First of all, I had no idea who this person was. While my background is tech, I’m not really into Internet celebrities. I also don’t consume the vast majority of my media on sites like YouTube either which is why I am not “in tune” with who the biggest YouTuber’s are. It’s not much different with other online media as well including Twitter, Facebook, and in the gaming world, Twitch streamers.
Myself, part of this hits “home” so to speak because Japan is a place that I’ve lived (and now live part of the time). My other half is also a native Japanese. Neither of us have ever contemplated a “tour” style visit of Aokigahara. I asked her if this has hit the broadcast news there yet; she mentioned Fuji Sankei has had a report so it is only a matter of time before it will (“baka gaijin’s” aren’t already looked on favorably).
Mental health/illness issues in Japan are a long topic in itself. It’s normally a taboo subject matter because of social and culture norms in the country. Foreigners often times have no concept or idea about this either. Older generations have a stigma regarding bringing it up because it will bring shame on the family. So often times, certain matters are never spoken about. Some of us have had the opportunity to live and experience multiple cultures to see things in a different light compared to those who have been raised in a society where it is all seen as normal.
In Asian societies, the pressures are real to conform, to fit certain role models, to not bring shame on the family name. The college entrance exam (getting into the right universities often times dictates your future career opportunities) is what children prepare for. An outcome of this bullying and ostracism. Some end up cracking under this continuous pressure to perform because you are competing with everyone else to be the best. Most Asian countries don’t have the same level of support for mental health issues because of the stigma involved (awareness is growing but it is still far from what is available in the west). This of course is a contributor to the high suicide rates. In Japan, past Japanese societal views (think back to feudal Japan) doesn’t help since there are still those who subscribe to the “it is more honorable to off yourself” mentality even if it still a selfish act in todays modern society.
The ones who go to Aokigahara or Tojimbo (where they jump off these high cliffs) do it there to try and not cause trouble for others (meiwaku) (even though it still does because there are volunteers who keep watch and try to talk them out of the act) since the ones who jump in front of trains cause major inconveniences since all affected lines need to also be halted (and yes, I’ve been on a few shinkansen when there were jumpers which caused resulting delays). The family also is tracked down and forced to pay restitution adding to the selfish act. I could go on a much longer post about this but I’m just going to end it here. It’s just not something that people should take lightly; more so when some foreigner jackass does something like this in another country where they are unfamiliar with why places like Aokigahara are a thing.
Digressing, I do realize there’s a whole generation of younger people who do consume media and utilizes these online platforms/services as their primary source of information and entertainment.
When a particular corner of the Internet hits the mainstream media, you know it has to be something and there’s no shortage of articles from the some of the biggest media enterprises/brands out there covering the YouTube star. I simply typed in just “Logan Paul” into Google.
Way too many good articles to quote but the one that echoed many of my own thoughts, was the one written by Richard Lawson at Vanity Fair as he touched on the platform angle that Internet celebs use.
Unlike traditional media which is regulated, the platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube aren’t. Allowing those platforms to remain unregulated has allowed both backend technology as well as the user facing part, to grow in ways that weren’t imaginable before; to a point where someone can create a career online as a famous celebrity.
That ubiquity and easy access of information online has also pretty much desensitized most of us. Back in the pre-online days (also meaning dialup BBS), we had a very narrow view based on what the few main wire services and broadcasters gave us in print, radio, and television. The advent of online and more so with the Internet and the platforms that have proliferated, has given us an unfiltered view on almost any subject matter. You can look up anything and find it.
This means that as more time passes, most subject matter will become a shoulder shrug for many. That doesn’t mean that our societal norms and moral compasses should be thrown out the window. There’s a reason we have this thing called a civilization. The keyword here is civil. Sure, there will be some who argue that someone can have a different definition of what is civil and uncivil behavior. I would argue that everything is a human derived abstraction subjected to arbitrary rules.
Some things however are deeply instinctual within our species when it comes to dealing with our deceased. Even in tribal cultures, there are rituals which can be construed as being dignified and respectful to those who have passed. In our modern societies, the term funeral is normally associated with it. And most of us are brought up (regardless of our backgrounds) to not act like fools during one. A similar form of dignity, respect and sensitivity you think would happen if one happened to come across a deceased individual (it’s called having an internal moral compass). In this case, this person knew very well they were heading into a place where you aren’t going to find people having a nice picnic. Ones internal moral conscience has to be completely broken to video record a close up of a corpse, and then go back to actually edit that footage in order to blur out the face of the deceased. This is messed up stuff.
