Behind the Mukbang

Putting the con in content creator

About a month ago, I stumbled upon an internet moment that, without the TikTok For You page, would have never crossed my radar. A severely overweight YouTuber famous for his beyond indulgent mukbangs had secretly lost over 250 pounds, shocking his 9.9 million subscribers. If you're unfamiliar with Nikocado Avocado or the term mukbang itself, count yourself lucky. It's one of those worrying corners of the internet that exploits both shock factor and fetish. It’s the kind of thing you’d find hard to explain to aliens who had just landed on Earth, and something they would inevitably see as a perfectly good reason to destroy all humans.

That said, when it comes to content, I do try to maintain a degree of objectivity; maybe I’m just not the target audience. Also, I’m not without my weird content quirks myself. Last year, I became unhealthily addicted to a girl who made ASMR videos. She would whisper to the camera while pretending to do the viewers' makeup with fake wooden toys. It soothed me off to sleep every single time. He may not be my cup of tea, but with 2.67 billion total views across six YouTube channels, it's clear there's a cohort out there who love this stuff, and I’m not here to content shame.

Nikocado Avocado didn’t penetrate my algorithm himself but rather those offering analysis of his weight loss scandal did. In September 2024, Mr. Avocado posted a video entitled “Two Steps Ahead,” in which he removed a panda mask to reveal a drastically different mug to that which his viewers were used to seeing devouring 5,000 calories worth of noodles in one sitting. Viewers were perplexed. Just days prior, he had been posting videos of himself on the floor ravaging enough McDonald's to feed a significant portion of his followers for a week. The story goes that he bulk pre-recorded content and uploaded periodically so that his fans and followers were none the wiser that he was shedding kilos and ditching the mobility scooter. According to Avocado, this stunt was a social experiment, “the greatest of his whole life.” The trolls had taken his rage bait, calling him fat on the daily in his comment section, meanwhile, he was in fact in the process of remedying all the ills they picked out about him.

But despite scrolling through explainer video after explainer video and consuming all their various theories and angles, the visionariness of the stunt is still lost on me. From what I can grasp, his central thesis is: though you feel connected to the people you watch online, you cannot truly judge or critique them because it’s all an illusion. So fine, you don’t really know your favourite content creator, nor will you ever. Lest you find them on the side of the road hurt and nurse them back to health misery-style in your attic. Mr. Avocado is sending a reminder to his viewers: you only know what these people want you to know.

But that message isn’t groundbreaking. Don’t we learn that lesson over and over again each time a celebrity scandal emerges? The child star making family movies was actually high on drugs the whole time. The family man was in fact a serial adulterer and is now running off with a younger model of his starlet wife. It's textbook. Although I suppose when it comes to singers and movie stars, we know they’re selling a fantasy. What we see are mere fabrications marketed to us, and we buy right in because we all crave the narrative and the entertainment. Yet, deep down we do know they are just normal people, just as flawed as we are.

Influencers, TikTokers, and YouTubers, on the other hand, are a different type of celebrity because they blur that line between real life and stardom. We’re hooked on their relatability. Day-in-the-life videos offer us a voyeurism we never knew we craved. Each night we stare at others washing their homes, putting on makeup, choosing an outfit, plating, and eating their food. It's close, it's personal, and that’s why we watch, follow, and engage. Engagement, after all, is what the creator is after. Engagement is the privilege which allows them to make the content, buying them brand deals, bestowing upon them the clout. Mr. Avocado, for example, profits heavily off the eyes on his channels; he sells merch to his fans and no doubt has various other streams of income that would not exist if no one had ever hit that subscribe button. Millions have bought into his chronology of a life that is not so ordinary, a life that disgusts, enthrals, and captivates. In 2024, when the press is on trial for its falseness, I think we can update the phrase to "all engagement is good engagement." The algorithms which determine success don’t care if comments are good or bad. Any engagement pushes your video or post, meaning more people see it, meaning the creator profits.

Surely, Avocado is more than privy to this detail. Love or hate the content, you will have to admit that thumbnails of him slapping his bare belly with the caption “Am I fat?” are a prime example of clickbait. Of course, while clickbait might draw people to your page, it’s not enough to make them stay. An engaged and committed audience is built through personal connection and relationship-building. This approach has allowed Avocado to sustain a steady income from his captivated fans who eagerly tune in to each episode of his unique life. They like him, feel comfortable with him, and genuinely feel they know him. Then, one September day, he reveals that his followers are the fools who have fallen for a hoax. A hoax which centres around the very thing that earns him his money and influence? Is it really an experiment, Mr. Avocado, if your audience are not willing participants? Of course, you're always two steps ahead in a game which the other person doesn’t even realise they’re playing.

The story affects me so much because it is reminiscent of early betrayal I experienced in my life. One Wednesday afternoon during secondary school, we were guided into the theatre for a lecture, part of a series our teachers had organised as part of our Transition Year programme. The lectures were generally from adults with unusual life stories aimed to inspire and introduce us 15-year-olds to new perspectives. There was someone who worked with Doctors Without Borders, a journalist, people from the travelling community. This day in particular, the speaker—a small man with dark hair and glasses wearing an oversized plaid shirt—walked on stage and, speaking in a whiny and defeated Canadian accent, introduced himself as David—he was dying of AIDS.

The hall full of teenagers was remarkably silent. Despite our immaturity, we all knew there was nothing to joke about just now. Our hush was only broken first by the sobs of one of the more sensitive girls in our year as David recounted to us how he had contracted HIV from his partner, Crystal. It wasn’t long until his harrowing tale set more of us off. Even I—more than likely stoned at the back of the hall—shed a tear for David and Crystal’s lives being cut short. The bell rang for lunch at 1 pm, and David thanked us for our time and our understanding but asked us to sit tight for just one minute as he had one last message for us. Suddenly, his demeanour changed; he stood up straighter, his voice became deeper, and his weepy eyes all dried up. “I do not really have AIDS,” he said with arms open. “I am an actor.” A collective gasp swept through the room. We had been duped—how could we have been so stupid?

“But doesn’t it just show what a good actor he is?” our form teacher said to the class later that afternoon. “No, miss,” one of the boys said, swinging on his chair. “He’s not a good actor; he just betrayed our trust.”

Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor because we know he wasn’t really aboard the Titanic, or a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition, but in that moment, he makes us feel like he is, and that is the art. Conversely, if you’re told someone is giving a talk on something intimate and personal, you would be inclined to believe them because you are good-natured and trust others are too. Even if their story seemed far-fetched or a bit over the top, you’d probably give them the benefit of the doubt because… why would they lie?

A conman is what you call someone who deliberately deceives others for their own benefit. David, who went around to schools convincing teenagers he was dying of a very real disease which affects many people in this world to sell tickets to a young adults' play he was putting on which dealt with STIs, was a conman. I believe he was banking on the shock factor of the ruse to ramp up buzz around something that may have been mediocre otherwise.

I think we could say the same about Nikocado Avocado. He may call it an experiment, but I think it more closely resembles a con. He was purposefully deceitful and wagering on shock factor to drive engagement. “I am always two steps ahead,” he says.

“No, Mr. Avocado,” I say, swinging on my chair. “You just betrayed their trust.”