Jake Paul’s New Project to Incubate Gen-Z Influencers
Influencers are making a massive impact on the business world. They are starting their own companies, closing big sponsorship deals, attending celebrity events, and overall, running the show in the digital marketing world. But their influence isn’t always positive and their ideas aren’t always fruitful.
The newest project by Jake Pail proves that. He has come up with an “innovative” way to “help” his young fans become financially independent. The online course he launched was inspired by his dissatisfaction with traditional education.
Let’s learn more about this influencer and his new endeavor. Once you have all the information, it is up to you to decide whether young adults can benefit from his teachings. Jake Paul is one of the most subscribed YouTubers from the US.
What’s Jake Paul’s New Project?
Jake Paul introduced an online platform that aims to teach young adults how to gain financial independence. The platform is called the Financial Freedom Movement. Through the platform, Jake’s young fanbase will gain practical knowledge of how to use their creative skills to make money in the entertainment industry. People who decide to become a part of this will pay $19.99.
For this project, Jake partnered with GenZ Holdings Inc. The Los Angeles-based group that stands behind this name works on brand development and targets Millennials and Generation Z.
So, all of the Gen Z fans could now become financially independent for just $19.99 per month. If life could just be as simple as Jake presents it to be.
According to Jake, what inspired him to start this platform was his disappointment in the educational system.
As he explained on Twitter: “I’m sick of our education system and how it’s teaching kids 0 real-life skills for them to secure there (sic) on the future. I’m creating a movement for everyone who wants to take life into their own hands and learn real-life skills from actual professionals. Why are kids sitting in “film” class learning from a teacher who has never made a film? And that’s just one example…I was the kid in the class who was the smartest but wouldn’t apply myself because I thought it was so stupid to be sitting there but it’s all we are thought…I’m just not letting it go on anymore without doing something about it.”
Jake dropped out of high school at the age of 17 to move out to Los Angeles with his brother. He admitted to cheating on the online course where he got his high school diploma, “I just got the answers from a cheat site and put it in and didn’t have to do any work.”
On the Financial Freedom Movement website he promises “cutting edge mentorship, coaching, and training from multiple millionaires, expert trainers and thought leaders on how to achieve financial freedom using social media and the internet.”
Along with that, the movement makers (as he calls them) will get:
- Jake Paul’s personal experience, rituals, and secret formula on how he’s achieved massive success
- Live weekly video coaching calls with Jake Paul and guest expert trainers, influencers and thought leaders hand-selected by Jake himself
- A private community for support and friendship of like-minded people
Jake stated that the Movement is for his fans who want to become influencers, current influencers who want to grow their business and companies who want to learn how to use social media influencer marketing.
It is evident that the platform is created for his younger fans. There is a template on the website that helps kids create a letter for their parents to convince them to invest in this course. He also says that “the sooner you learn this and implement this in your life the more you will benefit. I wish I knew all of this when I was even younger. Who knows where I’d be in my career.”
The first 10,000 movement makers who join and make a result are promised to receive prizes:
- joining Jake Paul in a vlog (for the top winner)
- a personal shout out from Jake on social media (for the top 10 winners)
- a limited edition of Movement Maker merchandise along with a group shout out on social media (for the top 100 winners)
Variety reported that Jake’s vision of what means being financially independent is to be able to go on two-month vacations whenever he likes and have the freedom to throw huge parties.
The launch event took place in Hollywood Sports Park where Paul organized a meet-and-greet, offered opportunities to sign up for the project, and purchase his merchandise.
The most bizarre moment was when the Cash Cannons started shooting single dollar bills over the crowd from the second-floor VIP area. Supposedly, this was Jake’s way of insinuating that money will be falling from the sky for those who become his students.
This isn’t the first time that Jake created an online course. Two years ago Paul launched a similar project called Edfluence.
Edfluence consisted of educational courses with the goal of teaching young adults how to be famous on social media. He said that the course will teach people “things that have taken me years to master.”
It was stated that the users will get this experience at just $7. However, they needed to invest an additional $57 to unlock and actually view all the videos in the course. Therefore, the investment added up to $64. This platform no longer exists but Jake found a way to replace it with the Financial Freedom Movement.
Who is Jake Paul?
For all of you who haven’t heard of this controversial influencer, Jake Paul is a YouTube megastar, internet personality, actor, and musician.
He is not the only one in the family whose name is known. His older brother Logan Paul also became famous thanks to the Vine platform. Their videos mostly consisted of comedy sketches. The popularity they gained on this video-sharing app gave them the idea to move to Los Angeles and pursue their celebrity career.
Even though Jake rose to fame thanks to Vine, he transferred his work onto YouTube after the video-sharing platform was shut down. His number of subscribers reached a “shy” number of 19.8 million.
What brought Jake lots of attention is his video “It’s Everyday Bro.” This was the third-most disliked video ever on YouTube. On Instagram, he has 13 million followers.
The status of influencer is justified by the number of followers he has across all social media networks. Besides that, he had a few acting attempts.
Jake starred in Disney Channel television show “Bizaardvark” but he got fired from the show even though his character was one of the leads.
