Bigger, better, stronger: the United States is the land of excess. In the country with the highest obesity rate in the world, food eating competitions are organised like sports tournaments. Here, life-coaches encourage their millions of followers into excessive over-consumption while groups of men compete to see who can build the most polluting machine …
Nick and his partner Miki are both professional eaters. Their success in competitive eating has made them both into stars. Today, Nick is training to eat 50 hot dogs in less than 10 minutes. There’s even an official league: Major League Eating, which organises competitions all over the United States. Placed 5th and 6th in the rankings, Nick and Miki have joined the hallowed ranks of the best eaters in the country.
Deep in the heart of Florida, Carlos owns a dozen vehicles, each bigger than the last. Carlos and his friends belong to a group of exhaust-fume fanatics called the Coal Rollers, who like to film themselves smiling as they inhale toxic fumes from their 4×4 diesel cars. It’s a practice that sometimes goes so far as to modify diesel engines to emit a thick black smoke that is particularly harmful to health and the environment. In online videos, they smoke pedestrians, cyclists and electric car drivers…anyone that they suspect of being an environmentalist. Coal rolling is now banned on public highways, but there’s nothing to stop them getting together to burn as much fossil fuel as they possibly can on private property.
Americans are proud of their consumerist society. Keaton Hoskins, aka ‘The Muscle’, has made millions by extolling the virtues of unbridled consumerism, with no regard for the planet. Eleven-year-old Autumn has become an internet star by testing out automatic weapons that she has been gifted by arms manufacturers. Meanwhile, Royce’s parents have organised a special treat for his 18th birthday. He’s spending a day on an extreme shooting range driving tanks, testing out anti-tank guns and flame-throwers – at a cost of $13,000.
A dive into the heart of XXL America and the people determined to live their lives with no limits.