Matric pupil’s ‘tears of gold’ go viral, rack up big numbers

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE.

NOLUTHANDO DLAMINI AND APHIWE MTHEMBU

Durban — A KwaZulu-Natal matric pupil who went viral on social media platform TikTok for crying yellow tears currently has a whopping 92.3 million views and 8 million likes on her post.

Lekeisha Pillay, 18, from Ballito, who goes by the TikTok name “STARGIRL”, said she was having a mental breakdown in her room when she noticed she was crying yellow tears. She said after a long day at school and a doctor’s appointment, she came back hungry, tired and a bit emotional.

“I usually record myself while I’m crying or venting, so I looked down at my phone and saw that my tears were yellow. At the time I didn’t know why, but after a while I realised it was because I came from the eye doctor.”

Lekeisha said she didn’t expect her video to receive so much attention.

“I feel so many emotions at once; shocked, excited and overwhelmed.”

@urfavcolouredgirl #fypシ゚viral #viral #foryoupage ♬ original sound - ⭐️STARGIRL⭐️

Eye specialist Dr Nozipho Xulu said: “Fluorescein is the dye we use. It goes off the tears that form part of the tear film, which is the first layer of the eye. When we put the dye in, it stains the tear film. It’s a diagnostic dye that we use because if someone has any defects on the tear film or cornea, then we will be able to see those defects.”

She said the dye was not harmful and would not cause problems, which is why it was used for diagnostics.

On TikTok, Kayla said: “kaylaaa: I cry yellow when the eye doctor gives you drops that are yellow to ‘numb’ your eye when they check the pressure in your eye so you don’t feel the device touching.”

Mercy Largo: “I saw Durban and I just knew it’s the curry”

Queen gibbs: “If you cry yellow, it basically means that when you went to the eye doctor, they checked your eye and they put some type of yellow dye in your eyes.”

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Daily News