though I love the theories in this thread, I just don't think AL is smart enough to think past the moment. I've wittled her actions into an equation. feel free to add/disagree
feeling = reaction
youtube = food (good feeling)(money)
feeling+youtube = food+reaction
she feels something and she reacts and she posts it on youtube. that's it. everything else is just a "random" happening, which people with her level intelligence will often say. "haha it was so random that I needed to pay taxes for the last decade after evading them for so long. random, right?" "haha, yeah, I weigh 570 guise, but I randomly lost 89 pounds once I can do it again."
basically she feels something and then she does something. that's why we've gotten all of these videos. I'm not so sure how much of a dent was put in her paycheck, (I don't know youtube well enough to determine that), but it scared her because it threatened her way of life. so in a panic she outputs a ton of videos faking that relatable personality and apologizing for being a cunt and talking about how much she's grown since then, (a week ago).
and if we REALLY want to get bare bones with this, the reason she got scared is because if she doesn't have youtube she won't be able to afford the mountain of shit she shovels into her gullet when she doesn't have the camera on her, even with government assistance. food stamps only go so far and I'm not sure how much she'd get otherwise. from watching her vids, she seems afraid to lose her food more than literally anything else in her life. she's smart enough to know that if she splices together a bunch of clips of her every day life she'll get views and hardly have to do more than hold up a camera, but she is not smart enough to deviously plan out tax evasion. at least, not more tax evasion than literally just not doing her taxes.
this is why I do, however, agree that her mentality is stuck at a prepubescent age and that it has to do with her history in foster care. we learn as we get older that we need to maintain our emotions as much as we maintian the rest of our bodies. we can't simply have passionate outbursts when we feel something, because what we feel is of little consequence to others unless they're family, what we feel isn't always rational and because our feelings could hurt others. we learn to think critically about our feelings. AL does not do this. she's purely reactionary. that's why I'm watching, I could give a fuck how much she weighs honestly. though I'm morbidly curious about what her legs and feet look like, I'm here to speculate on these reactions she has. the 600 pound level of dillusioin is fascinating to me because I cannot for the life of me imagine having that many health issues and laughing and saying "oh wow I can't sleep laying down, isn't that random?"