In October 2021, Elvis Mushila, then 18, clutched his mother’s wedding gown and father’s black coat, dressed up and took to the streets of Nakuru City on an unknown mission.

Mushila, passionate about creating content, tore and stained the white gown, covered his face with a black mask, grabbed two stones and started to scare residents within the streets, all the while being recorded.

Having been inspired by some of the films he had watched as a teenager, he believed that by dressing up as a crazy person, his videos would go viral.

True to his thoughts, his video went viral and, on the following day, he attempted the same but residents, assuming he was mentally ill, reported him to traders within the city who beat him up until he revealed his true identity.

Despite explaining to them that he was creating content to trend on Tiktok and Facebook, the crowd roughed him up, leaving him with injuries and pain. He was forced to report the matter to the police.

The teenager did not give up. The next time he walked along the streets, he was secluded as people ran from him with fear, avoided his route and some mocked him. He felt alone.

By then, Mushila did not understand what he was doing and how Nakuru residents viewed him, until on one occasion a mentally ill street urchin fled when she saw him.

“The urchin called me ‘mwendawazimu’ (crazy) before running away. I saw fear in her eyes and realized that people viewed me as a crazy man with mental illness,” he said.

At that point, Mushila found a purpose and his content creation changed from antics to an orchestrated plan to see how residents in Nakuru would react and treat a mentally ill person.

He not only carried stones, but at times a machete and other times literally scared residents by chasing them dressed in the dirty gown and carrying a dirty sack.

“People started commenting on my videos on social media. They found it funny how residents would scream, run away, defend themselves and behave around me,” he said.

Mushila, a nurse by profession, quit nursing after two months to concentrate on content creation, growing his Tiktok followers to over 1.7 million by June 2024. The Facebook account grew too.

At first, he says, he wanted to be famous but made a mistake and his account was banned in 2024. He was forced to start again, but this time being aware of what to do and what not to do.

Along the streets, he met all kinds of people: those who felt sorry for him, those who feared him, those who beat him up and others who simply ignored him.

In one of the videos, Mushila was seen threatening a man with a machete only for the person to snatch it from him. He was forced to run for his life.

Another way he avoids being attacked is by removing stones in the area he wants to do his content to avoid getting hit by an irritated person. Mushila’s parents, who wanted him to be a nurse, had to put up with his antics but once he went viral they supported him and encouraged him to do videos outside Nakuru.

In one of the videos he did in Kakamega, a man poured warm tea on him. He said he was lucky the tea was not hot.

In the video, Mushila was seen irritating the man by touching his stomach and irritating his wife, who was selling roasted maize, by stealing the maize and snatching her jiko.

Owing to the reactions he faced, Mushila found a new purpose of content creation to raise awareness about persons with mental illness and how people should treat them.

He was a man on a new mission; to discover how mentally ill persons are viewed by residents through first experiencing it and showing it to others.

He says he dealt with people of all ages and found that most do not appreciate that there are many Kenyans who live with mental illness and need assistance.

“I did a video along the streets of Nairobi. In one instance, a person came to me with sympathy and gave me money, in another instance, a person condemned me and called me crazy,” said Mushila.

In 2025, Mushila changed his videos from scaring residents to simply just irritating them to create a silent comedy.

Some of his content includes carrying bananas and maize in his sack, attempting to share it with Kenyans and seeing their reactions. Some chased him away, he said, while others ate.

His antics have earned him over 4.6 million followers on Tiktok and over 1.2 million on Facebook, where he earns a living from. His videos are watched by people aged from two to 80 years across Africa.

From mid 2025, Mushila started creating other videos in which he interviewed locals to get to know how they viewed mentally ill people and how they want them to be treated.

Mushila started civic education and engagements through his content creation and by partnering with other organisations on human rights to do physical engagements.