It is no secret that 22-year-old vlogger Logan Paul, with over 15 million subscribers on YouTube, has been famous for his over-the-top videos that aim to “push boundaries,” as Paul once said himself. But he has recently been the center of extreme controversy after uploading a video titled, “We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest” to his YouTube channel in January. In the video, Paul is seen standing on a street corner in Tokyo, where he says to the camera, “This is the most real vlog I’ve ever posted on this channel, and this is the most circumstantially surreal event that has ever happened in my life.”

In the video, Paul goes on to say, “I will say, before you watch, this is graphic. I think this definitely marks a moment in YouTube history because I’m pretty sure this has never, hopefully, happened to anyone on YouTube, ever.”

The video continues as Paul, a few of his friends, and their security drive past Mount Fuji and arrive at the entrance of the Aokigahara Forest, or “sea of trees,” which is commonly referred to as the “Japanese Suicide Forest”, located at the base of Mount Fuji.

Paul then explains that he will be spending the night inside the forest with his friends as they walk into the entrance, staying on course for a brief while and then stepping off the path. Not long after, Paul claims to see a body hanging from a tree, his friends confirming it. He brings his camera over to where the victim is as they proceed to call the police.

Zooming his camera in on the victim’s hands, Paul points out that the victim must have committed suicide earlier that day, as his hands were purple, a process which occurs soon after death where the body’s extremities change color due to lack of circulation of blood, according to the HowStuffWorks website (howstuffworks.com).

Standing close to the body, Paul says, “I will say, as you know, and can see, we’ve blurred the face of the victim because we felt like we should protect his identity.”

Leaving the forest, he explains to the camera that authorities are on their way. While in the parking lot, one of the authorities informs him that going off the path is restricted.

“I’ve said this in one of my first vlogs; I have chosen to entertain you guys every single day, and I made a commitment to that,” Paul said. “I’ve chosen to share stuff, positive or negative, because this is my life, and this is how I document it.”

He also said in response to the fact that it may seem he is taking the situation too lightly, “Me smiling and laughing is not a portrayal of how I feel about the circumstances. If you guys haven’t noticed, I cope with things with humor.” The video ends with three suicide hotline phone numbers displayed on the screen.

Hours after its upload, the video reached #1 on YouTube’s trending page, with a wide variety of responses on several different social media platforms and news websites.

In response to the backlash, Paul deleted the video from his channel and issued an apology on twitter. The apology read, “Where do I begin…let’s start with this- I’m sorry. This is a first for me. I’ve never faced criticism like this before because I’ve never made a mistake like this before. I’m surrounded by good people and believe I make good decisions, but I’m still a human being. I can be wrong. 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.” Paul added, “I intended to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention and while I thought ‘If this video saves just ONE life, it’ll be worth it,’ I was misguided by shock and awe, as portrayed in the video.” Paul continued by saying that he understands the misuse of his power, ending with, “#Logang4life.” After apologizing on twitter, Paul took to YouTube to issue another apology in a video titled “So Sorry,” which relayed the same message.

Many people have commented on this topic on twitter, most notably, Sophie Turner, English actress known best for her work in Game of Thrones, Corinna Kopf, Instagram star with over 816 thousand followers, and American actor, best known for his work on Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul.

Phillip DeFranco, YouTube star, also tweeted, “Just remember this, before all the extended community outrage against Logan Paul’s ‘we found a dead body’ video, there was a seemingly uncontested 550-600,000 likes on it. His core audience doesn’t [care]. Unless YouTube does something, this doesn’t hurt him.”

It was also noticed that since Paul had taken down the video, reuploads of it were being taken down by YouTube, which YouTube was criticized for since it had seen no need to act against the original video.

Backlash against Paul and the video could also be seen on YouTube, where several ‘YouTube drama’ channels have posted videos on controversy and conspiracy surrounding Paul, some pointing out the fact that even before uploading the video, Paul had been disrespecting Japanese culture throughout his trip to Japan in the few videos just prior to its upload.

YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a. Pewdiepie, who is the most subscribed to user on YouTube with over 60 million subscribers and once having been the center of controversy on YouTube himself back in September after saying a racial slur in a video, posted a video poking fun at Paul titled “Logan Paul.” In his video, Kjellberg reacts to Paul’s video and gives his side as to what Paul did wrong.

Among those reacting to the issue was YouTuber Matthew Patrick, a.k.a. The Game Theorists, who has a following of over nine million subscribers. In a video titled, “It’s Time to STOP the Logan Paul Loophole (MatPat Reaction),” he presents an in-depth analysis of Paul’s video, criticizing Paul’s twitter apology, saying that it was not good because its ending included a self-promotional hashtag.

Patrick also criticized YouTube’s slow response time and lack of communication, as well as its algorithm for recommending videos to users. Paul remained “off the grid”, so to speak, after saying in a tweet, “Taking time to reflect. No vlog for now. See you soon,” from January 3 until January 24, when he posted a video on YouTube titled, “Suicide: Be Here Tomorrow.”

In the video, Paul interviewed Kevin Hanes, who, at 19, jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in a suicide attempt. It was clear to many that Paul had attempted to take a more mature approach at bringing awareness to suicide, which he had claimed was his effort, and the video was received just as widely, with reactions, tweets, and responses regarding Paul’s newest video.