Popular YouTuber Logan Paul has landed himself in controversy following an offensive vlog. The 22-year-old, who currently has over 15 million subscribers, received a backlash after posting a video of him exploring Aokigahara forest in Japan. The forest that became infamous as the “Suicide Forest”, and Logan Paul can be seen approaching a suicide victim in the now-deleted blog.
The internet bashed Logan Paul, but it would seem that it did not have a negative impact on Paul. In fact, The Daily Beast reports that his subscriber count has only grown since the video was posted and deleted, gaining 80,000 subscribers in the week that followed.
YouTuber Philip DeFranco was right when he tweeted, “Just remember this… His core audience doesn’t give a ******. Unless YouTube does something, this doesn’t hurt him.” YouTube have yet to take any action against Logan Paul, although he has since posted an apology video and announced plans to take a break from vlogging. The apology video, which is monetized, currently has over 32 million views.
The original blog saw Logan Paul examining the dead body, and despite the minimal effort to blur the body, it made for a very strange video. The backlash that followed resulted in the video’s removal less than 48 hours later. As YouTuber news site We The Unicorns points out, that was not the only offensive thing he did while in Japan.
Turns out, Logan Paul’s trip to Japan was problematic for many reasons ? pic.twitter.com/yhj2BYgk4G
— We The Unicorns (@wetheunicorns) January 5, 2018
During his recent trip, he posted videos of him mocking the culture and repeatedly saying, “Japan is all about the respect.”
It is important to point out that in Japan the rate of suicide is higher than the majority of other countries. The leading cause of death for Japanese men aged between 20 and 44 is suicide, with 15,017 men and 6,747 women taking their lives in 2016 alone. Aokigahara is a common site for suicides, and police often patrol the site looking for individuals looking to end their lives. In 2010, there were 247 suicide attempts in the forest, 54 of which were fatal.
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