YouTube Star Takes It Too Far

A trip to Japan has vlogger Logan Paul has starting off 2018 trending in the worst way.

The former vine star is under serious fire after posting a video on December 31 titled “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest” while visiting the Aokigahara forest, also known as the Sea of Trees or “suicide forest.” Paul and his travel buddies stumbled upon the body six minutes into the video and his reaction was the furthest thing from appropriate.

Rather than putting down the camera and alerting the authorities, LP used the victim's body as a prop while he and his friends made insensitive jokes. He even included the victim in the thumbnail of the video that he posted on YouTube to over 15 million viewers.

Fellow YouTuber Nathan Zed posted a video of his own titled “What is wrong with Logan Paul (+what we can do),” where called out his peer and shut down his aplology. Celebrities like model Chrissy Teigan expressed her disapproval via Twitter: “Talk about the WRONG F***ING HILL TO DIE ON.” And it doesn’t stop there: an online petition to get LP’s YouTube channel removed from the site has collected more than 200,000 signatures with wide followings on social media backing the cause.

Paul posted an apology to Twitter on January 1 after removing the outrageous video (it had collected over 250,000 views by then) telling fans that he has not made a mistake like this before and claiming that he posted the video with the intention of creating a “positive ripple” on the internet.

Many question whether LP’s apology was just a load of BS since he posted another video from his trip disrespecting the Japanese culture. Possibly another case of brazen ignorance from a star? Either way, someone needs tell him to put the camera down for a while.

Update:

YouTube announced Wednesday that Paul will be cut from the YouTube Red comedy, "Foursome," which premiered its third season in November. A spokesperson from the streaming site has also revealed that Paul's YouTube Red movie sequel "The Thinning: New World Order" is "on hold."

~ Sydney Shuler