by Vicki Li ’18, Arts & Entertainment Editor

In 2016, Logan Paul fled to YouTube as Vine, a 6-second video social media platform, crumbled into demise from underuse. Paul used to have an enormous following on Vine, but his viewers grew less interested in his infrequent posts and dry ideas. Since then, you’ve probably heard of Logan, or maybe his brother, Jake, who released the infamous song “It’s Everyday Bro” last summer. The face of a fan base composed mostly of preteens and younger, Logan Paul has posted a video every single day since September 12, 2016. As a YouTuber with no particular talent to entertain his viewers, Paul has taken to filming his life in a video log (vlog), always searching for the next biggest thing to include in his videos in order to stay popular and relevant. From pranking his fans into thinking they’d witnessed his own murder to starting fake internet beef with his brother, Logan’s “creativity” knew no bounds, until December 31, 2017.

Thinking he had done something revolutionary in YouTube history, Paul uploaded a video titled “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest…” His thumbnail was an edited picture of himself in gaudy clothing next to a blurred image of the suicide victim hanging from the tree.

On January 1, 2018, he woke up to a barrage of malicious criticism from the internet, denouncing his insensitivity for filming a dead body. He posted a written apology expressing his good intent and spotless track record with criticism; the last line contained an emoji and a hashtag promoting his own popularity, #Logang4Life. Paul later posted a video apology that was much more sincere, expecting no forgiveness for his mistakes and asking his fans not to defend his actions.

Not all were disturbed by Paul’s “severe and continuous lapse in judgment.” One anonymous NA student was confused about Paul’s punishment doled out by YouTube: “I don’t see why Logan Paul was removed from Google Preferred. People should know when and when not to click a video if they’re disturbed by it.” However, this issue is bigger than Paul and his viewers. The actual people who were cruelly wronged by Paul’s video were the victim’s family and all people who have suffered from depression or any mental illness that led them to consider taking their own lives. Suicidal thoughts fester silently and shamefully inside a person’s head; mental illness, especially in Japan (the location of Aokigahara, the suicide forest), is heavily stigmatized by society, driving people further into inconceivable despair. According to BBC, depression was not widely recognized in Japan until the late 1990s. People end their lives when they see no other alternative to remedy the amount of pain they feel.

For Logan Paul to leech off the hopelessness and misery of suicide, an extremely personal action, and turn it into clickbait for an audience of billions is horrifically inhumane and vile. To post that video, Paul had to film the body, zoom in on it, edit the video, make the thumbnail, and upload the video. His only thought was that making the body more pixelated to provide anonymity would suffice to be respectful. Paul had completely forgotten the notion of empathy; the suicide victim had been someone’s son and someone’s friend, not a personal prop for Paul to utilize and exploit. He called finding the body “one of the Top Five craziest things that had happened to him that year,” and laughed and joked with his smiling friends about “never seeing a dead body before.”

The disconcerting details around the scandal do not stop there. The vlog was up for less than 24 hours, but in that short timeframe, it had reached the trending page and garnered more than 500,000 likes. A petition to remove Logan Paul’s YouTube channel has just reached 500,000 signatures in a month. Paul’s ‘Mavericks’, as he likes to call his fan base, see nothing wrong with his actions. Easily impressionable and striving to be as cool as their idol, his fans have cemented him to a pedestal, incapable of fault and always defendable. Paul continuously pushes his merchandise and his catchphrases, inculcating them into his young audience’s minds. Through his content, he leads a new generation of teenagers that considers the crazier the better, regardless of repercussions.

Logan Paul has since returned from a long hiatus in which he took time to “reflect” and returned with a video that actually promotes suicide awareness, although it isn’t without dramatic time lapses and shots of himself looking contemplative and reformed.  He has promised to donate one million dollars to various suicide prevention organizations. Pushed by internet criticism, his deteriorating public image, and possibly his own conscience, Paul is taking a step in the right direction. But has he learned respect? Not in the slightest. His vlogs from Japan, which showcase him causing a public disturbance in Japan’s oldest Buddhist temple, wearing culturally appropriative clothing, harassing street vendors, and shoving dead fish into locals’ faces, are still posted on YouTube. His visit to Aokigahara was only the thing that caught public attention. Paul continues his childish antics still, already teasing clips of his “return,” which brand him specifically as “a boy” instead of the full-grown 22-year-old he is, as if he could shuck off the weight of responsibility.

The internet forgives and forgets, and Logan Paul’s following continues to grow even amid controversy.