We're only four days into 2018, and Logan Paul is already having the worst year ever. The grinning, bug-eyed vlogger - who kind of resembles a young Harry from Dumb and Dumber - has over 15 million subscribers on YouTube. However, he's not smiling much these days. After uploading a controversial video from
Japan's "suicide forest," he's taken massive heat from his viewers, the media and even celebrities.
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In the totally tasteless video - which has since been deleted - Logan and his merry group of friends search for a dead body in the 'suicide forest.' When they find one, they act surprised, like it is the last thing they expected to stumble upon during their innocent hiking trip. Then the group makes several cavalier, tone-deaf comments that seem to make a mockery out of a serious situation. Even worse, they exploit a real person's death for views (and ad revenue).
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Logan apologized for his actions, and says he is taking an indefinite hiatus from vlogging to "reflect on things." That's probably a good idea, because the latest news is that the Japanese police
would like to talk to him. That's a lot of bad news, but the young Internet personality has finally caught a break: His brother, and fellow YouTuber Jake Paul, just uploaded a controversial video of his own. (That's right. There are two of these guys.) Way to take the heat off, bro!
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Jake rose to popularity on the now-defunct video application Vine, and now his vlogs have gained over 12 million subscribers on YouTube. According to Wikipedia, his catchphrases are "Dab on em haters!" and "It's everyday, bro!" And that's really all you have to know about his content.
So, what's the controversy with Logan's bro? Jake uploaded a video called "I Lost My Virginity" with a thumbnail of a mostly naked dude and mostly naked lady having sex. I guess the lady is wearing a bra and a thong, and the guy is wearing socks and boxers, but mostly, I just see skin. The guy may be Jake; it's hard to tell. Maybe there's a third Paul brother who's an adult film star. Anyway, in case you didn't know, Jake's main audience - like his brother, Logan's - is kids between 12 and 18 years old. They advertise their content as "family friendly," so the softcore porn thumbnail and sleazy clickbait title got a lot of criticism:
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In case you're curious, the
sexxxy thumbnail is not a screenshot from the actual video, and has almost nothing to do with its content. Mostly, the vlog is just Jake bouncing around, saying "it's going to get lit!" a million times. I'll summarize it for you so don't have to watch it:
In the video, Jake goes on a skiing trip with his friends at Big Bear. It opens with him entering their cabin and waking everyone up by spraying them a fire extinguisher. (Note to self: Never go on a skiing trip with Jake Paul.) Then, as New Year's Eve approaches, Jake and his guy friends joke about kissing each other at midnight, instead of girls, because wouldn't that be, like, totally crazy, bro? The idea of two guys kissing each other is
hilarious, apparently. But don't worry - when the clock strikes midnight, it
looks like Jake and his guy friend are going to kiss, but they don't actually do it. A girl swoops in to smooch Jake at the last second. Whew! That was close, bro!
Around the eleven minute mark, Jake goes skiing and cracks a joke about losing his 'ski virginity,' and that's where the title comes from. Yeah, it's pretty tame. But you can see why people were offended. YouTube has been spent the last year demonetizing everyone's videos, claiming the content is not "advertiser friendly," without giving any explanation why. And in many cases, the videos they flag contain no offensive content at all. Meanwhile, popular "family friendly" vlogger Jake Paul uploads a video with a Pornhub thumbnail and sexually salacious title and YouTube is totally cool with it. Different rules for different people, I guess.
But hey, at least Jake didn't exploit a suicide victim for ad revenue. It's a low bar, but he cleared it. Congrats, bro! Dabs on em haters!
