“Dear Fat People” Was Part of an Elaborate Strategy for Fame & Fortune

Lauren Tuck
·News Editor
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Photo: @ibnicolearbour/Instagram

Back in September, YouTube comedian Nicole Arbour shared a video titled “Dear Fat People.” To date, it’s acquired more than 9 million views and the viral fat-shaming rant not only got her channel removed from the streaming site for a short period, but it made her the target of the Internet’s wrath. “I don’t feel bad for you because you are taking your body for granted,” the vlogger said. “What are you going to do, fat people? What are you going to do? You going to chase me? I can get away from you by walking at a reasonable pace.”

Arbour, who has nearly 300,000 subscribers, refused to apologize for her inflammatory remarks at the time of the controversy, insisting to press and on national TV that her work is all a form of parody. She has since continued to incite animosity by making follow-ups including “Dear Refugees,” “Dear Black People,” and “Why Abortion Is Wrong.”

But while Arbour won’t admit fault, she is coming forward with a different confession: that she produced the clips as part of a larger strategy to gain views and, subsequently, cash. "I made a marketing plan behind it, the same way that anyone makes marketing plans for anything,“ the comedian admitted to Cosmopolitian. "So, I kind of loaded the bases, like baseball.”

And it seems to have worked: “There’s been tens of thousands of dollars just from that one specifically,” she said. “It’s changed my life financially.” She’s also apparently heading down to Puerto Rico to shoot a feature film and has “a bunch of really cool TV offers” coming her way and “lots of sponsors” approaching her wanting to “make cool videos for them, branded content for them or ad campaigns for them.” One of those jobs includes pushing FitTea with Coco Austin.

Because of her success, it seems she’ll continue on her truth-telling campaign, delivering good messages to the masses. "The message in ‘Dear Fat People’ isn’t mean, and anyone who actually watches it should get that it’s comedy, it’s satire, and it’s a true message,“ she said. "I get lots of letters from people saying I was right, they needed a kick in the butt. I love that video!”