I have never met my aunt, but I feel like I know her. I know her through family stories and faded pictures in old photo albums. My mom lovingly recounts my aunt’s fierce spirit, the pranks that she would play in school and her bright and bubbly personality. She talks about my aunt’s creativity, and how she excelled in anything she set her mind to do. She will forever be young, in the photo albums she looks like a classic golden girl, with tan skin and radiant blonde hair.
But my aunt was secretly fighting almost her whole life. She was fighting a mental illness that took of her and wouldn’t let go. Under the surface, my beloved, beautiful aunt was very, very, sick.
On a beautiful, warm sunny day in Florida, my aunt committed suicide. She jumped over a bridge into the water below. She never made it to thirty.
Because of her illness, she will never know that she would become an aunt. She will never get to meet me and tell me stories from when she was young. She will never get to sit with us at Thanksgiving and is a ghost in our family pictures. She is gone forever because her illness grew too large, too looming to escape. And she is missed everyday.
Image my reaction when I read about a Youtuber named Logan Paul who recorded a dead man who had committed suicide in a forest in Japan and laughed.
A screenshot of the original video Paul uploaded to his channel where he laughed at a suicide victim
I believe that Paul posted the video online with the sole intention of getting views. He exploited suicide for his own gain. He knew exactly what he was doing. According to an article from New York Magazine, the forest that he went into, called the Aokigahara forest, is famous in Japan for being a site where people go to commit suicide. Paul had to have known that he could potentially stumble upon a dead body. In fact, he probably hoped for it so that he could film it, laugh, and watch his views rise.
After I saw some clips from the video, I felt sick. This sends a horrible message to people who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, that you won’t be missed and people who find you will laugh instead of being heartbroken.
Suicide doesn’t only affect the person who decides to end their life, it affects the whole family for generations to come. I imagined the family of the man Paul laughed at. It made me so deeply sad and hurt.
However, if there is anything good to come out of this video, it’s that people from the Youtube and entertainment industry rose up, spoke out against Paul, and did not condone his actions.
Paul apologized over Twitter and on his Youtube page, but only after he realized that he was hemorrhaging followers and that the public had turned against him.
Now Paul has released a “Suicide Awareness Video” on his channel that talks about suicide statistics and that features a suicide survivor. Watching the video, it is clear that this is a last ditch effort for Paul to cling to his Youtube fame and continue monetizing on his fan base.
Paul looks much more somber in his latest video about suicide awareness
Moving forward, I sincerely hope that viewers choose to not engage with Paul or any of his online content. Suicide is not something to exploit, and mental health must be taken seriously. We must work everyday to end the stigma around mental illness and let people who are suffering know that their illness is taken seriously. Paul’s original video takes several steps back in the fight to end the stigma surrounding mental illness and his latest video where he pretends to be an advocate for mental health is an insult.
I still think about my aunt, and so does everyone in my family. Her death deserves more respect than being used for clickbait.