Social media has been flooded with outrage at Logan Paul’s “dead body” video, which shows an apparent suicide victim in Japan’s Aokigahara forest. Although that video sinks particularly low, it’s not the only insensitive clip the celebrity vlogger filmed in Japan.
A compilation video created by YouTuber site We The Unicorns includes a clip of Paul saying, “I just gotta be careful to not, like, disrespect the culture,” along with shot after shot of Paul, well, disrespecting Japanese culture and people.
In the mashup, mined from Paul’s own vlogs, he is seen gallivanting around in a stereotypical rice hat and robe, walking with his hands held in a prayer position and demeaning Tokyo as a “real live cartoon.”
And that’s barely the tip of his mockery.
Paul smashes a Game Boy Color at a store and then announces to the attendant that the device is “much-o broken-o.” He throws Poké Balls at people in Japan while screaming “I choose you.”
We’re getting serious Jesse Watters’ Chinatown segment vibes.
The We the Unicorns compilation went viral on Twitter with about 3.5 million views. Many social media users were appalled at what they saw. Even Chrissy Teigen, who had previously urged people to be more forgiving of Paul, harshly condemned the vlogger after she watched the mashup.
The latest reactions back up what Japanese YouTuber Reina Scully was already saying about Paul. In her own vlog, Scully noted that Paul’s videos suggest he sees Japanese people as “caricatures” rather than human beings.
“It’s definitely alarming in the worst of ways, and after watching some clips of Logan Paul’s other blogs in Japan ... there’s a sliver of what I used to experience of how people used to talk down to me because I was foreign,” said Scully, a Japanese national citizen who grew up in the U.S.
Others have pointed out that Paul’s insensitive behavior toward Asians has not been confined to his Japanese trip. He has a history of undermining Asians and other people of color, as demonstrated by some of his past tweets shared by actor Jimmy Wong.
“Watermelon makes your penis bigger ― black men. Soy increases the estrogen in your body, decreasing penis size ― asians,” Paul wrote in one tweet.
In another tweet, he attached a picture of himself holding an unidentified child. “Found this little Asian boy in London,” he wrote. “Named him Isaac. Nice kid.”
It seems Paul’s offensive behavior has been out there all along.