YouTube star Logan Paul apologizes after video showed apparent suicide victim
YouTube star Logan Paul apologized Monday after receiving backlash for posting a video called "We Found a Dead Body in Japan's Suicide Forest" that showed a body hanging from a tree in what appeared to be a suicide. One day after the video was posted, YouTube posted a message that the video had been removed by the user.
In an apology posted on Twitter, Paul wrote that he "intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention ... I was misguided by the shock and awe, as portrayed in the video."
Dear Internet, pic.twitter.com/42OCDBhiWg
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 2, 2018
Although the video initially was supposed to be part of his "Tokyo Adventures," Paul says in the intro "this is the most real vlog I've ever posted to this channel." When he posted the video Sunday night, he tweeted "idk man just go."
new vlog
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) December 31, 2017
uhm
idk man just go
In the video, Paul and his entourage are wandering around the woods when they happen across what appears to be a body hanging from a tree. At first, Paul said "Yo, are you alive ... are you [expletive] with us?" before turning the camera back on himself and saying "a lot of things going through my mind right now ... this literally probably just happened."
He and his entourage briefly describe the body before Paul laughs uncomfortably and says "it was all going to be a joke ... why did it become so real?"
The Internet, however, did not have sympathy for Paul.
i’m truly sickened by this logan paul situation. i lost my brother to suicide... my brother took his own life by hanging himself... how insensitive and sick can you be to film someone in that state 😔
— mommy (@CorinnaKopf) January 2, 2018
I have absolutely no respect for Logan Paul.
— Samantha Fekete (@FeketeSamantha) January 2, 2018
His attitude and methods of gaining success have never felt right to me, and his actions today were disgusting. Especially when he has SO many viewers (a lot of kids) who look up to him.
out of all the things wrong with the logan paul video
— Mother's Basement (@G0ffThew) January 2, 2018
That's a human being, with an entire story to their life. A sad one, but a story.
and now he ends that story as a prop in a shitty vlog and a footnote on a long list of horrible things done by the world's worst youtuber.
According to New York magazine's Select All, the video was viewed more than 6.3 million times before it was taken down.