On January 2nd, YouTuber Logan Paul posted a video that has sparked one of the largest controversies of 2018, so far. 

22-year-old Logan Paul filmed himself going into a Japanese forest with a couple of his friends on December 31st, 2017. The forest he chose is known for being a suicide forest. While he and his friends didn’t expect to find anything, the group stumbled upon a man who hanged himself a little over 100 yards from the parking lot.

The YouTuber continued to Vlog about the experience, showing images of the man’s body up-close without showing his face or revealing his identity. The group called the police and stayed in the forest, where Logan started to freak out as the situation “set in”. A day or so after finding the man, Logan Paul edited and uploaded the footage to his YouTube channel.

Several people have called Logan Paul out on the video, saying that it was disrespectful to the man and his family, and inappropriate to put on a platform like YouTube. Paul took the video down and later posted an apology, though several people think he went about the apology the wrong way as well.

One such person condemning Logan Paul for his actions is Dylan O’Brien, best known for his role as Stiles Stilinski in “Teen Wolf”. On January 5th he tweeted, “I’ve literally never seen such a gigantic piece of s***” along with a link to an article on how Logan Paul was not only disrespectful in the suicide video, but throughout the entirety of his stay in Japan.

Another twitter user, @AnnaAkana, tweeted at Logan Paul, “When my brother found my sister’s body, he screamed with horror & confusion & grief & tried to save her. That body was a person someone loved. You do not walk into a suicide forest with a camera and claim mental health awareness.”

The Chieftain Press spoke to Mrs. Jennifer d’Entremont, a Psychology and History teacher at Nashoba, about the video. After briefing her on the situation, she had this to say; “My issue is, suicide is a sensitive topic, and for many individuals it can be quite triggering for them… So to see that presentation without any kind of warning, I think is irresponsible on his behalf, and it’s concerning. It doesn’t give an opportunity for individuals to process it with the appropriate people to help them.” Mrs. d’Entremont went on to say that we do need to talk about suicide, but with the right people. “Suicide is a serious topic that often requires support from people who are trained to talk about it, parents, community members… But this Youtuber isn’t in a position, nor is he qualified to attempt a discussion around this topic, and I think that’s why so many people were angry at him. That he…knew his target audience and he [still] did it, he did it for fame. He used somebody’s death to get viewers, and that’s never okay.”

Logan Paul’s demographic is approximately 57% female, and 84.8% of his viewers are millennials or generation Z (81 % millennial, 3.8% generation z). At the moment, his channel has upwards of 15,720,000 subscribers, and his twitter has 4.09 million followers.

He posted his apology video on January 2nd, opening up with, “I’ve made a severe and continuous lapse of my judgement, and I don’t expect to be forgiven. I’m simply here to apologize.” The Youtuber went on to say that the events in the forest were entirely unplanned, their reactions were 100% genuine and “raw”.

“I should have never posted the video, I should have put the cameras down, and stopped recording what we were going through. There’s a lot of things I should’ve done differently, but I didn’t. And for that, from the bottom of my heart, I am sorry.” Logan apologized in the video to anyone who had seen the original footage, along with the victim and the victim’s family. He asked his fans to not defend his actions, as he doesn’t believe he should be defended. “The goal with my content is always to entertain, to push the boundaries, to be all inclusive. In the world I live in, I share almost everything I do. The intent is never to be heartless, cruel, or malicious. Like I said I made a huge mistake. I don’t expect to be forgiven.”

NPR reported that Youtube publicly stated that there will be repercussions to Logan Paul’s actions. A spokesperson from Youtube stated, “In light of recent events, we have decided to remove Logan Paul’s channels from Google Preferred. Additionally, we will not feature Logan in season four of ‘Foursome’ and his new [series] Originals are on hold.”