The video blogger posted footage of a dead body. He and his friends were visiting a Japanese forest known to be a suicide destination, when they stumbled across a man's corpse hanging from a tree.
He posted footage of the incident to YouTube, after blurring the man's face out. At first, the "likes" were fast and furious - and plenty. But now tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling on YouTube to delete his channel.
According to the BBC: "At one point, Mr. Paul laughs in apparent disbelief. He went on to joke that he had never stood next to a dead body." It's called shock. The disbelief is apparent because that's exactly what it was: disbelief. This is a stoner millions of young people have made a star thanks to his outrageous videos and wide-eyed reactions to the chaos he causes.
But the channel is to blame (which, sure, could be policed better, and the video taken down quicker). And Logan is to blame. Who became so popular and so famous so fast that all he can do now is up the ante and, inevitably, fall from grace - it's what fans do to their heroes. He's since apologized (see video here).
Do you think Logan would have been able to afford a trip to Japan had he gotten a job at Subway outta college, and now become a "viral sensation" for filming himself being a jackass? And how about this area where people have been going to hang themselves for years? Anyone wanna cut some trees down there? Ever think about not promoting "the suicide forest" anymore, so it ceases to be a tourist destination for Americans? Think about it: How many people do you know that have taken a trip to California, only to pose for a picture at the very place where OJ Simpson's wife was found dead? Don't you find that a little....I dunno...odd? Our fascination with the morbid and with making nobodies stars, only so we can turn on them is the vaulted bigger picture.