Logan Paul has returned to YouTube by posting a video that promotes suicide awareness. Said video does so by featuring Kevin Hines, a survivor of a suicide attempt who has since become an advocate for suicide prevention, as well as statistics about suicide. Furthermore, Paul acknowledged the uproar that ensued when he posted a video containing footage from the infamous forest called Aokigahara in Japan, which featured him laughing when he and his friends came upon the body of someone who was presumably a victim of suicide. Something that wasn’t helped by him making a laughable attempt at the time to defend the video as an attempt to raise suicide awareness. Summed up, this latest video is a clear attempt by Paul to show contrition at what he did, which is helped by his pledge to donate $1 million for suicide prevention. However, time and time alone will show whether he is sincere or not.
There was a huge uproar when Paul posted the video with the suicide victim on YouTube. However, the consequences seem to have been somewhat mixed in nature. For example, YouTube has removed his channel from Google Preferred, which is in addition to removing him from Foursome and putting his originals on hold for the time being. With that said, the scandal doesn’t actually seem to have affected his subscriber much, considering that his subscribers actually grew in number from 15 million to 16 million. Granted, the number of subscribers isn’t a perfect measurement of a YouTuber’s popularity, but this is nonetheless something that should cause people to raise an eyebrow.
On a final note, it should be mentioned that the uproar over Paul’s video caused the Japanese police to look into his actions in their country. The video with the suicide victim doesn’t seem to have anything that can be prosecuted, but the same can’t be said of the other videos that Paul has posted. For example, there were multiple cases of Paul violating Japan’s road traffic laws, ranging from him throwing stuffed animals at passing vehicles to him sleeping in the middle of the road. Furthermore, it is clear that Paul made a serious nuisance of himself, as shown by him smooshing raw seafood against the window of a local store, bringing the raw seafood into another local store before touching their merchandise, and pulling his pants down in the middle of a street. These are not particularly serious crimes, but they are crimes nonetheless. As a result, while there is little chance of Japan issuing an international arrest warrant for Paul, it might be best for Paul to avoid the country in the future, particularly since its statute of limitations doesn’t actually kick into effect unless he is in the country.
As stated, it remains to be seen whether Paul is sincere in his contrition or not. After all, it is far from being unknown for people to issue an apology for the sake of their PR rather than their heart-felt emotions. Whatever the case, this is something that will be revealed as Paul continues to post new videos.
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