YouTube video of Japanese man eating bacon-loaded burger goes viral

A video taken at a Japanese Burger King of a man attempting to eat a bacon burger laden with 1,050 pieces of bacon has gone viral.

The video (below) has been viewed over 700,000 times since it was posted online Tuesday by RocketNews24.com, despite a number of unanswered questions remaining, such as who the man is, why he ordered it and how he felt after attempting to eat it.

According to the Huffington Post, the burger was made possible by a Burger King Japan promotion through which customers can add 15 strips of bacon on their burger for a mere 110 Yen, or $1.24.70. HuffPost did the math and 1,050 strips of bacon amounted to 15 strip upgrades.

By the looks, he barely makes a dent in the monstrosity before heading to a bathroom with a queasy look on his face.

However, Mashable followed up by interviewing Steven Simonitch, a 24-year-old American living in Nagano Prefecture, who teaches English by day and moonlights as a senior writer for RocketNews24.com.

The man in the video is Simonitch's colleague at the website, however Simonitch only knows him by the name Sato-san — or, Mr Sato.

More from GlobalPost: Burger King unveils new menu to compete with competitors

Sato is 38, single, and "kind of our guinea pig," Simonitch reportedly said. "If we have some random crazy idea we just say, 'Let's have Mr Sato do it.'"

Although Simonitch wasn't present when Sato took on the 1,050-piece bacon burger, his colleagues tell him "the stench of bacon just filled the whole room. They're probably going to have to scrub out the walls."

Mr Sato helped launch the Japanese version of rocketnews24.com in 2008. The site is now ranked among the country's top 200 websites.

Simonitch said the company had recently looked to get more traction with English readers.

To that end, Mashable wrote, Sato recently shaved his head like this; attempted to eat this; and when the iPhone 4 was released in Japan in 2010, he gained fame by waiting in line dressed up like this.