On April 23, 2005, an internet user, named jawed, uploaded the first video to ever surface on the new video engine, YouTube, titled "me at the zoo". Revolutionary for the time, YouTube quickly became an epicenter of culture and ideas stretching across international borders, connecting us all to the viral videos we know and love today. From "Charlie Bit My Finger" to " Gangnam Style", the community of YouTube has grown exponentially to what it is today.

With the rise of viral videos, a new idea of "public access" changed the way our culture views media today. YouTube began what many call the culture shift into the world of no privacy. With the rise of YouTube, our day to day lives became a spectacle. Suddenly our lives were worth sharing with the world. We were connected by similar experiences, similar faces, and similar ideas. We watched our favorite comedians work their way up in views, we learned make-up from our favorite gurus, and we refined our taste in music with each Vevo music video.

With the surfacing of Logan Paul's infamous 'Suicide Forest' video on December 31, 2017, the public began demanding that we hold these "celebrities" to a higher standard. For those unaware, the video posted on December 31, 2017, by Logan Paul showed him and his friends exploring the Aokigahara Forest in Japan - a destination which is a popular suicide location for the Japanese people. Just in 2010, over 200 bodies were found. In the video, Paul - accompanied by his team - trench around in the forest. They eventually find see a body hanging loosely in the distance, clearly a death due to suicide. Paul then scoffs, "what? You've never seen a dead body before?"

This launched a national outcry to YouTube over the content that they were allowing to be published. Logan Paul was at that point, one of the most popular stars on the website - boasting over 15 million followers. Stars like Paul had risen to fame on the platform of 'vlogs'. Vlogs became a way that these creators connected to their viewers. Their videos would collect likes and subscriptions - from anything as simple as showing what you got at a grocery store (better known as a "haul") to the world.

In the days following the removal of Paul's video, he issued an apology - which was later mocked and deemed insincere (as it was). He continued to release various statements and apologies, then telling people he would be taking a break from YouTube. YouTube headquarters then responded with giving Paul a "strike" for his first offense violating Youtube's guidelines and policies. This would expire in three months. YouTube then continued to cut ties with Paul, removing him as a Google Preferred member and stripping him of several conjoined projects with YouTube. Paul returned to YouTube with a documentary loosely paying homage to suicide prevention and then claiming he donated $1 million to suicide prevention organizations.

Seems like everything was fine then, right?

Wrong.

The only thing that Paul did was expose the toxic culture that is unveiled to our youth on YouTube. Before this, YouTube stars weren't acknowledged for the power that they really do have over the development of this country's youth. Vloggers like Paul show and demonstrate to children a type of behavior that is not appropriate. They convince the child that it's normal to act how they do, and since they appear to do it every day, the child eventually thinks that behavior like Paul's is acceptable. After the entire ordeal, Paul published a video of him tasering a dead rat, sparking an outcry from organizations such as PETA. It almost seemed as if this was the new niche - famous by hatred. YouTube has since suspended all ads on Paul's channel.

While most of the attention on Paul's trip to Japan was centered on his mocking of a suicide victim, this - believe it or not - was not the only issues viewers saw on his videos. According to previous vlogs posted that week, Paul was shown to commit repeated acts of blatant disrespect for the country he was visiting. Videos that showed him parading around in traditional Japanese wear, disrupting traffic in Tokyo, and most disgustingly of all, videos that show him not only mocking the locals as he wreaks havoc in their stores but also screaming his name on the streets and throwing store merchandise on the floor. One scene even shows a translator to seemingly apologize to a security guard for their behavior before entering a tourism area for Logan to film.

So, this isn't new.

Logan Paul has been continuously publishing videos that not only demonstrate disrespectful behavior but also almost encourages ignorance within young American culture. It's more than just "dumb videos", the videos are shaping how our young people today think. It shapes how they behave, how they feel empathy, and how they respect others. Famous YouTube couple Liza Koshy and Danny Dobrik even broke-up on camera for their fans to watch. The boundaries of privacy are blurred, and everything seems to be everyone's business nowadays. There's only so many hours a young person can view these videos before they begin to acknowledge it, even in the least, as acceptable behavior.

Believe it or not, Paul is not the only YouTube cultural icon who has fallen. Sam Pepper, a YouTuber famous for pranking others, took a prank too far one night when he and a friend decided to prank another friend by fake kidnapping him and threatening to kill him - all while the third friend was not in on the joke. YouTube gamer Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg - better known as Pewdiepie - was thrown into the fire after he presented a sign in his video that read: "DEATH TO ALL JEWS". So it is a problem - a big one. Pewdiepie, Pepper, and Paul are just pieces of the puzzle. YouTube has shaped itself into a global epicenter of pop culture. It's a place where really anyone can be famous, and with that platform comes these consequences.

We're at the point in technology where tolerance and respect have to come separate from our media. We have to learn to silence the junk that's produced nowadays like Logan Paul and the many others who produce the same garbage. We have to accept responsibility as a generation for what YouTube has become, and we especially need to hold our media to the same standard. We cannot keep encouraging the toxic behavior that comes from an attention-grabbing generation on YouTube. If we want better, we have to demand better. Better from our creators, better from our leaders, better from our society. It's no longer about just becoming "famous" because we've seen people like Paul who reach the level they do without deserving any of it. Stop giving views to these people. Stop noticing them. We have the power to silence them all.