Logan Paul Uploads Video of Dead Body
YouTube star Logan Paul, a popular vlogger from a family of popular vloggers, drew a massive backfire on Monday and Tuesday for posting a video showing a expressionless body he stumbled upon in Nippon's notorious "suicide forest."
The video, which Paul uploaded on December 31 and ultimately deleted tardily on Jan 1, chronicles a visit past Paul and a few companions to Aokigahara Woods, located on the northwestern side of Mt. Fuji. Upon seeing the body, Paul calls out, "Yo, are yous live?" and and so, "Are you lot fucking with us?" He then continues to motion picture his reaction to the discovery, consummate with laughter and joking, which he after explains is his way of trying to cope with the shock of the situation.
While Paul added a preface to the video before posting it in which he gravely insisted that "this is non clickbait," he also advised viewers to "Buckle the fuck upward, because yous're never gonna meet a video similar this again!" and used a shot of the body for the video'south promotional thumbnail.
Despite YouTube's policies prohibiting violent or gory content, the video rapidly went viral on the site, reaching No. 10 on its trending list even in the face up of protest and outcry on YouTube and other social media platforms.
Paul'south video amassed over six million views earlier he deleted it and posted an apology on Twitter, in which he said that he didn't post the shocking footage for views only "because I idea I could make a positive ripple on the internet" and "raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention."
Nonetheless, on Tuesday afternoon, he posted a second apology on YouTube, calling his decision to post the video a "severe and continuous lapse in my judgment."
On the one hand, the outrage acquired past Paul'southward video and his subsequent apology follows a familiar and predictable pattern of whatever typical internet controversy: a public figure screws up, becomes the target of backlash, and expresses some degree of remorse.
On the other mitt, the video has fueled an extensive debate nigh the limitations and lawlessness of YouTube's prank culture, and raised questions about why YouTube failed to remove the content from its trending videos list.
Paul'due south decision to post the video in the first identify casts a harsh light on the showy, oftentimes deliberately invasive, cocky-aggrandizement that has come to define prank culture on YouTube. Up until this weekend at to the lowest degree, that shtick has not been associated with whatever one person then much as appearing as a morally greyness cloud that hangs over the genre'south many, many participants. And ultimately, the pranks implicate YouTube itself for taking a backseat in refereeing its pinnacle creators.
Logan Paul is known for expert-humored, but shocking, pranks
Watching adults learn about Logan Paul is like seeing Mt. Everest base campers leave for the superlative with a windbreaker and a granola bar.
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) January 2, 2018
Logan Paul is a popular vlogger from Ohio who gained early fame on Vine while he was still in college, mainly through his prank videos. By 2015, when he was just 20 years old, Paul had amassed over viii one thousand thousand followers on the now-defunct video platform and, as Business Insider put it, was "already famous past the standards of millions of fourteen-yr-quondam girls."
Like many Vine stars, Paul eventually carried his fanbase with him to YouTube, branching out and channeling his success into lucrative endorsements besides equally TV and movie appearances. His principal YouTube channel, Logan Paul Vlogs, has over xv 1000000 subscribers.
Paul's YouTube fame is, in function, a family affair. Equally he gained more followers on both Vine and YouTube, so did his younger brother Jake Paul, who is 2 years his junior. Jake followed in Logan'south footsteps, launching his own successful vlogging career on the same ii platforms, and later went on to star on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark. The two brothers accept appeared in one some other's videos, and their parents also oftentimes brand cameos, having cultivated their ain sizable social media followings.
Most of the family'due south videos consist of mild PG-rated humor, though Logan Paul has been defendant of racism in the past, and Jake Paul briefly came under fire in November 2017 for allegedly bullying ii of his regular collaborators into quitting his video-making team.
YouTube's prank civilisation emphasizes shock value. That near certainly contributed to Paul's conclusion to mail service the Aokigahara video.
Prank videos — typically starring white men or immature boys — contain an unabridged genre on YouTube, one so popular that even creators who've get famous for other things frequently participate in invitee pranks and viral prank challenges.
Pranking start became popular on Vine. Because of its six-2nd time limit, Vine was the perfect platform for brusk public stunts — unremarkably involving unwitting members of the public who had no idea they were being pranked while the camera was rolling. The most successful pranks often mimicked many of the largely nonconsensual techniques of Option-Up Artist civilisation, every bit applied to public stunts. And if they were mean-spirited, brutal, or at times fifty-fifty physically threatening, so much the better.
Compilations of Vine pranks before long proliferated YouTube, and eventually the pranksters themselves did too, with viral pranksters–turned–YouTube celebrities similar Cameron Dallas, Nash Grier, and in some cases unabridged ensembles like the Janoskians all gaining success as vloggers and comedians.
Like almost of the best and worst prank videos, the Paul brothers' work demonstrates a willingness to humiliate themselves in public also as a tendency to "discover" other humans in the wild, like a David Attenborough nature documentary gone off the rails. Notwithstanding the pair has also raised plenty of hackles in their pursuit of visual gags.
Logan, for instance, recorded a (since-deleted) video with controversial YouTube creator Sam Pepper in which he lassoed women and forcibly pulled them in equally a "choice-up" method. Jake has taken the burden of the media's disgust over the brothers' hijinks; Deadspin dubbed him the "worst person on earth" after his pranks drew fire from his Beverly Hills neighbors concluding year; the New York Times branded him a "reality villain for the YouTube generation."
But it'due south Logan who seems to have taken the desensitized aspects of prank culture — which, at their core, often include surprising or shocking people, capturing their "raw" real-fourth dimension reactions on video — a step too far.