The fact that Logan Paul and his brother make a living out of douchebaggery on YouTube (and how there unsurprisingly is a huge audience for it) shows how far one corner of the Internet has dropped in terms of their idea of civility and compassion for their fellow human (regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, etc). The moment we stop being civil to each other is when we can no longer consider ourselves a high functioning civilization. In this particular case, it still happens to be a corner of the Internet but as time passes, this will surely grow in much larger numbers unless the “grown ups in the room”, put their foot down. The fact that we this person occupying the White House who tweets out garbage doesn’t help any in the role model department.
Anyone who has some level of influence has a moral obligation as to how they conduct themselves. That fact is lost on many online celebrities (especially ones who are trying to take jackassery to the next level) due to the support base they are pandering to. Just like with the recent swatting incident where an innocent man was shot to death, it is likely going to take an actual tragedy to make the actual outrage cause platforms like YouTube to really act.
As Lawson noted), there is no one “policing” platforms like YouTube. This isn’t their first brush with controversy either given it was just recently that major advertisers pulled out from the company due predatory comments on videos that had young children in them (some of which those advertisements were rolled on). YouTube acts when their advertisers pull off the platform.
The company (like Facebook) has tried to use machine learning algorithms to deal with inappropriate content/commentary but as they are finding, there is a point where you need an actual human to review things. To be fair, YouTube has been hiring actual human reviewers but it is going to take more than tens of thousands to deal with it. That unfortunately (from their point of view), costs money. It hits their bottomline which impacts shareholder value. That is how many publicly traded companies look at things. The moral obligation part of their responsibilities often times does not apply when it comes to maximizing shareholder value (it’s in the good sounding PR speak BUT the realities are far from it).
These companies have also come under the scrutiny of lawmakers due to the whole “Russian meddling in the elections” issue where they had to testify in front of Congress. That should just be an initial wakeup call for companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google (which owns YouTube).
As I briefly mentioned before regarding the loot box controversy in online gaming, these companies (and their respective industries) can either self-regulate and clean up things on their own or end up having the government involved by slapping them with bureaucracy laden regulations. And by this, I don’t mean just going through the motions; they need to take the time and spend the money to put the necessary internal controls in place while also finding ways to be transparent about how they are dealing with it.
As for Logan Paul, it is estimated that he is able to earn over $11 million USD after YouTube takes its portion (YouTube’s share is around 45% of the total advertising revenue). If he has generated a multi-million dollar income over the past few years, hasn’t blown it all and invested wisely, and adjusts his current lifestyle, he could have his channel and all sources of income removed and still live comfortably. But I know the reality when many suddenly fall into a lot of money where it gets spent unwisely (where more is needed to continue this new lifestyle).
His revenue generating ability is also why it didn’t surprise me that YouTube did absolutely nothing. It was Paul who pulled the video around 24 hours after it had remained online (racking up 6 million views) all the while the outrage was occurring. Had this been the average joe or even myself, YouTube would have pulled the video and also applied several community strikes. I still remember the time I uploaded a video that happened to have material that was in their ContentID system where I received a copyright strike, had my simple channel disabled, and had to go through that copyright school thing in order to unlock it (plus have to make sure I don’t intentionally/unintentionally receive another strike to ensure that my account remains in good community standards).
Nobodies on YouTube have to jump through those kind of hoops while YouTube looks the other way with some of its largest money makers (whom also are treated with different levels of service since most have company representatives that allows them to get the most out of their content since it also benefits YouTube). Hypocritical double standards like that do not surprise me. The problem in this case (despite stating their policy on objectionable content like what Paul posted) is they aren’t going to throw one of their big money makers under the bus.
What makes YouTube even more complicit is that it has now come to light that YouTube moderators actually approved his video for upload. What can I say…. “say one thing but do another”.
It’s also not surprising that a portion of Paul’s fanbase supports him. As I mentioned above, even his younger fanbase comes from a generation who are desensitized to this sort of stuff. You can see the type of comments saying “he knows he made a mistake and apologized” without really grasping the fact that you have to be screwed in the head to begin with to go into a forest known for suicides, finding and video recording a corpse (close up to boot), cracking jokes, going back to edit that footage, and deeming all of that ok (under the guise of making a statement about suicide prevention) by uploading it on YouTube.
Some may ask what about the parents of some of the younger viewers that are part of his fanbase. Let me just be blunt… some of them should not have procreated in the first place because I’ve witnessed way too often how many have no clue how to properly parent. For some, the easiest way to get their kids out of their hair is to let them be preoccupied with stuff like YouTube or way too many hours of gaming. Some of these parents are actually no better which is why their kids don’t see anything wrong. Sure, there are also those parents who also have no idea what their children are engaged with online either so there might be hope there if they spend the time.
The fact that YouTube did and likely isn’t going to do anything to Paul, tells me that folks like myself, Lawson, and the many others who are opining similar thoughts, will eventually become the minority in the future…. old fuddy duddies who don’t get it.
