Some things should not be made public. If we haven’t learned that already from Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, we may be able to learn such from famous Youtuber and influencer, Logan Paul. He describes himself in his YouTube bio as a “24-year-old kid in Hollywood making crazy daily Vlogs!”
Logan got himself into a slew of trouble after vlogging in a Japanese forest where he panned the camera over to a suicide victim hanging from a tree. As stated in a HuffPost article, Logan walked up to the body with his friends laughing, saying things like “Yo, are you alive? Are you f*cking with us?” (Cook). Logan’s first vlog, appropriately titled, “MY FIRST VLOG,” was published 3 years ago. Since then, Logan has built up a following of a fairly young demographic. He is wildly recognized as an entertainer for children currently and that’s what I personally knew him (and unfortunately, still do know him) as. A Mashable article describes Logan’s interview on Good Morning America where interviewer Michael Stahan asks Logan if he “realizes the age of [his] audience,” adding that “his own kids know the vlogger,” (Koerber). Even if Logan Paul’s audience were older, the content her put out when he published that vlog was wildly inappropriate and insensitive. What upset people most about the vlog was the fact that he does have a fairly young audience demographic. Children and young adults are impressionable and without a doubt look up to Logan as a role model. The message he sends out to his audience is anything but admirable, though, even aside from this one specific instance. Scrolling through Logan’s video section of his YouTube channel, it’s clear to see that he is not catering to a young audience whatsoever. His video’s thumbnails include images of pouring alcohol into the mouth of a half-naked woman, multiple images of Logan shirtless, some of him next to barely clothed women, and even some of him sniffing undisclosed substances with his eyes rolled back in his head as if he’s doing drugs. Though Logan posted that horridly scarring video of a victim’s body hanging from a tree, he has clearly made a major comeback. He recently even fought against another Youtuber, KSI, which was a widely covered event by sites like CBS Sports, Entertainment Tonight, and the Washington Post. So, where and when did Logan comeback? Even after 750,000 people signed varying petitions to remove him from YouTube entirely, Logan posted an apology video that seemingly magically reversed his initial exile. The video, merely titled “So Sorry.” Was posted on January 8th, 2018, just a few days after his initial video’s posting. The comments on this video are mostly jokes about how weak Logan is, especially in relation to his recent fight. This YouTube horror story relates closely to the story outlined in chapter 6 of Ronson’s novel, titled “Doing Something Good.” In this chapter, Ronson tells Adria Richards’ story of a tweet she posted exposing two men sitting behind her at a work conference who made a joke about “forking repo’s in a sexual way and ‘big’ dongles” (Ronson 114). The men identified in the picture Adria posted were reprimanded, one was even immediately fired from his job (116). The similarities between Logan Paul’s video and Adria Richard’s tweet exposing the men lie in the fact that these jokes and comments could have gone undetected had nobody published them. The fact that the men were exposed in both platforms is what led to their downfall. My hope for the world is that people think very carefully about what they post in such a public and exposed world. We must learn from the people who embarrass themselves by acting insensitively on a public platform and we must be better than how these people have acted.
7 Comments
11/14/2019 07:52:31 am
I never particularly followed any youtubers but I do remember seeing Logan Paul and his brother on Vine almost five years ago. That being said, I saw when this video made it into mainstream news and I was appalled by his insensitivity. Suicide is such a large epidemic and he has a large following of young people. I think the media response was justified. He did a horrible act and deserved to be reprimanded.
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meg
11/14/2019 09:19:13 am
I think it is crazy that he was able to post something like that and have it blow over so quickly. I remember everyone being enraged when seeing the video he posted and so many people talking about how he was "canceled" but did it really negatively impact him? It made people who didn't even know him more aware and he still is pretty successful.
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Kendall Hubbard
11/14/2019 09:30:47 am
I remember when this happened, and I felt physically ill when I saw the clip from that video. I always wondered how someone could even begin to think that was okay to show, and couldn't wrap my mind around it. Then a few months later, Shane Dawson made a docuseries about Logan's brother, Jake, and talked a lot about sociopathic tendencies. Logan actually admitted in the series that he has these tendencies, which makes complete sense as to why he would he able to edit and post a video like that. The man just doesn't have feelings.
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Anthony
11/14/2019 09:36:31 am
Maybe its just a generational thing, but I’m still shocked people choose to watch Logan Paul’s videos and content. Im even more shocked that he was able to continue to have a successful career after the “suicide forest” incident. There have been so many “scandals” involving Youtubers and social media influencers, and they all inevitably release an apology video, with each video tending to look the same. Jake Paul’s was no different, having teary eyes, and a half baked, insincere apology. He definitely should have faced more backlash.
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Nicole
11/14/2019 09:56:12 am
I remember hearing about Logan's stint in Japan when it first blew up, and it was pretty upsetting even when I'd never previously been involved with his channel's content. His callousness and disrespect for the dead disgusted me. Usually, I'm against digging up old scandals on people for the sake of being upset with them, but the video didn't come out very long ago, and after his "apology" video, he kinda just went back to doing the same stuff he'd been doing before the backlash. That doesn't show any kind of growth of character. With his large following of young people, especially, this is a public shaming I personally feel was warranted. Kids shouldn't grow up thinking that the things Logan have done is an okay way to act, and with the size of his platform, he could stand to be a little more self-aware of his impact.
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Carolyn Miller
11/14/2019 09:57:49 am
I think it's super interesting to live in a world where everything is click bait, and society in general feeds off of negative or scandalous things. It's clear that Logan Paul has made his fame off of this to an extent, however his audience didn't find this particular situation funny or entertaining. It seems like scandal is a popular topic with a fine line. We also talk a lot about this in SYBPS, it's utterly mind blowing.
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Addison Lentz
11/18/2019 05:15:55 pm
I think that you make a great point about the audience, this is a huge thing to take into account when looking at online content. It makes his actions all the more concerning.The kids that view his videos are impressionable and influenced to then form their own opinions and make their own decisions, a good role model is vital. I also think that there is something to be said about young audiences that idolize youtubers, much as you would fangirl over a band. It can be easy to become desensitized to the actions of those you greatly look up to. Which again, is incredibly concerning if that figure is someone like Logan Paul.
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AuthorHello! My name is KD and I am a Junior at Belmont University. I have created this blog for my Digital Literacy class. Archives
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