Explained | Why a YouTuber's drastic weight loss went viral

Nikocado Avocado, a YouTuber who rose to internet fame for his mukbang content, posted a video the other day that wasn't quite like others he had shared over the past several years.

Before returning to his regularly scheduled programming, in a video titled Two Steps Ahead," the vlogger, whose real name is Nicholas Perry, removed a large panda mascot head and revealed what appeared to be a dramatic weight loss.

"Today, I woke up from a very long dream, and I also woke up having lost 250 pounds off my body," Perry, 32, said in the video to his more than 4 million subscribers.

In an interview with The New York Times, he said he had spent the past several years fooling viewers as part of a plot he wanted to pull off, partly as a way to play with their expectations.

"I have been strategically posting prerecorded videos for two years, on both YouTube and TikTok," he wrote in an email.

Wait, back up. Who exactly is Nikocado Avocado?

Perry, who is based in Las Vegas, began recording mukbang videos -- the food-video genre popularised in South Korea ("mukbang" loosely translates to "eating show") -- more than a decade ago. His content took off as he regularly filmed himself consuming mega portions in a single sitting, like 10,000 calories' worth of Cheetos.

Why the 'Avocado' moniker?

Put simply, he used to eat a lot of them. Perry got his start as a vegan YouTuber, but denounced the lifestyle in 2016, calling vegans "imbalanced, hostile, militant and mentally unstable."

What happened next?

Perry pivoted away from eating vegan foods and began posting videos in which he regularly ate large servings of fast food. He appeared to gain a significant amount of weight and would occasionally film himself stepping onto a scale.

In his videos, Perry is often loud, shouting and cursing at the camera and regularly making jokes about defecating on himself. He has also previously addressed health issues he developed as a result of overeating professionally. In recent years, other YouTubers have made videos expressing concern that Perry was "slowly killing himself for views" or "eating himself to death."

Are his videos real?

In past interviews, Perry has copped to the artifice of his mukbang videos.

"It's all completely scripted," Perry told Mel magazine in 2021 during a conversation in which he also discussed his OnlyFans channel. "YouTube has been a way for me to create a character and provide entertainment. What you see on camera is completely exaggerated for clicks."

How did he pull off his weight-loss reveal?

In his email to the Times, Perry described an elaborate ruse that involved editing tricks and conspirators. While his body was changing, he continued for several years to post videos showing himself at his former weight.

For example, Perry said, he filmed a review of a Burger King meal in 2022 but sat on it for a year before publishing.

"I edited the videos so that they would appear recent, allowing me to focus on my healing behind the scenes," Perry wrote. "I shaved my head so that people wouldn't recognize me in public. A handful of fellow YouTubers also helped to keep my secret."

And that really worked?

Seems like it! Many commenters on the reveal video expressed genuine shock and said Perry's scheme would become part of YouTube history.

Was anyone suspicious?

Perry wrote that he began this journey two years ago, when he posted a burger review video that opened with a monologue about how he was "two steps ahead."

"This has been the greatest social experiment I've come to know, the greatest social experiment of my entire life," he says at the beginning of the video.

He used the same monologue in his weight-loss reveal video posted this month and has since changed the title on the original burger video to "Two Steps Ahead: Original, 2022." In the comments on the 2022 video, viewers had speculated that Perry was setting himself up for a weight-loss reveal. Years later, those predictions appear to have come true.

Is this a hoax?

Some online have accused Perry of faking his weight loss or using artificial intelligence to manipulate his videos. In his email to the Times, he maintained that the weight loss was real and shared a recent TikTok of himself posing with a fan.

"The vast majority of people seemed to have enjoyed the video and are thrilled to see me in a healthier state," Perry wrote. "The comments have been very loving and kind."

Why did he do this?

In his recent video, Perry suggested he wanted to play a trick on his viewers: "People are the most messed-up creatures on the entire planet, and yet I've still managed to stay two steps ahead of everyone. The joke's on you."

"While everybody pointed and laughed at me for over-consuming, I was in total control the entire time," Perry elaborated over email. "In reality, people become completely absorbed with internet personalities and obsessively watch their content. That is where a deeper level of over-consuming lies, and it's the parallel I wanted to make."

Anything else I should know?

Most of the weight-loss video was a textbook example of Nikocado Avocado's content. After his announcement, Perry began loudly eating a giant tray of noodles. He said he would continue making mukbang videos for now. Oh, and there was one other reveal: He filmed the video with a green parrot named Noodle, who had not appeared in any of Perry's content for years.