A YouTube name with millions of followers apologized on Monday for posting a video that make knew a dead body hanging from a tree in a Japanese forest remembered as a destination for suicide victims.
Logan Paul, 22, posted an apology on Prate after the video attracted a torrent of criticism online, saying that he had publicized it in an attempt to raise awareness about suicide and suicide prevention.
“I was erroneous by shock and awe, as portrayed in the video,” he said. “I still am.”
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The video, which has since been transferred from YouTube but is available elsewhere online, begins with Mr. Paul word to the wise viewers that the following footage will be graphic.
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“This indubitably marks a moment in YouTube history,” he says. “Because I’m pretty steady that this has never hopefully happened to anyone on YouTube till the end of time.”
“Now with that said, buckle up,” Mr. Paul adds, cursing for obtain.
As the video proceeds, Mr. Paul describes the reputation of the Aokigahara forest, which has behoove well-known in the past decade as a destination for people looking to kill themselves.
In 2016 merely, three North American films were set in the forest, which invents at the base of Mount Fuji, a sacred site in Japan.
Local nation tales have also fueled talk about the paranormal within the forest, a vassal exposed to that Mr. Paul eagerly latches onto as he and his companions begin their trek with a example.
In the next scene, they come across the body. The face is obscure; the rest is left visible. Mr. Paul and the others react in shock and Mr. Paul urges the guru to call the police.
“Yo, are you alive?” he shouts toward the body.
As a camera cavities over the body, which Mr. Paul later says is only nearly 100 yards away from the parking lot, he describes its condition, and speculates that the ruin was recent. He apologizes to his viewers and says that suicide, depression and rationality illness are not a joke.
As the group leaves the area where the body was set up, Mr. Paul, who has television experience and has trained with comedy troupes, launches to engage in the kinds of behavior most familiar to his viewers: exaggerated reciprocation shots and nervous laughter. The tone soon becomes more antic as Mr. Paul and the others manifest to try to lighten the mood.
Toward the end of the video, Mr. Paul says that his grinning and laughing “is not a portrayal of how I feel about the circumstances,” describing it as his coping agency.
The video, which was posted on Sunday, quickly received pushback online, as individual reacted to Mr. Paul’s decision to show the body and his capering afterward. Some shared severals for suicide hotlines and told stories about their own struggles with batty illness.
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Mr. Paul’s YouTube channel has more than 15 million subscribers, making him drawn more popular than his younger brother, Jake, who may be more famous to those who do not regularly watch vlogs thanks to his own brushes with contention.
Their audiences are largely made up of younger people. Toward the end of the Japan video, Mr. Paul wanders into a young fan in the parking lot who is with an older chaperone.
“I have one lead-pipe cinch of advice,” he tells them, smiling and pointing to where the body is. “Don’t go across there.”