Case Study: Jake Paul
Jake Paul is one of the most talked about and controversial content creators and influencers of modern times. Jake Paul has long since been in the spotlight since his early teenage years, where he began to gain popularity through his appearance in several Disney Channel shows beginning around 2013. The most popular show, Bizaardvark aired for several seasons while Jake was a pre-teen/young teen. After becoming known amongst a young fan based, Jake Paul moved his following to a once popular social media platform known as Vine between the years of 2013–2016. On Vine, Jake Paul would often post comedic content that was viewed by millions of people. Along with this, Jake Paul began a YouTube channel and amassed a following of over 20 million subscribers. As a popular content creator, many of Paul’s videos went viral, reaching hundreds of millions of people. One video posted by Paul began his longtime legacy of controversy in the social media space. A video titled “It’s every day, bro” was posted illustrating Jake’s extravagant lifestyle and wealth he has accumulated through Vine and YouTube. This largescale gloating event caused the video to become one of the top ten most disliked videos during its time. Jake’s rapping career helped him gained nearly 13 million streams on Spotify though this song alone. Beyond this, Jake began selling merchandise to his fan base, allowing him to rake in millions of dollars in revenue.
It wasn’t until Jake Paul’s fight with popular YouTuber KSI that his fame and wealth was taken to an astronomically higher level. With the amount of hype built up for the fight along with a glorious TKO win over the rival YouTube sensation, Paul’s boxing legacy was thrust into limelight both in the YouTube and fighting communities. With this newfound success in boxing, Paul began to receive challenges for undercard fights, the most notable being his victory over Nate Robinson preceding the Mike Tyson fight which yielded him a 10 million dollar purse. To this day, Paul continues to create controversy in the boxing world by calling out superstars such as Conner McGregor. The fact that a YouTube sensation has come into the boxing world and has won several fights without a longstanding career in boxing often angers members of the community. This combined with Jake Paul’s history of trash talk and instigating causes him to continue to be a hot topic of debate.
Through analysis of Jake Paul’s past and current fame, it is possible to challenge popular assumptions about reasoning for his wealth. Based on his extensive history of popularity on social media, many assume that Jake was a likeable personality that reached a fanbase of supportive fans that have helped him reach the milestones in his life. However through a deeper look, it can be seen that Paul’s controversial attitude is one of the sole reasons for his large successes. After finding that posting a braggadocious video could attract millions of views in negative attention, Paul realized that there is no such thing as “bad publicity”. He has taken this concept to his most recent ventures in boxing by instigating competition and other popular fighting personalities. Although his boxing skills are far from poor, Paul is in no was considered an extraordinary fighter. Instead, his intelligent understanding of social media provocation has helped him to gain more attention, wealth, and popularity than would have ever been possible with a typical boxing career alone.
Overall, Jake Paul has proven to be a prominent influencer in the comedic and entertainment fields on social media. Through his longstanding career on various social media platforms, it is evident that there is a strong and successful theory behind his seemingly rude and ignorant image portrayed online.
