I'm in the UK and certainly wouldn't say I hate her but I have cooled towards her over time. The reason I stopped watching her channel was because earlier I found her content very interesting and accessible/relatable and covered important issues to do with sight-loss, but as time went on she became a lot more "influencer"y - doing loads of clothing hauls and declutters, building up suspense for days before making announcements about her personal life, clickbait, not giving any credit to the people working for her behind the scenes, cultivating parasocial relationships, generic influencer material...

I totally respect her choosing to have this sort of career if it makes her happy and it seems like she's making plenty of money from it, so more power to her for making the most of her opportunities. But it does make her less approachable and for me the "I'm just a regular blind girl"-shtick rings a bit hollow these days, because while she does still face struggles due to her blindness, she also now has loads of wealth and success which has changed her life a lot and gives her options that most blind people don't have.

I will always appreciate her for teaching me I could wear mascara though. I'm completely blind in my left eye but have a bit of usable vision on my right, when I was about 14 I tried to wear mascara for the first time and ended up jabbing myself in the right eye which got infected and I had to wear a patch for a week (so I had no sight at all for that time). My eye was fine but I built it up in my head as "I'm too blind for mascara, I just need to forget it", until I saw a video where Molly put mascara on and I was like "if she can put mascara on with 0 eyes, I should be able to do it with 1", so I tried mascara again and it's been fine ever since.

I think people don't like her because she isn't representing the average blind individual. She gets a lot of help with her videos and social media and has become quite successful because of it, which makes people envious of her. I think it's really nice that she has a supporting family around to help if needed.

In northern Europe, we have the unwritten law of Jante, which sums it up quite nicely. You should never show off your success in any way since that's basically bragging about how much better you are than the people around you.

I'm in the UK too and also don't understand why people don't like her. There's a video that I'll link below which explains why that creator doesn't like her.

One of the most prevalent arguments I see is that she doesn't live an "independent" life and that she doesn't represent them. Which is rubbish because of a few reasons.
First, people say she lives with her mum who does things for her. She actually currently lives alone, and the reason they lived with each other was because her mum worked full time as an employee of Molly's in her business. They also just have a close relationship. Hey, who said you can't live with your parent(s)?
What does it mean to be independent anyway? Like, just because I don't do something on a regular basis, doesn't mean I can't. Not all sighted people live alone, yet many blind people think that to be independent they must live alone and must cook for themselves every day and must do everything on their own and must not ever ask people to help them. Personally, I think being independent is just as much being able to ask/accept help as it is doing something yourself.

A lot of people are saying that her videos are very "look at me, look at how much money I have" which is kind of true, you can definitely see it. But, is that not any big YouTuber with millions of subscribers monetising their content? Does it matter that she's blind?

People also say that she doesn't represent them, but, does she not say at the beginning of every single one of her videos that she is "Molly, and Molly is blind" and that she can't represent everyone?
I think a lot of it is jealousy of her success. Yeah, the average blind person isn't that big on YouTube, doesn't have that much of a following, doesn't have that much money, etc. Neither though does the average sighted person.
Molly faced that inequality in employment. She was one of that 80% of blind people who are unemployed. But, she decided to employ herself and has become successful.

But yeah I agree. Molly is how I - in a way - properly found the blind/disability community. Like, I knew it was out there, but hadn't thought about it until I found her.

(not blind myself)

I'm in the UK too, I'm on the same page. Seems odd to not like someone just for sharing their own life experience?

I know she doesn't represent all blind people, her experiences are not universal. I do think she has a platform that allows other/sighted people to see how she lives. I like that from her, I have a base understanding of the ways *some* blind people navigate the world.

Also her cat and guide dogs are cute

I don't get the impression that there's that much dislike going on. She's maybe showing us a rather idealised lifestyle that is probably not very attainable for a lot of people, but the point is it isn't attainable for her, she probably isn't really living the life she appears to be living. That's not to imply she's not being honest but it shouldn't be a massive surprise to anyone that the lifestyle of a social media influencer is edited for public consumption. That's youtubers, that's what it is.

There are a few things about her we don't really know, such as how she affords what must be an amazingly expensive Los Angeles apartment, or at least how she used to afford it before she was such a massive name. There's also the issue of how she as a Canadian got paperwork to live and work in the United States. But those are things we don't know, which aren't necessarily our business. If she's got a rich dad who's helping out, so be it. I'd do the same for my daughter if I had one!

The only concrete objection I have to her is that on a couple of occasions, particularly once when she was flying from an airport, she's let people do a lot of work for her that I would have made a point of doing myself. But honestly that's a minor quibble, we all deal with this stuff differently.


She has made the disability her brand and if you want to see it that way, you could object to that, but I think it's taking lemons and making lemonade.

What? Is she widely disliked? (I'm American and a fan.)

I think a lot of people wouldn't have a leg to stand on if she'd admit when she relies on other people. I'm not really an expert on why people hate her, but I think\ that's an overview of the issue. Also, people disagree with some of the statistics she's quoted in her videos. Since employment rates are fuzzy numbers around the world how can these people even know themselves?

