To Logan Paul and Company: Don’t Just Say “Sorry”. Be Better.
Content Warning: This article discusses suicide and sexual abuse. If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental illness or suicidal thoughts, please reach out and click here for resources.
2017 was the year we saw all of our social media timelines blow up with divisive content, “fake news”, finger pointing, and overall content that often times made us want to just close our laptops and curl up into a ball and shut out the world. It was a hard year, folks, and the stuff coming across our screens surely reflected that.
That being said, 2017 showed me that the Internet can also be an amazingly powerful tool for spreading powerful messages, and forging connections between groups of people and communities united with the goal of inciting positive change. I chose to focus on these positive currents, and hoped that in 2018 the positivity would rise above the bullshit and we would really begin to see some momentum towards a more compassionate, positive, and caring society.
On the first day of 2018, however, a piece of content came across my screen that made me want to flip the table, metaphorically and literally. It was an all-too-perfect example of content that is allegedly created to encourage conversation and shed light on an important issue, but that ultimately falls flat and cannot be seen as anything more than a desperate attempt to hook viewers with clickbait and generate more views and mentions.
Enter Logan Paul, a 22-year old boy who made his rise to fame with the help of Vine (RIP) and has since started posting vlogs on Youtube and has amassed millions of subscribers. He is the brother of Jake Paul, also a Vine celebrity, who has been criticized for being “scummy”, “problematic”, and overall just a shitty person and content creator. Logan was, until now, viewed by many as a less-shitty alternative to his brother Jake, but after the video he uploaded on December 31, 2017, that has quickly changed.
Logan uploaded a vlog shot during his trip to Japan, where he made an expedition to a notorious forest called Aokigahara (“the sea of trees”), an expansive forest that has become known as a popular suicide site, where many people in Japan, which has myriad issues surrounding the subject and treatment of mental illness, go to take their own lives. Logan claimed he was hoping to make a “fun” video for his fans (which he calls the “Logang”), focusing on the supernatural elements of the forest that is supposedly haunted by all the ghosts of people who have died there.
We could try to give Logan the benefit of the doubt, saying he really did intend to make a fun video. But I cannot even bring myself to do that. Right away, the premise of the video is capitalizing on poking fun at a place, and a phenomenon, that at its core is about people feeling so alone, so hopeless and helpless, that they see no other choice but to take their own lives. There is nothing even remotely funny or entertaining about that, so to even attempt to make a video adventuring through the haunted forest that is a famous suicide spot seems sketchy and disingenuous to me.
But anyways. The video shows Logan adventuring through the forest with his generic vlogger friends, with a tent in tow, as they had planned to camp out. A few minutes into the video, Logan stops and states that he thinks he sees a dead body in the distance. Any normal person, at this point, would say “Holy f*ck”, turn off the camera, keep a respectful distance, and call the authorities who can properly handle the scenario.
But Logan Paul? He “made a promise to his fans that he would entertain them everyday”, as he states later in the video. So rather than turn off the cameras, he decides to move closer to the body, shouting “Are you alive?”. He films himself approaching, looking freaked out and spewing expletives that he later took the time to edit out. He moves closer to the body, only blurring the man’s face, and shows the hands and comments on how they are purple, how this must have just happened.
I really do not know what he was expecting. He knew what this forest was notorious for. I highly doubt that he did not, in the back of his mind, plan this video with the hope that he might find a dead body that he could then post a video about for “shock value”. I mean, obviously it was a possibility! So why is he acting so shocked, and saying that this is “the craziest thing he has ever seen?” I cannot deal with this. Anyways, Logan and company decide to leave the forest, and head to the parking lot, where they continue to make jokes about what just happened.
To be fair, I know that everybody copes with traumatic situations in different ways. Especially when it comes to death, and grief, there is no proper way for someone to react. But the key is that most people reacting in their own ways to intense situations like this one are not filming it and posting it on the internet for millions of people to see. If Logan had an ounce of decency that wasn’t clouded by his desperate attempts to get more views, he would have recognized that the right thing to do would have been to turn off the cameras and cope privately with his friends in however they saw fit.
