Last week, YouTube personality, Logan Paul released a video of his travels to Aokigahara, a forest on the outskirts of Mt. Fuji in Japan commonly referred to as the “suicide forest.” The forest itself is widely known based on several documentaries and recent films that have been made regarding the vast amounts of suicides that have taken place there. While visiting the forest, Paul and his friends filmed the body of a person who had just recently committed suicide by hanging and then proceeded to post the footage to his YouTube channel.

Now, before I go any further, let me give you a background on Logan Paul. His main YouTube channel titled “Logan Paul Vlogs” has over 15 million subscribers with a majority of his viewers being under the age of 13. He has 3.9 million followers on Twitter and 16.1 million followers on Instagram. All of which had access to this video within the 24 hours that YouTube allowed it to remain before it was removed.

First, the fact that this video was even able to be uploaded to YouTube AT ALL is astonishing. I firmly believe in taking responsibility for your actions and in no way is it any less Logan Paul’s fault for being so ignorant as to upload this insensitive video, but YouTube needs to take some form of action so this type of thing never happens again. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “demonetization,” it’s something that is brought up often in the YouTube community because through monetization is how most YouTubers make a living and receive money for their videos.

Recently, it has been a large controversy of YouTubes double standards of which videos are monetized and which aren’t. To me, this video goes far beyond just a conversation of whether Logan Paul receives ad revenue or not but rather the morals that YouTube as a company has and who they stand behind when representing their company.

Returning back to the culprit at hand, Logan Paul, in no way, shape or form, should be let off the hook so easily. After receiving major backlash from not only his older/adult audience but also his colleagues, other fellow YouTuber influencers, Paul was quick to post an apology which he so kindly wrote in the notes of his iPhone. (Yes, this is sarcasm) Thank you, Logan Paul, we are just so honored that after you made a mockery of suicide, depression and the entirety of mental health, you would be so kind as to write what you would call an “apology” on the notes of your iPhone.

What really puts the icing on the cake is that in his apology he never once mentioned his remorse for his actions or handed out an apology to the poor soul and his family to whom are definitely still suffering. “I’m often reminded of how big of a reach I truly have & with great power comes great responsibility…” So basically, all I got from this apology is “I’m sorry I got called out for my wrong doing, here’s all my accomplishments and self-centered gloating to distract everyone from the fact that I am an insensitive, indecent, disrespectful little boy.”

I know to many people, I am going to sound harsh but in all honestly I don’t care.

Logan Paul took a serious topic of suicide and mental health and made it the punchline to his joke. Not only did he disrespect that man by releasing that video, he scarred millions of people while continuing to laugh about “finding a dead body in the suicide forest” with the rest of his friends. If he were to have discussed the situation away from the scene or mentioned later on of his experiences, that would have made the whole situation a little less unnerving. But to sit there, videotaping a man hanging in the middle of a forest, broadcasting him to the entire world and then continue making jokes behind the camera, is just plain disrespectful and ignorant.

It saddens me that this is the first thing I am writing about in the new year but it’s something I feel very strongly about and I believe should not be taken lightly. We can all learn from Logan Paul’s mistake. Suicide, depression and mental health are all very serious topics that do not deserve to be treated as anything less. They are not jokes, they are not punchlines. Please, never think that your problems or anything you are going through is minuscule. Ending your life is never the answer.

Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255