I’ve watched a few of her videos and I didn’t find myself warming to her. But I’m not a huge fan of influencers in general so it’s nothing against her in particular I don’t think. I’m in the UK too.

I don't particularly like her cause as someone who has RP her depiction of it isn't exactly accurate. Everyone experiences RP differently don't get me wrong it's just the fact that most blind or low vision people with RP aren't as privileged as she has been. And people keep stating or thinking that she's the "average" blind person with RP and she's not. She just a girl who is very privileged. She gets A LOT of help from people to do her business which there's nothing wrong with that but you can tell it's a business now. Maybe in the beginning it wasn't that way. It probably was just about her disability and her living her life and stuff but now it's diverge from that. As people have stated it's more influencer videos now.

I generally like her, but some of her content doesn't interest me (I don't care much for the fashion or condo videos). I know that she has to appeal to both blind and sighted audiences.

This isn't my beef because I don't watch influencer videos or listen to podcasts or anything like that, so I don't know the validity of any claims. That said, I've seen people say that she claimed to need help to shower as an adult, amongst other learned helplessness situations. With her being one of the most visible blind people in the world, it really harms the independent adult blind people who are trying to break down the stereotype that we're bumbling children who need a caretaker to do simple life tasks.

EDIT: Rephrased because my original comment was a really ugly run-on sentence.

I'm not speaking for myself, just for what I've observed over the years. Many blind people feel that Molly misrepresents the blind community. Many counter by saying, Molly doesn't speak for the blind community, which is true. The problem, in my opinion, comes in when sighted people think she is the only source for blind education, when in fact there are so many more content creators/advocates with specialized knowledge.

TLDR, Molly is successful, some sighted people assume she speaks for the blind community, blind people think this is wrong.

I’m fairly indifferent to Molly’s videos. I’ve only seen a couple and they’re fine. I found the person from Life After Sight Loss more engaging, honestly, even though he has far fewer subscribers.

I do worry that these famous blind YouTubers are taken as representatives of blind people. I’ve seen people make that assumption with Molly Burke and with … Tommy Edison I think is his name? And I don’t think it’s because they’re trying to be spokespersons for the blind but it still happens, and they need to be aware of that, because they may be the only exposure someone has to blind people. If Molly can’t cook her own food, for example (and IDK whether she can or not), she needs to emphasize this is her, Molly, who can’t cook, not blind people as a whole who can’t cook. If she does do that, then awesome. If she doesn’t (for this or anything else really), that potentially creates problems for the rest of us trying to get past all the stereotypes.

Essentially, because there are so few well-known blind YouTubers, fame and popularity make blind YouTubers like Molly representatives of the blind community, whether they intend to be or not. And whether they want it or not, that comes with a responsibility. If Molly isn’t being a good representative in someone’s eyes, I think that’s where dislike and frustration come from, not jealousy. Because we potentially deal with the fallout from that, while Molly gets to just keep doing her thing without consequences.

I feel like I’m a bit all over the place. And in the end, I’m pretty ambivalent towards Molly. She just doesn’t take up much space in my head. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m Canadian.

I have never watched her videos. I don't generally watch blind influencer videos. As a totally blind guy who has been blind since an early age, I find most of them a waste of time and kind of cringe worthy.

I’ve read the comments on this post and what seems to come through to me is envy and jealousy. Molly says constantly that she doesn’t represent the blind community. It’s not her fault if there are so few blind people in the public sphere to offer a diverse view of blindness. If she was born into wealth then that is no more her fault than her blindness. All any of us can do is live our lives to the best of our abilities. No one has to ‘do blind’ or ‘do low vision’ the exact same way. It’s human nature to sometimes be jealous of those that have what we want. It’s an emotion we have to acknowledge and curtail to be better people.

one other thing is that she doesn't seem offiliated with any of the bliness organizations which means she does stuff the way she wants instead of the way they want blind people to do things. That rubs folks the wrong way. The bullying thing is not great though, but I honestly know of people who were bullies and had an incident chane the way they do things. Kids an be cruel. I like her. I think blind people need to kind of get off their high horses. Independence is great, but people should not have to live a certain way and get judged. One big part of successfully living as a blind person is asking for help when you need it, and it's not always the best idea to go around asking strangers to help. They have their lives too. I don't travel on my own. I've trained for my entire life and can't get further, plus it makes me feel like I'm going to throw up everytime. I still feel independent, but I do things my way. I pay a little extra to get rides to where I need to go, or get help with groceries because this is how I feel safe. I do live alone though, but I know I'm going to get judged by somebody as giving the blind community a bad name. Molly has help with things too but only when she knows she needs it. This is a sign of strength, but some people in the community view that as laziness and weakness.

I find her voice annoying. I kind of find her endlessly cheerful attitude annoying (because I'm an asshole probably) I don't care about women's fashion at all. And influencers tend to be terribly shallow borderline sociopaths so I dislike them on principal.
I haven't even watched enough of her stuff to know if I have a problem with her on anything to do with blindness, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I did... I just don't like her type in general.

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Name sounds vaguely familiar but honestly I’ve got no idea who she is.

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