Logan Paul has been all over the news recently. Paul, the 22-year old YouTube star who started out on Vine, has created lots of controversy over his video he made in Japan's Aokigahara forest, where he showed and made fun of a suicide victim. While this content would be shocking for someone of any age, the video is especially scandalous because his viewers mainly consist of young teens.
This isn't the only reason why Logan Paul is a terrible influence to his young viewers. He has done several other things that have painted him in a negative light.
February 22, 2014
For a video, Logan Paul broke into a woman's car in a Walmart parking lot. The woman was in her car and ask Paul to leave, believing that he wanted to cause her harm, but he refused. According to a press release, "Paul was charged with three offenses — criminal mischief, menacing behavior, and disorderly conduct," and needed to pay a $150 fine and do 75 hours of community service.
September 29, 2017 - Trouble in Italy
Logan posted a video claiming he got arrested by Italian police for flying a drone in area where drones couldn't be flown. However, because of the way the video was edited, many people believe he posted this just for the views and wasn't actually arrested. Regardless, he believes it's cool to show his viewers that being arrested is okay.
December 31, 2017 - The Suicide Forest Video
The video has been taken down, but that doesn't change the fact almost everyone has heard about this incident. Paul and his crew headed into the supposedly-haunted Aokigahara forest, where they found a dead body. In the video, Logan is seen stifling laughs.
The video has received criticism from politicians, celebrities, other YouTubers, and the general public for the insensitivity of the video. There were even several petitions started to kick Logan Paul off of YouTube. Because of the negative press, Logan took a month-long break from social media, excluding the suicide awareness video he made in late January.
February 5 , 2018 - The Tide Pod Tweet and Tasered Rats
With the tide pods memes that became extremely popular in January came the tide pod challenge. The challenge consists of putting Tide Pods in your mouth and popping them. This is extremely dangerous and landed 87 people in the hospital in January of 2018, compared to the 53 total in all of 2017, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
Logan Paul to happily playing along with this in front of his young viewers could be really dangerous. By the time he tweeted this, there had already been many news stories about the dangers of the Tide Pod Challenge and YouTube was doing what is could to stop the challenge from gaining more popularity. Paul apparently did not get the memo.
On the same day as his tide pod tweet, Logan released his first video in a month. In this video, Paul finally got his ad revenue cut after tasering two dead rats and laughing gleefully during one of his newest videos where he pretends to be washed up on a desert island. YouTube said that because of his previous behavior and how this video was on the line for crossing their advertising revenue policies, that it was finally time to give Logan Paul a severe punishment.
