After Vine was shut down in 2016, many Viners decided to take their content onto YouTube and started the endless trend of vlogs. One of the many comedians that transferred to YouTube was Logan Paul. He is one of YouTube’s top-watched Vloggers with over one billion views and 16 million subscribers. With so much popularity, Paul has expanded his horizons by creating his own line of merchandise called ‘Maverick,’ which was named after his bird. Additionally, he is known for his influence on the entertainment industry and works with different companies in order to advertise their products to his viewers. Despite Paul’s reputation for being one of YouTube’s most popular content creators, he made a decision on New Year’s Eve that has drastically changed his position in the YouTube community. Paul decided to end 2017 by filming a vlog of him camping out in the Aokigahara Forest, also known as Japan’s Suicide Forest. The forest gets its infamous name from the fact that each year around 21,000 people commit suicide in the forest. Paul attempted to post a video about suicide prevention; but instead, the video caught his inhumane reaction when he came across a dead body in the forest. After that, Paul received backlash from people on different social media platforms and YouTube about his insensitive behavior. As a result of the criticism, Paul took down the video. Additionally, his channel was removed from Google Preferred, which is where advertisers reach out to the popular watched channels, and YouTube suspended his upcoming sequel to The Thinning until further notice. Despite all, Paul still has the dignity of asking for a second chance. After posting such an inappropriate reaction to a sensitive topic, Paul does not deserve a second chance to be on YouTube.

“I was left speechless after watching the video. I do not know what was running through his mind, but it was so disrespectful,” sophomore Brianna Sarria said.

Paul and his friends were on their way into the forest when they suddenly came across a corpse hanging from a tree. Their inhumane reactions can be seen as the cameraman captures their smiles and laughter. “This was all going to be a joke, why did it become so real?” Paul said. First, how did Paul not expect to see a body at a place that is known for having dead bodies in it? Instead of paying some respect to the life that was lost, Paul decided to get closer to the body and began to make ridicule the situation. This behavior is unacceptable from anyone, but coming from a person who many young kids admire makes matters worse. Paul should have not posted a video like this when he knows that he has a great influence over his ‘Lo Gang,’ who aspire to be as “cool” as Paul. As a role model to many kids, this inappropriate behavior, to some extent, can influence the behavior of his viewers by leading them to believe that suicide and depression are not serious issues. Additionally, it can be argued that Paul only posted the video in order to get a lot of views, which would only bring him revenue. The image (shown left) that was posted to accompany the video was Paul’s reaction to seeing the body of the victim hanging in the background. He titled the video “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest” because he knew that the click-bait would make many people click on the video and watch it. Moreover, Paul’s video received over six million views in 24 hours due to its controversial nature.

“I do not watch his videos regularly, but I honestly think this will all blow past and Logan will return to his normal YouTube life,” sophomore Isabella Lopez said.

Despite Paul’s mistake, there are some people, like his loyal viewers, who believe that Paul honestly deserves a second chance. They argue that since YouTube is basically his job, he should be given the second chance because if YouTube takes down his channel, then he will be left unemployed. Additionally, they also believe that Paul really does regret posting the video and wants to move past it. Paul posted a ‘So Sorry’ video in response to his actions and all the criticism he has received. He says that he does not expect to be forgiven, but nonetheless, he wants to apologize for his actions. In fact, Paul continued to post a video called ‘Suicide: Be Here Tomorrow,’ which is a video of him enlightening himself on the subject of suicide. These videos may show that Paul is sincere and regrets everything, but actions cannot be forgotten and he may make a bigger mistake in the future.

Due to Paul’s mistake, YouTube now has placed new regulations on videos that are monetized. For a YouTuber to get money, they need to have 1,000 subscribers and over 4,000 hours of video over a time span of 12 months. The new regulations affect the lives of YouTubers that depend upon YouTube for a paycheck. In fact, before YouTube established the new guidelines, many YouTubers’ videos were getting demonetized for small reasons that in no way compare to what Paul has done. Moreover, Paul placed a morbid image for his younger audience in an effort to give awareness about suicide. Instead of posting a video that failed miserably to raise awareness and teach his audience about suicide, Paul should have donated money to the National Suicide Lifeline network or worked with non-profit suicide prevention organizations to inform the public about the serious topic.

It was barbarous of Paul to broadcast a video of him making rude remarks about suicide onto YouTube, where millions of children would be exposed to graphic content that they are not used to. Suicide is not something that should be used to publicize anyone, and it should definitely not be made fun of. Many people have suffered from losing someone who committed suicide, and to see a group of young adults disrespecting a suicide victim would be a triggering situation for them. If Paul does receive a second chance, then hopefully this was a lesson learned and he will think twice before uploading a video again.