YouTubers are the new TV stars. They’ve become the people’s celebrities, creating their own fame through homemade videos shared on the Internet. One such YouTuber who attained massive success for himself is Logan Paul… or rather, was Logan Paul.

Paul began his YouTube “career” in 2013 and by December 2018 had amassed a total of 23.5 million subscribers between his two YouTube channels, “Logan Paul Vlogs” and “TheOfficialLoganPaul”. At only 21 years old, Paul was pulling in approximately $1 million a month through ad revenue on his videos, had starred in various online movies and TV shows, and even had his own clothing line.

This empire came crashing down, though, on December 31st of 2017 when Paul posted a video on his “Logan Paul Vlogs” YouTube channel of him and his friends finding a dead body in Aokigahara, Japan. The forest is infamous as a “suicide forest” and Paul’s group had intended to camp there for the night, despite knowing this ugly truth about the location.

It was no surprise, then, (after entering a restricted area) that the vloggers encountered the dead body of a man who had hung himself in a tree. Rather than turn back and report the incident to someone right away, Paul continued filming. Not only did he capture the body heavily on camera, Paul and his friends behaved incredibly immaturely and disrespectfully in response, making jokes and laughing about the suicide of a stranger.

It wasn’t until long after finding the body and goofing around for an hour or more that Paul and his crew exited the forest and casually told Japanese authorities about what they’d see, Paul saying (on camera) “Hey you guys got a dead guy in your forest”.

Within 24 hours, the video had racked up 6.3 million views and gone viral. By the end of that 24 hours, though, Paul was forced to delete the video from YouTube, but the damage had been done. The video has since been re-uploaded in a censored format by other YouTube users. Immediately after the video dropped online, Paul faced extensive backlash from viewers, news channels, politicians, celebrities, and fellow YouTubers.

People were shocked that Paul and his friends could be so disrespectful. Upon watching Paul’s other videos from his trip to Japan, people quickly realized that Paul had behaved in a similarly disrespectful manner for the entire duration of his trip.

YouTube authorities responded by removing Paul’s channels from Google Preferred ad services and halting the airing of YouTube Red films and series starring him. Paul was quick to post apologies on both Twitter and YouTube and participate in interviews to help explain his actions.

Paul’s YouTube channels plummeted and the scars still stand, his main channel holding only 18 million subscribers now. Everyone who follows any mainstream YouTuber has heard about the Logan Paul Japan incident. The scandal was dissected and discussed by other YouTubers, like Casey Neistat, heavily in the days and months following the incident, keeping it fresh in everyone’s mind. The overwhelming concern brought up by the controversy lies in the potential danger of YouTube’s vlog culture.

What happens when teenagers get hyper-famous just by posting videos of themselves participating in potentially irresponsible or dangerous activities? Is vlogging still about sharing experiences and life advice or has it just become a medium for “click bait” and ad revenue?

Sources:

Copy of Paul’s suicide forest video

Casey Neistat’s interview with Paul

Logan Paul on Wikipedia

*This post was written as an assignment for COMM 110 Principles of Media, originally published on Medium here.