He made a few movie appearances and had a role in the movies “Dance Camp” and “Mono.” Additionally, he helped his brother with the movie “Airplane Mode” by co-writing it.
In 2017, he gathered several of his influencer friends under the name of Team10. They created content together in order to attract more fans, gain more reach, and grow faster. Several members left the group and in 2018 the Team10 was officially over.
According to Forbes, Jake made $21.5 million in 2018 which earned him the title of the second-highest-paid YouTuber that year.
While he may be popular among Gen Z, he isn’t very popular in his neighborhood. A few years ago he was outed as a neighborhood terrorizer after his neighbors complained about the agonizing situation in which Jake put them in. In the words of his neighbor Maytal Dahan, “We used to be this really quiet street and now we’re just like this war zone. We’re more than happy to have them live here if they’re respectful of their neighbors but they’re not.”
Jake Paul’s Brand Collaborations, Ads, and Social Media Campaigns
The income that made Jake Paul the second-highest-paid YouTuber didn’t just come from his YouTube videos. Actually, a large part of his income came from his merchandise business. The business mostly focuses on selling t-shirts and hoodies which are largely popular among his fans.
The younger Paul brother has an effective way of promoting his business. He organized several pop-up events in 2018, thus, attracting the attention of his followers to his clothing line.
Jake has worked with several top brands. The collaborations consisted of ads as well as social media posts that featured him. Some of the prominent companies he worked with drink franchise Pepsi, television broadcaster HBO, and Virgin Mobile.
Jake Paul’s Controversial Anxiety Advice Tweet
As an upcoming educator of the young, Jake Paul will have to be more careful of his tweets and posts. To prove that, we can look back at his recent tweet concerning anxiety.
Anxiety is a common problem, especially among teens. According to the National Institutes of Health, almost 1 in 3 of adolescents from 13 to 18 years old experience an anxiety disorder.
Jake’s shared his advice to everyone who is struggling with anxiety, “Remember anxiety is created by you.”
The tweet provoked a strong reaction. Some were offended while others sarcastically thanked him for this life-changing tip.
For someone who acts as a role model for the young, Jake will have to be more observant and cautions about his life advice.
Gen-Z Wants to Enter the World of Influencers
Jake’s idea to start a project such as this came from the growing desire of Generation Z to become influencers. Unlike most of the kids in the previous generations who wanted to become doctors, teachers, or firefighters, nowadays, kids want to earn money on social media.
This is not just an assumption. This is a fact.
According to a 2019 study by Awin, a global affiliate marketing network, 1 in 5 children wants to become a social media influencer.
Business Insider reported the results of a survey that asked 3,000 kids to pick one out of five professions. The question was what they want to be when they grow up and the choices were an astronaut, musician, professional athlete, teacher, or vlogger/YouTuber. While most kids in the US and the UK expressed that they want to be a vlogger/YouTuber, kids in China opted for being an astronaut.
Different research revealed the top 10 careers kids would like to do when they grow up:
- YouTuber — 34.20%
- Blogger/Vlogger — 18.10%
- Musician/Singer — 16%
- Actor — 15.7%
- Film Maker — 13.6%
- Doctor/Nurse — 13.4%
- TV Presenter — 12.4%
- Athlete — 11.9% / Teacher — 11.9%
- Writer — 8.4%
- Lawyer — 6.4%
What makes social media such an attractive career choice is the seemingly easy way to make money and gain fame. The way influencers’ job is presented is posting pictures on social media, creating fun videos, and getting lots of free products and travel opportunities. It comes as no surprise that children are attracted to such a lifestyle.
The problem is that aspiring influencers don’t have a realistic image of social media careers. Being an influencer is much more difficult than it seems. It demands to invest hours in creating high-quality content, coming up with new ideas, coping with all the negative comments, dealing with tedious administration tasks, keeping track of their following base, and much more.
It is becoming more common that YouTube stars speak about their burnouts, anxiety, or depression.
The influencer fame can disappear as fast as it came along if they don’t find a way to stand out and keep the followers interested. With the rising competition in this field, it will get harder to get the status of social media influencers.
Many parents are concerned by this wave of social media obsession. Children aren’t aware of how sharing personal content on the internet can hurt their mental health. Online bullying along with consistent pressure to entertain the viewers can affect the well-being of any influencer.
Psychologist Samantha Carbon shared her option on the topic, “As social media is evolving, there are a risk young influencers may experience feelings of inadequacy and feeling challenged as they get older, which can be detrimental to their emotional wellbeing.”
Despite the problems such as online bully and YouTube content burnout, many kids have made success in their “YouTube career”. Ryan’s World is the top one among them, who also is one of the highest paid influencers worldwide.
Some Final Thoughts
It is yet to be seen what kind of effect the Financial Freedom Movement will have on Generation Z. What is certain is that Jake’s new project has attracted the attention of many, whether it is a positive or a negative one.
While Gen Z is still financially dependent, the parents can try to avert them from massively pursuing the influencer career. The question is what will happen when the generation who has been growing up mesmerized with social media fame gains independence to make their own decision?
