Nikocado Avocado: How the Mukbang star secretly lost 125 kilos

In a recently published video, the US food influencer Nikocado Avocado (32) has stunned the internet community. Avocado, who has more than 4.1 million subscribers on YouTube, appears slimmer than ever. “I woke up this morning and weighed 250 pounds less,” he says into the camera.

This is of course a joke – in fact, the YouTuber uploaded his last video in February 2024 and then disappeared from the scene. Now he made it public that he had pre-produced numerous videos while secretly losing about 125 kilograms over the past two years.

Nikocado Avocado’s real name is Nicholas Perry and he earns his money by producing so-called Mukbang videos. The internet phenomenon originates from South Korea and refers to people who film themselves consuming large amounts of food. When Perry started his YouTube channel in 2016, he was still slim, but over the years he gained more than 100 kilograms as a result of the eating videos.

The YouTuber also documented (failed) attempts to lose weight through diets. Other of his videos show physical ailments that he suffered from because of his excess weight. Perry’s appearances polarized: some users celebrated him, others condemned him.

But now the man claims that he was secretly “two steps” ahead of the internet community – because behind the scenes he was turning his life around. The video in which Perry tells the unexpected news quickly went viral on YouTube, landing at number one in the YouTube charts and generating over 23 million clicks.

Perry himself calls the campaign the “biggest social experiment of his life”. He accuses his viewers of being naive. They are all too easily misled by content on the internet. Meanwhile, Perry has received astonished and appreciative responses from his community. “He is now healthier than the people who called him fat,” writes one user.