Jake Paul documentary

Shane Dawson is one of YouTube’s original creators. He’s had his channel since 2007. Over the eleven years he has been on YouTube, his channel has gone through many evolutions to become what it is now. The types of videos he now puts out are ‘documentary’ style videos based on the lives and scandals of other popular creators. These videos have continually inspired a lot of controversy. The most recent series has not been exempted from that controversy. A few weeks ago, Shane Dawson began his series, “The Mind of Jake Paul.”  Jake Paul, another YouTubed, has been involved in many scandals in the past few years. Dawson made the series to get into those scandals and give viewers of YouTube a perspective into one of the biggest creators.  

This series had many aspects that were clearly problematic. First, the videos took mental health and illness way too lightly. The premise for the videos was to determine if Jake Paul was a ‘sociopath’.  Shane used dramatic editing along with the description of sociopaths given by therapist, Kati Morton, to add some excitement to the videos. It misinformed the millions of people who watched them and also added to an already powerful stigma against those with Antisocial Personality Disorder(ASPD). Many people saw what he was doing as an attempt to diagnose someone without proper observation of the person. The videos depicted people with ASPD as terrifying, manipulative, and overall bad people. It represented mental illness and the diagnosis of mental illness completely  inaccurately. If the video was shown to be completely for entertainment purposes only, this would be more understandable. But by presenting it a documentary, it gives viewers the sense that it’s showing completely factual information.  

Shane Dawson has also done similar ‘documentaries’ on YouTubers Tana Mongeau and Jefree Star. Those two were some of the most disliked creators on that platform. Like Jake Paul, they were also involved in many controversies. Both were shown to have made extremely racist and insensitive  remarks.  His series on Tana Mongeau and Jefree Star  humanized them and because of his series many people began to sympathize with them. When the videos about Jake Paul were announced, a lot of people believed that they would have the same effect on him. Although it might seem nice for the videos to get empathy for those youtubers, it excuses their bad actions. By giving people who do rude and insensitive things to the people around them a platform as large as the one Shane Sawson has, it gives them an opportunity to make excuses for what they did and move on without actually making any changes to their behavior. Instead of being punished for saying offensive things or doing stupid stuff, they’re rewarded with an audience that will forgive them and continue to give them money. This time Jake Paul was on the receiving end of that. He has repeatedly done awful things to his neighbors and made really stupid remarks. in the video, Jake admitted to calling two former members of his team a racial slur. These are actions that most regular people could lose their jobs over, but instead Jake Paul was allowed a space to explain away his mistakes without actually making changes to his actions. 

All in all, “The Mind of Jake Paul” was an entertaining series of videos. Despite that, it had many problematic aspects that was more damaging than benefiting to everyone.