If you're not hooked on your phone like a Millenial rat (i.e. myself) and you don't enjoy the frivolous entertainment of social media (i.e. again, myself) then you probably aren't super aware of the events transpiring with Youtuber, probably ultimately bad person, Logan Paul. The shame has totally been shed on him by many, many high profile individuals (i.e. not people like myself).
But if you don't know: Paul spent a vlog screwing around in Aokigahara --a forest in Japan that also resides as a place of mourning, grief, and pain as it holds the nickname of Suicide Forest. While there, Paul filmed the body of an individual who took their life and proceeded to make it about himself, make it a propaganda piece on mental illness. Blah, blah, blah, you get the picture.
It's no shock to us that social media is a very powerful tool. The internet and rise of technology have proven to be a seriously influential thing, and the use of social media has had great power when it comes to social norms of today's society.
With great power, however, comes great responsibility. When it comes to taking a stance on a platform, or even rambling on a platform, there comes consequences. It should be a celebrated fact that with our actions come consequences. Sometimes good and other times not so good.
Nevertheless, let Logan Paul's actions serve as a warning of what human indecency does for you when irresponsibly posted online. Things posted solely for the sake of views, internet fame, or for the sake of shock value and attention, should have been left in 2017. So a general PSA should remind us of basic social media etiquette when online, and also basic human decency for the sake of society and all things holy.
Social media is something that has proven to have easily manipulated our culture. To some extent, it controls the way we perceive ourselves, our relationships, other people, and a multiplicity of other socially construct dynamics and facets.
We cannot get away from it, nor we shouldn't get away from it. We live and thrive in an age of social media, and it's time that we embrace it, but also it's about time that we become self-aware of our social media identities.
For Paul, any publicity is good publicity. Unfortunately, we seem to be working on that mentality. And maybe --hopefully-- that'll change too.