YouTube star Logan Paul is under fire following a video that appeared to show a dead body hanging from a tree in Japan’s Aokigahara forest in Japan.
The video was uploaded Sunday under the working title “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest” and had more than 6 million views in less than a day, according to New York Magazine. But Monday, Paul had taken down the video and issued an apology for his “mistake.”
“I didn’t do it for the views. I get views,” Paul wrote on his Twitter account. “I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity. That’s never the intention. I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention.”
Logan Paul drew criticism for showing graphic images of an apparent suicide, especially since it comes in a 15-minute video where he pokes fun at Japanese culture.
“I don’t know what’s more disgusting, the fact that Logan Paul filmed the body of someone who committed suicide or that he was able to LAUGH after it,” one commenter wrote.
“How insensitive and sick can you be to film someone in that state,” another wrote.
When Paul and his friends find the body in Aokigahara, he is shocked with disbelief. “Yo, are you alive?” he says aloud. “Are you f—ing with us?”
Paul addresses his fans with a serious message.
“Suicide is not a joke. Depression and mental illness are not a joke. We came here with an intent to focus on the ‘haunted’ aspect of the forest. This obviously just became very real, and obviously, a lotta people are going through a lotta s— in their lives.”
According to New York magazine, he also included a link to the American Society for Suicide Prevention in the YouTube description for the clip.
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