Nicholas Perry, also known as Nikocado Avocado, has become a face of the mainstream media as a result of his theatrical YouTube presence. Under his online pseudonym, Nikocado initially began to post video content in 2014 to give viewers insight into his vegan lifestyle.
While Nikocado had success on the platform, it wasn’t until a popular South Korean trend hit social media in the 2010s that his platform exploded. This trend, called “mukbang,” roughly translates to ‘Eating Broadcast,’ and consists of creators eating extremely large portions of food.
Nikocado would surrender his veganism in a video titled “Why I’m No Longer A Vegan YouTuber” before beginning his Mukbang career in 2016, eventually gaining millions of new viewers.
However, what truly sent the Nikocado Avocado channel to stardom was the drastic switch in Nikocado’s behavior and physical appearance. Between 2016 and 2022, Nikocado gained over 200 pounds, bringing critics of mukbangs to his page.
Nikocado’s mukbang videos featured tables filled corner to corner with food, consuming nearly if not all of it. This outraged those who believe mukbang content glamorizes disordered eating and food waste.
While netizens make Nikocado’s weight the main talking point of his fame, the changes in his behavior are what truly attracted audiences. These changes become glaringly obvious just by scrolling through the thumbnails of his videos over the last decade, it does not take long to notice how frequently Nikocado and his husband are fighting, screaming, crying and throwing tantrums.
Accompanying these changes in behavior was drama with other YouTubers, most infamously conflicts with Trisha Paytas, Stephanie Soo and MoistCr1TiKaL. The drama brought about accusations of emotional abuse, predatory behavior, manipulation and defamation. Each day seemed to bring about a new controversy involving the mukbanger, attracting more and more attention to his page.
Nikocado’s most recent stunt? On Sept. 6 a new video was uploaded to the Nikocado Avocado channel. Nikocado reveals he is “always two steps ahead” and he completed the “greatest social experiment” of his life.
Claiming to purposefully have made himself a villain, Nikocado revealed a 250-pound weight loss that he has skillfully hidden from the public over the course of the last two years. It turned out Nikocado had been posting from a stockpile of unreleased content from before his weight loss while he transformed.
The comment section of “Two Steps Ahead” is filled majorly with congratulatory messages for Nikocado on the dramatic weight loss, but not on his now truthful return to YouTube. Through the newfound praise for Nikocado’s weight, his main point in the social experiment comes across. As commenter @naszrp notes, “Gaining as much weight as possible to see what people say then losing all of the weight is wild”.
Nikocado’s experiment revealed largely how poorly overweight individuals are treated online, as Nikocado’s weight is what was commonly the reason for the hatred he received online.
However, what Nikocado truly revealed in this video was that he exploited himself for fame and in his resolution to his madness, passed it off as a “social experiment.” He describes the last eight years as a “bad dream” about his weight gain and health complications.
Other than the weight loss, audiences were also happy to see Nick’s change of attitude. One of the top comments of the video, from user @kiaralarasatidewi7697, reads “[It’s] not only about him being skinny. His personality changes too, like the way he talks and all.”
Specifically, Nikocado’s new tone and humor were reminiscent of an early Tyler Oakley-Troye Sivan collaboration circa 2014.
Netizens will never truly know if the drastic weight gain was intentional or not. The truth is, when someone builds a career on trolling and clickbait, their words lose merit indefinitely. @NoDoZ125 comments, “You know honestly congratulations, if this was a social experiment or a real mental break. You were able to get whatever answer it was you were searching for.”
It seems that netizens are disregarding the moral grayness of this development out of sheer pride in favor of celebrating the legend of Nikocado Avocado. Despite his discussion of the experiences, there appears to be little discussion so far on the topic of self-destruction in pursuit of fame. Ironically, the audience’s reaction to the video appears to prove Nikocado’s point, that our society places too much of an emphasis on being skinny.