Logan, instead, decides to continue the video in which he proceeds to freak out about how crazy the situation is. He makes jokes to people in the parking lot, telling them “Don’t go over there!” and drinks Sake to cope with the craziness. To make matters worse, at the end, he plays cheesy music and sits down to tell his followers that mental health is not a joke, and suicide is a very serious issue. He asserts that when people feel on the verge of taking their own lives, they need to know that “Suicide is not the answer” and “People love you”.
As someone who strongly believes that we need to talk more about mental illness and suicide, I also strongly believe that this is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. What Logan does is show very disturbing images of a man who has just killed himself, and then he turns around and says “But suicide is not the answer”, while offering no actual messages of substance. He does not come across as empathetic, or as someone who genuinely cares. Rather, he capitalizes on this very dark and serious subject, using it to create “shock value” and then attempting to defray the potential backlash of that decision by giving a cheap, cheesy speech about how mental illness is not a joke.
Oh, it isn’t a joke? Then why are you laughing about it, Logan?
In my opinion, there could have been so many better ways to have dealt with this situation. Logan, for example, could have filmed a video after the fact discussing what he saw, how he felt about it, and then offering concrete resources for people suffering from mental illness. But with his choice to include actual footage of the man who took his own life, I have no choice but to believe that this video was made solely for shock values or views. In my opinion, that is indisputable.
Of course, almost immediately after sharing this video, there was intense backlash. If nothing else, it comforts me to know that almost everybody can immediately see just how disgusting this is. But I still find it hard to believe that Logan did not realize this at all while he was filming, editing, and uploading this video.
Still, I am sure the heavy backlash scared him, prompting him to tweet an apology:
What sticks out to me in this apology is “It’s easy to get caught up in the moment without fully weighing the possible ramifications.” and “I’m regretful to say I handled that power incorrectly.” These statements in particular stick out to me because I have heard different iterations of them so many times in 2017. With all of the sexual abuse allegations coming to light came a stream of half-assed, almost unbelievable, and seemingly ingenuine apologies with similar statements, expressing that they did not realize at the time that their actions were messed up, and claiming that they used their power inappropriately.
What really irks me about these apologies, however, is not even so much the phrasing of them, but the fact that they have to be made in the first place. It is no longer enough to do something shitty and then apologize for it, thinking that makes it okay. I am a firm believer in second chances and forgiveness. I understand that everybody, including myself, makes mistakes, and I think that it is important to give people the space to learn from those mistakes so we can move forward positively as a society. But there comes a certain point where it seems absurd that the people behaving in these ways did not realize how disgusting their actions were in the moment.
With a quick google search on Logan Paul, you can find a myriad of reaction videos and articles like mine discussing everything that is wrong with what he is done. What is rising to the top, for me, is the stale apology and the claim that he did not know better, and this is what I hope we can focus on moving forward.
In 2018 and the future in general, I really hope that people, especially those in positions of power and influence like Logan Paul and the many perpetrators of sexual abuse, begin to infuse a whole lot of intentionality into their actions. It is no longer enough to do shitty things and then apologize, saying you are “learning from your mistakes”. That is great and all, but it is not nearly adequate when your mistakes are hurting many people. Obviously, what has been done in the past cannot be changed, but I hope that with all the horrible things and past behaviors that bubbled up in 2017, there is a shift. I hope that in the future, we can look at 2018 as the beginning of a time when everybody began to really think long and hard about the potential impacts of their behavior before acting. I hope that it marks the time where less apologies are needed, and people are more aware of how to be decent human beings. (I do think that most people actually possess this knowledge, so I should say I hope people are able to make that a number one priority, over getting more power or more recognition).
In conclusion, I am disappointed that this incident with Logan Paul has clouded the first day of a new year for many people, but I hope that it is just another push that we need to hold those that have great influence more accountable. I hope that it is one of the last times we have to hear an “I’m sorry, I didn’t know”. I hope that it ushers in a new era, where being a decent person is prioritized over all else, and the people that are unable to do so quickly fall from fame as society demands to put only decent people at the forefront. Let’s continue to move forward.