In his apology for posting footage of the dead body in Aokigahara, Paul said that due to his hectic production schedule, "it's piece of cake to get defenseless upwards in the moment without fully weighing the possible ramifications."
It might be difficult for anyone not immersed in YouTube prank culture to empathise how a video of a suicide victim could annals with Paul and his product squad — a group of immature camera operators and stunt administration, several of whom too posted and then later deleted their own reaction videos to finding the torso — as merely another moment in a parade of potentially viral moments.
The response of many has been, essentially: How did they not realize that posting that footage was extremely disrespectful, not to mention exploitative and potentially triggering !
But information technology'due south also hard to overstate just how motivated the most successful YouTube creators are to continually produce endless new content, which can be extremely lucrative — or how popular pranks actually are on YouTube.
Searching YouTube for "prank" yields about 33,300,000 results, the virtually pop of which has over 110 meg views. Despite being but the 51st nigh popular creator on YouTube, according to SocialBlade, Paul's monetization of his videos bring him anywhere from $three,000 to a staggering $50,000 per prune.
And then even though Paul emphasized in the intro to the Aokigahara video that he had demonetized this particular video and that it wasn't clickbait, later reiterating in his Twitter apology that he hadn't posted the Aokigahara video for "views," it's been difficult for many to see the video any other way.
Every bit the Washington Postal service noted, Jake Paul's catchphrase — "It's everyday, bro" — references the frequency with which he and his family churn out video content of his daily life.
With then much riding on each video he produces, and a calculated interest in capturing and then much of his ain life on screen, information technology's not unexpected that his videos range from the personal ("We THREW MY Significant Assistant A BABY SHOWER!") to the dangerously foolhardy ("JUMPING TWO SPEEDING LAMBORGHINIS BACK TO BACK! **don't attempt**").
Somewhere in the Venn diagram between prank culture'due south emphasis on public invasiveness and edgy take chances-taking, and Paul's love of personal real-fourth dimension footage and drive to produce content quickly, the Aokigahara video was born.
If Paul's video drew firsthand backlash, so did YouTube'due south lack of response
As horrifying equally Paul'south video was for many people, every bit agonizing was the fact that YouTube somehow allowed the video to trend, allegedly for over 24 hours, despite both a policy banning such graphic content and vocal social media outcry demanding that the video exist removed from the site's trending listing.
And so I hear, Logan Paul got to number ten on the trending page before HE took it downward Not YOUTUBE. What kind of system craps all over smaller channels for "potential disturbing content" yet Logan Paul puts "We Plant A DEAD Torso" in the title with a man hanging in the thumbnail? Smh
— Family unit Friendly Baz (@Bazamalam) Jan 2, 2018
Complicating the anger for many was lingering outrage over YouTube's problematic trend to algorithmically flag inoffensive content simply because it contains references to LGBTQ subjects. Though YouTube made alterations to its automated content classification system later last yr'southward controversy over the effect, issues with the organisation accept persisted. Given that it appeared to exist DOA when presented with a video containing graphic content as its promotional thumbnail, lots of people were displeased:
Put "lesbian" in a title @YouTube flags it for review when it'south simply nearly me and my wife playing a game. Logan Paul puts an bodily dead body in a video and thumbnail that's totally ok! Let's put it on Trending!!!
— Battery Operated Joy 2018 (@Mangaminx) Jan ii, 2018
— jackie | 200 (@purpIeuniverse) January 2, 2018youtube: lgbt content is inappropriate.
logan paul: *literally makes a video where he showcases someone's suicide and gets on the trending page*
youtube: you're doing amazing sweetie!
In the cease, YouTube didn't actually take directly activity against Paul's Aokigahara video — it disappeared from the site's trending list merely when Paul finally deleted it himself. And while the site did issue a statement regarding Paul's video to YouTube creator Philip DeFranco, the statement did not address the site's failure to apply its content policies in time to remove the video from the trending list:
— Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) January 2, 2018I merely received an official statement from a contact at @Youtube regarding the outrage and controversy around Logan Paul's (at present self-removed) "We found a dead body" top trending Youtube video.
I'll relieve my personal comment for later. Merely wanted to pass this along. pic.twitter.com/JNTQDMVvT4
YouTube has not responded to a request from Vocalisation for comment. Simply Buzzfeed reporter Davey Alba reported on Twitter that a spokesperson for the site told her that it had applied a strike — a temporary flag on a user'due south account which can accumulate and result in a permanent ban (as in "three strikes and you're out") — to Paul'due south business relationship.
Only even if the strike has been practical, it will probable accept very little affect on a YouTube creator every bit successful as Paul, who has made his proper noun on precisely the kind of viral-fix, thoughtless deportment that drew him into the Aokigahara Forest.
YouTube'south deep culture of veneration among fans creates an insular, often accountability-proof chimera around its biggest stars (meet also: PewDiePie). When those stars accept earned big fortunes by creating content that violates the personal space and consent of other members of the public, it's hardly a surprise that one of them would somewhen end upwards posting footage a suicide victim's dead body.
In his apology video, Paul said, "I don't expect to be forgiven — I'm simply hither to apologize." But among the about 700,000 comments that the apology video has clustered in the last 24 hours, support from his most fervent fans remains strong. Equally DiFranco noted, Paul likely won't lose too many followers in response to his behavior; rather, the onus is on YouTube to accept meaningful activity to foreclose videos like this from existence shared on the site.
On Wed afternoon, Paul'southward apology video was the No. i video on YouTube.
Correction: An before version of this story misidentified Logan Paul equally the creator of the "It'southward everyday, bro" catchphrase. It is Jake Paul who created and associates with it.
Source: https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16841160/logan-paul-aokigahara-suicide-controversy
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