Vlogger Ate Geckos, Poisonous Insects Alive, Died Live Streaming Act

A Chinese vlogger died after reportedly filming himself swallowing poisonous centipedes and geckos alive. According to local reports, the man was carrying out this horrific challenge to gain more social media followers.

The 35-year-old, named only by his surname Sun, was found dead by his girlfriend when she went to check on him at his flat in the eastern city of Hefei. The man was live-streaming the act on DouYua, a Chinese state-approved equivalent of YouTube. Sun had over 15,000 followers on this video-sharing site.

Among the creatures he ate were poisonous centipedes, geckos and mealworms, according to U.K.'s the Mirror. Sun collapsed while the video was still being broadcasted.

A formal cause of death is yet to be established, but authorities have ruled out foul play.

This is not the first time a vlogger tried eating weird and dangerous things in order to gain social media attention. In May, a Chinese vlogger was about to devour an octopus alive and eat it when the creature clung to her face, sucking at her skin with its long tentacles.

The horrifying moment was captured in a video, which was live streamed on a short-video sharing platform in China, called Kuaishou. A 52-second-long clip of the live stream was uploaded on YouTube as well as the Chinese social media platform Weibo.