Logan Paul, as much as I hate to say it, is a YouTube powerhouse. His two channels have almost twenty million subscribers, and he's been featured on multiple TV shows. His main demographic is twelve-year-olds, so he tends to think in that mindset. However, he recently came under fire for something incredibly disturbing and thoughtless.
"We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest..." is the title of Paul's now-deleted video. It begins with him saying, "This is not click bait. This is the most real vlog I’ve ever posted to this channel; I think this definitely marks a moment in YouTube history because I’m pretty sure this has never hopefully happened to anyone on YouTube ever. Now, with that said, buckle the f--- up, because you’re never gonna see a video like this again!"
It was a vlog that followed him and his friends as they explored the Aokigahara, or "Suicide Forest" in Japan, and later encountered the body of a man who had hung himself (presumably that same day). He tried to make a point by saying, "Suicide is not a joke. Depression and mental illness are not a joke. We came here with the intent to focus on the haunted aspect of the forest.
This obviously just became very real, and obviously, a lot of people are going through a lot of s--- in their lives." when he encountered the body, which is an important thing to mention. However, the rest of the video is disgustingly ignorant.
Paul uses the image of the man's hanging body (with his face blurred out, for obvious reasons) as his thumbnail. He zooms in on the man's purple hands and makes comments about how he still had his things in his pockets and how recent the suicide must have been. That video was not a live reaction.
He went through the process of planning a video, filming, editing, reviewing, uploading, and titling, all the while knowing that the main focus of the video was a man who had committed suicide. Not to mention, it was monetized. Logan Paul, in every sense of the word, exploited and profited off of this man's death.
Logan Paul made an apology in a tweet, which can be found here, and a YouTube video which can be found here. He tells fans to not defend his actions, as they do not deserve to be defended. This is incredibly true, and it's important that he now realizes that.
But what I want to know is: how does one lack the basic human decency to see a body and know that this doesn't need to be put on YouTube? The majority of his audience is CHILDREN. Seeing something of this traumatic nature can really mess with children's minds.
You're telling me that throughout the entire process of making this video, there weren't any second thoughts? It was only after the video received a couple million news and intense backlash?
I could say so much more, but there are so many responses from fellow YouTubers and celebrities that say it all and more. Basically, Logan Paul made an incredibly tasteless mistake, and I sincerely hope that all the young and impressionable children that are fans of his are able to take a step back and realize this. If you have someone young in your life that looks up to someone like Logan, be careful of what they see and how it's interpreted. Suicide is not something to profit off of.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
