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the makeup chair

This Cork YouTuber gave viewers an honest look into life with chronic illness and should be commended for it

Sinead described her life as a “balancing act”.

SINEAD CADY, WHO vlogs under the moniker of The Makeup Chair, is a pretty popular lady.

She has:

  • 50,000 followers on Instagram.
  • Over 1 million subscribers on YouTube.
  • And over 131 MILLION total views on her channel since she joined the site in 2010.

She’s also from Cork, which automatically stands to her.

Anyway, the popular YouTuber rose to fame on social media because of her simple, but thorough step-by-step makeup tutorials. Sinead speaks in a way that genuinely makes you feel like you are with a friend, and she’s not constantly flogging stuff to her followers.

TheMakeupChair / YouTube

Can’t see the video? Click here.

However, if you’re a longtime follower, you may have noticed that Sinead hasn’t been as consistent in filming and uploading as she has been previously (and has been extremely apologetic about that.)

Earlier this year, Sinead opened up about being diagnosed with chronic fatigue and how it was affecting her work as a YouTuber (and as, y’know, a human being – something which followers can sometimes forget.) 

TheMakeupChair / YouTube

Video not working? Click here.

Though she hasn’t gotten an official diagnosis (they’re still trying to figure it out), Sinead has experienced such as:

  • Fatigue
  • Loss of memory or concentration
  • Sore throat
  • Unexplained muscle or joint pain
  • Headaches
  • Unrefreshing sleep
  • Extreme exhaustion lasting more than 24 hours after physical or mental exercise

Sinead set up a support group on Facebook for her followers who also suffered from similar conditions, as a way to “spread positivity”. 

As she continues to live with the illness, she decided to give her followers an insight into what a typical week looks like for her.

TheMakeupChair / YouTube

Can’t see the video? Click here.

On good days, she is able to get up and film, but acknowledges that it’s a balancing act – if she does too much, she could be setting herself up a further few days of being bed-bound. If she doesn’t do anything, she feels guilty for not doing so.

On her worst days, her temperature and appetite fluctuate massively and is too exhausted to do anything.

It’s so hard to go on social media and see what people are achieving … And I’m sitting here trying to just do one thing right and I’m failing at it.
All I keep doing is pushing myself and failing. I wish I wasn’t like this. I feel so angry at people who can just stuff and then you feel so sad because there’s so many people who can’t do what you can even do. And then you feel guilty. I just feel guilty all the time.”

sinead Sinead Cady / Youtube Sinead Cady / Youtube / Youtube

In the video description, she admitted she hadn’t planned on filming her “worst” day, but decided to record herself in the end to “show what [chronic illness] is really like”.

Most social media users are savvy enough to what is real and what’s been embellished these days. However, as consumers of content, followers are becoming more demanding of the people they follow when it comes to being served a regular output to consume. It may not resonate all that well with the your average Joe Soap, but Sinead’s illness affects her life far beyond YouTube commitments, as she talks about missing out on seeing people due to feeling too fatigued.

Far beyond white lies and editing, Sinead’s video pulls the curtain back a bit more and serves as a wake up call to those demanding a regular, service like output from people are often just one person behind a screen, and nothing else.

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