YouTube Star Offends Japan, Apologizes
by EG
YouTuber Logan Paul stirred controversy this week by posting a video of a suicide victim in an infamous Japanese forest. The video spurred outrage from all corners, but commenters in Japan, including a suicide prevention group, were especially offended. Paul has pulled the video and apologized, but the outrage remains.
A Japanese Suicide Prevention organization has joined the chorus of condemnation of YouTube star Logan Paul.
Paul, whose YouTube channel counts some 15 million subscribers, was hit with an avalanche of criticism Monday after he posted a video of a dead body in Japan's Aokigahara, a forest near Tokyo that's infamous as a common suicide location.
Paul pulled the video from YouTube on Tuesday and issued an apology on Twitter, writing: "This is a first for me. I've never faced criticism like this before, because I've never made a mistake like this before."
Jiro Ito, head of the Tokyo-based youth suicide prevention group Ova, told The Japan Times that Paul’s video “raises serious issues from the point of suicide prevention” and is in clear violation of the World Heath Organization guidelines on how the media should report on the issue.
Like many of the U.S. commentators — "You disgust me," tweeted Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul, for example — Ito also was disturbed by the way Logan Paul presented suicide within the cavalier and comedic context of his YouTube channel. “It is totally unacceptable to show someone who was driven to suicide as if it’s humorous content,” Ito said.
"I didn't do it for views. I get views. I did it because I thought I could make a positive ripple on the Internet, not cause a monsoon of negativity," continued Paul's Twitter apology.
“It is Logan Paul himself, not other members of society, whose level of awareness about suicide prevention should be raised," Ito's statement added.
Among industrial nations, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates, with more than 20,000 people taking their own lives each year. Aokigahara, located near the base of Mt Fuji about 60 miles west of Tokyo, became better known internationally after it served as the setting of Gus Van Sant's 2015 film The Sea of Trees, starring Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe as two suicidal men who meet in the forest.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
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