US internet personality Nikocado Avocado (Nicholas Perry) recently shocked the internet when he revealed his weight loss of 250 pounds (110kg).
Perry had been posting mukbang content, which involves eating large amounts of food on camera while addressing the audience. Over some eight years, his viewers saw him gain weight, share details of numerous alleged health complications, and clash with commenters and other YouTubers.
The twist? He had apparently been posting only prerecorded content for two years while losing weight in secret – a feat he declared to be “the greatest social experiment” of his life. What can we learn from examining this moment in the content-creation zeitgeist?
Anyone can create content, for any reason
The internet and social media in particular have made it simple and affordable for anyone to create content of any kind for platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Motivations to produce said content vary. While many do so for enjoyment and connection, others are motivated by money and fame. With more than four million subscribers on his (main) YouTube channel, Perry is certainly making money.
However, monetisation schemes for content creation platforms reward popular content – not good-quality content, or even necessarily true content.
YouTube’s recommendation algorithm also favours likes and comments. So content designed to elicit strong emotions performs well. Regardless of whether viewers are friends, fans or haters, the advertising returns are the same.
This may explain why Perry’s videos became increasingly bizarre and inflammatory over the course of his YouTube career (with My New Diet As A Disabled Person and Jesus Is Coming Soon, He Spoke To Me being two of the more unhinged examples).
As Perry told a podcaster in 2019:
They (viewers) like when I’m upset, they like when I’m crying, they like when I’m hyper.
The moral psychology of misinformation
With his Two Steps Ahead video, Perry reveals he was actively deceiving his followers in a supposed social experiment in which he monitored his viewers like “ants on an ant farm”:
Today I woke up from a very long dream […] having lost 250 pounds off my body, yet just yesterday people were calling me fat and sick and boring and irrelevant. 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.
Despite his deception, the comments and resulting media coverage are largely lauding him for his weight loss and clever trickery.
In the “post-truth” era, most people expect some dishonesty on the internet. But what’s particularly interesting is how people also excuse – and therefore condone – misinformation, despite recognising it as false.
According to researchers, misinformation seems less unethical to us when it aligns with our own politics – and our willingness to give certain falsehoods a “moral pass” is why politicians can blatantly lie without damaging their image.
The fact Perry’s deception was rooted in his drastic weight loss – something viewers had urged him to do for years – might help explain why it hasn’t backfired for him and his image.
The ordeal is a timely reminder that seeing no longer means believing when it comes to the online world. Perry told NBC News:
While everybody pointed and laughed at me for overconsuming food, I was in total control the entire time. In reality, people are completely absorbed with internet personalities and obsessively watch their content. That is where a deeper level of overconsumption lies — and it’s the parallel I wanted to make.
Hoaxes and speculation
Perry’s big reveal isn’t the first example of hoax content designed to make a point. In 2015 a journalist created elaborate, but clearly faked, evidence for a “chocolate diet” for weight loss that fooled news outlets and millions of people.
But such hoaxes often cause collateral damage while trying to make a point. There is now speculation about how Perry lost the weight. Viewers are asking whether he used weight-loss drugs, with some calling this method “cheating”.
Such discourse further exacerbates fatphobia and the false dichotomy between “fat” and “thin”.
The impact of the audience
While the thousands of comments on Perry’s videos make him good money, they’re far from harmless.
Choose any of his mukbang videos and you will find plenty of disgust and “concern” in the comments section. Much of this is “concern trolling”, where commenters claim to be concerned supporters when they’re actually opponents.
Concern trolls aim to disrupt dialogue and undermine morale. Comments like “I’m just worried about your health” may sound supportive but can be far from it.
Importantly, concerned and hateful comments are not just seen by content creators. They form part of a larger discourse and also impact the way others interact with the content.
Weight stigma and aggressive comments against overweight individuals remain common online, exacerbating the harms of fatphobia.
Commodifying fatness and weight loss
Perry’s content is centred around eating large quantities of food. Such food performances can be part of fat activism and a rejection of shame, but they can also be part of the fetishisation and commodification of fatness and overeating.
While this content can have benefits in reducing loneliness and preventing binge-eating for some, for others it can motivate restrictive or uncontrolled eating.
In Australia, the weight-loss industry was worth more than $500 million in 2023. But “being on a diet” isn’t just about biology or nutrition. It’s also about culture, politics and marketing.
Weight gain and loss have been turned into entertainment, with programs such as The Biggest Loser amplifying weight stigma and fatphobia while making huge profits.
In the modern era of user-generated content, Perry and other creators no longer need a production company to exploit public interest in body-size politics for money and fame.
This story isn’t just about haters and internet fame. It reflects our collective social behaviours, and changing norms around consumption, criticisms and authenticity.
When the line between performance and reality is blurred to make a point, there can be benefits, but we mustn’t forget the harms.
Emma Beckett, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Innovation - School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
