Little Liars, for example, annoys her because the blind character is meek, vulnerable, and heavily reliant on her cane. Molly says, “It would be amazing to see a movie or TV show where there’s a disabled character and their storyline has nothing to do with their disability.”
Molly is disgusted with equating disability with vulnerability, especially in her dating life. Her Tinder bio doesn’t mention her blindness — not because she’s worried about people swiping left on her profile, but because she doesn’t want “creepy men with a thing” swiping right on her.
“They like the vulnerability, they like to see us be helpless,” Molly says. As if he senses her anger, Gallop tenses up, too. Incensed, Molly continues: “The turn-on is seeing the disabled person struggle.”
Niamh uses The Shape of Water as an example. The villain in the Oscar-winning film gets off on the protagonist’s muteness. “Then he goes home to his wife and goes, ‘Don’t say anything, and ‘Be quiet,” she says.
People with disabilities, Molly says, are easy targets for sexual assault, so she’s wary of men liking her for being blind.
“In most situations, we are easier to manipulate,” she says, “So controlling, manipulative men are more attracted to us.”
She’ll usually mention that she’s blind once she strikes up a decent conversation with a Tinder match; Molly is open about her online dating experiences and frequently talks about them on her channel.
When a boy on Tinder told her that he couldn’t possibly date her because he only wanted a girlfriend who could surf, Molly was furious.
“A. Your priorities are really screwed up when it comes to relationships,” Molly fumes, “And B. You live in Ajax, Ontario. The chances of you swiping on a girl who knows how to surf in Ajax, Ontario are slim to none.”
She decided then that she would learn how to surf just to spite him. She took surfing lessons and made a whole vlog about it when she flew to Southern California for VidCon in 2016, six weeks after the rude interaction.
“How dare he tell me what I’m capable of doing in my life!”
He unmatched her before she could vengefully send him the video. But that kind of determination and confidence encapsulates Molly’s whole ethos in a roughly 7-minute video: People with disabilities are far from incapable.
After wrapping up the day with a float in her apartment complex’s pool (for the B-roll, obviously), Molly and Jake were exhausted. Aside from a break for lunch, they had been shooting for more than six hours. Molly had done a walkthrough of her apartment, a trip to a dog park, gone through three outfits, and with the help of Jake, several makeup touch-ups. They still had to organize the footage and send it off to Molly’s editor to put the videos together, and then schedule them to post for the weeks they blocked off for traveling.
As Niamh walks me to my car, she mentions she is still nervous about Molly living in LA alone — there were so many things that could go wrong. I ask if she’d ever want Molly to move back home, and Niamh shakes her head.
“How can you hold somebody like that back? She’s unstoppable.”
Topics Activism Social Good YouTube
