Two of Generation Z’s biggest celebrities are people you’ll never see on the television or movie screen. Logan and Jake Paul, two brothers from Ohio, are YouTube stars with hordes of teenage fans. They have more than a combined total of 40 million subscribers and are ages 22 and 20, respectively, which is right on the cusp between millennial and Gen Z.
The Paul brothers exemplify everything older generations fear about today’s young adults and soon-to-be adults: They’ll do anything for attention, they use other people as props in their videos; they talk about how hard they work when they’ve never done manual labor OR a desk job. On the flipside, you could say that they’re creative, entrepreneurial, and energetic – three of the positive generational stereotypes.
Logan Paul gave in to the very worst of youth Internet culture when he recently traveled to Japan’s famed suicide forest, the place notorious for depressed Japanese people who travel there to end their own lives. In a horrible but unsurprising development, Logan and his fellow travelers came upon the body of a man who hanged himself. That would have been the right time to turn off the cameras. He didn’t.
Logan didn’t see the body as a real person who lost his life to a tragic mental health crisis. No, Logan Paul saw the corpse as interesting content for his vlog channel. He posted a clickbait video that showed him wearing an alien hat and laughing at the body, with a thumbnail image of the body hanging from a tree.
In doing this, he committed a grave sin in the eyes of American youth: Making fun of mental health crises.
His first apology was defensive – “I do this sh*t every day” – and cold, including a hashtagged shout-out to his fans, whom he calls the “Logang.” The next day, he appeared tearful on video with a sincere apology, and a directive: “To my fans who are defending my actions, please stop.”
Taping the lifeless body was one of a plethora of rude, tacky, and generally obnoxious stunts Logan Paul pulled while traveling abroad. But here’s the thing about stunts, in the internet age: they work. Logan’s subscriber count has increased by over 81,000 since posting the video.
The Internet and its clickbait fuel a certain culture: Do things that make people react, even if that reaction is one of moral outrage, horror, and disgust. Who cares about their feelings when their discomfort makes interesting videos? Not the Paul brothers.
For his part, Jake Paul has been kicked out of two different housing situations for terrorizing his neighbors, all in the name of #content. Jake also attended a White House event in the waning days of Obama’s presidency, at which the young star decided to stay the night (uninvited) while filming a vlog in a White House restroom. Distracting the Secret Service isn’t some cutesy little prank; it’s a waste of their time, our tax dollars, and potentially a security threat.
The solution to Logan and Jake Paul is not to snuff out his videos at their source, but to simply stop watching them. Let the free market take over. When there’s no demand for their videos, they’ll go away.
If your child is pledging #LOGANG4LIFE, please get a new child. If the store you bought yours from doesn’t take returns, then it’s time for Option B: talk to them about why Logan and Jake Paul aren’t worth their time and attention.
The fix for chaos agents like the Paul brothers isn’t to silence them (although YouTube would be within its rights as a company to do so). The real solution is to look away. Don’t let YouTube raise the next generation and stop elevating the worst young adults to prominence on digital platforms.
Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) writes about politics, media, ethics, and culture. She holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Georgetown University and has appeared on “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” as well as “Cavuto: Coast to Coast.”
