“Two steps ahead. I’m always two steps ahead. This was the biggest social experiment of my life.”
Thus began the comeback of Nikocado Avocado, a popular mukbang YouTuber, a style that originated in Korea where people eat large amounts of food in front of a camera. Nikocado Avocado, whose real name is Nicholas Perry, has garnered millions of subscribers on YouTube (around 4 million at the time of writing) by recording videos of himself and friends eating lavish meals.
From BuzzFeed to Streaming: A Look Back at 10 Years of Try Guys
Perry started out as a lifestyle vegan YouTuber, but quit veganism in 2016 and started uploading mukbang. Over time, Perry’s online persona changed. He gained weight, but his appearance and eccentricities became more noticeable, and he began having “drama” with fellow YouTubers. In 2021, he said: Mail Magazine He was going to play the “bad guy.”
He also claimed to have begun a weight loss journey, stating in a May 2024 video (on his second YouTube channel, “Nikocado Avocado 2”) that he had “quit (his) ‘weight loss journey.'”
This was Perry’s final video on YouTube – until two new videos were uploaded last night. Perry uploaded “Two Steps Ahead” (above) to his main channel and “hi.” to his secondary channel. In this video, he revealed that he hadn’t actually recorded a video in two years, and that he’d secretly lost 250 pounds while uploading older content as he conducted this “social experiment.”
In less than 12 hours, both videos had racked up millions of views (at press time, “Two Steps Ahead” had over 4 million views, and “Hi” over 1 million), and the internet was abuzz about Perry’s dramatic weight loss.
Perry returned with, what else?, two mukbangs, but not before slamming internet users for their hunger for drama and “stories” in “Two Steps Ahead.”
“So I’m the villain,” Perry declares, “because I’ve made myself the villain. And as long as I’m on the internet saying I’m the villain, you’re going to be consuming these stories about me for years and years to come.”