Unpopular opinions.

[Aufc]

The fact logan Paul and his brother are even famous is a sad indication of the current way of the world. I realise this makes me sound like an old b*****d but life was easier and more enjoyable before social media

[welshbairn]

22 minutes ago, SANTAN said:

There are people on this planet who have forgiven their loved ones murderers, do you think that they are wrong to do so? 

Let's ask the family and friends of the man who he filmed and laughed at suspended from a tree, shall we? He's hardly done penance for it, it just made him more famous and wealthier.

Edited July 24, 2021 by welshbairn

[Empty It]

The fact logan Paul and his brother are even famous is a sad indication of the current way of the world. I realise this makes me sound like an old b*****d but life was easier and more enjoyable before social media

And all these other talentless guys they hang about with, I can understand kids gravitating towards it but when adults like a few on here watch them it's just strange.

[SANTAN]

3 minutes ago, throbber said:

An offensive tweet is an error of judgement like that comedian who made a joke about black players missing penalties after the England Italy final. Going to a well known suicide Forrest in Japan then filming a dead guy hanging from a tree in order to get likes on your YouTube channel is taking things to all sorts of extremes that almost all normal people wouldn’t even consider. 

It's important to note he wouldn't have the same psychological make up of a normal person, this is someone that was caught up chasing views making mega money. 

[NotThePars]

Coincidentally I was reading RIchard Seymour's The Twittering Machine and he talked about the Logan Paul scandal I'll spoiler below. 

Spoiler

Aokigahara, the ‘sea of trees’, is a hauntingly beautiful forest growing out of cooled lava on the northwest flank of Mount Fuji. In Japanese mythology, Aokigahara is roamed by yurei, the spirits of those left there to die. It is dense, vast and silent, the volcanic rock and trees absorbing sound. Today, it is where dozens of people commit suicide every year. The bodies turn up dangling from boughs or lying on the forest floor among the tangled roots.

In December 2017, a bleach-blond Hollywood surfer dude stood in the thick of the woods, gawping at a corpse, long dead, spinning at the end of a rope. The surfer dude, wearing a lurid green Futurama ‘brain slug’ hat, looked slightly frantic, panicked. Staring death in the face, he cracked nervous jokes. Logan Paul is a hugely successful YouTube vlogger, and had intended to make a video while camping out in the forest with his friends, when he stumbled on destiny. The camp-out was cancelled. The authorities were called. And the video was posted on YouTube.

Why not? This was authentic, riveting content. Paul had kept his viewers hooked by sharing stylized bits of his life with them. It had proven wildly profitable, winning him over a million dollars a month in Google Preferred ad revenues, starring roles in several YouTube series and his own line of clothing.35 And here was an undeniably compelling story from his life, the sort of story that should reverberate in excited ripples of attention and reaction. Social industry giants are not moral arbiters. They are agnostic about what users post because their trade is in attention – an abstract commodity – not content. With two billion people ceaselessly churning out content, the platform is so designed as to automatically convert the stuff of everyday life into economically valuable informatics. Content stimulates users to produce more content in a virtuous, or vicious, circle.

But this time, Paul crossed a barely legible threshold of taste and decency. Handled more sensitively, it might have been a gold mine. Instead, the backlash was swift and brutal. Politicians and celebrities lined up to denounce his insensitive display of the corpse. A petition demanding that his channel be pulled gained tens of thousands of signatures. YouTube condemned his actions, suspended him from the Google Preferred revenue stream and cancelled his series appearances. Fellow YouTuber Japanese-American internet celebrity Reina Scully scolded him, ‘Get out of my beautiful motherland.’36 Paul’s success brought social responsibilities, he was told. He had disrespected the dead person’s family, and risked triggering further suicides. Precisely because suicide is a symbolic act, it can be contagious.

Paul, being a savvy entrepreneur, pivoted quickly.37 His gamble having failed, he took down the video, delivered a well-scripted, emotional apology, and followed it up with a new segment in which he interviewed suicide experts. He had got ‘caught up in the moment’. All he had ever wanted to do was ‘raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention’. He now understood that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. It was a deft turn, converting a scandal into a tacit tribute to his own ongoing importance. This showed he understood how the medium worked. Paul’s gamble had worked out badly for him, but not for the social industry: it still generated floods of new content and new flows of attention. If he played it well, he could still benefit from the attention flows he had created.

I've never watched the video (because why would you?) but I mind the storm and there was a general impression that he wouldn't recover from it. 

Edited July 24, 2021 by NotThePars

[SANTAN]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Let's ask the family and friends of the man who he filmed and laughed at suspended from a tree, shall we? He's hardly done penance for it, just made himself more famous and wealthier.

I've already pointed out he didn't laugh at the person, he nervously laughed with his friends in the presence of a dead body..

If he's rehabilitated then why does it matter if he's grown more famous or wealthy. Should people that leave prison be capped at what they can achieve? 

[throbber]

2 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

Says you. Who made you moral arbiter of humanity?

Well where do you draw the line with your “error of judgement” stance? Because you clearly think filming/laughing at someone dangling from a tree is forgivable. 

[welshbairn]

Just now, SANTAN said:

I've already pointed out he didn't laugh at the person, he nervously laughed with his friends in the presence of a dead body..

If he's rehabilitated then why does it matter if he's grown more famous or wealthy. Should people that leave prison be capped at what they can achieve? 

He didn't go to prison, he got richer off it. Short term bad PR, long term gain.

[SANTAN]

Just now, welshbairn said:

He didn't go to prison, he got richer off it. Short term bad PR, long term gain.

The same logic applies though. You're seemingly diminishing any potential remorse or personal growth because he's now very successful. Surely both can be possible? 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

Paul did face consequences at the time, got pulled from stuff that was making him money and got roundly scolded all over the place. I'm not enough of a sad act to have any idea what's going on with his YouTube these days but if he has matured fair play to him. Equally understandable if people still think he's a c**t because what he did was pretty shitty, but also a pretty obvious consequence of giving moron 20 year olds the opportunity to become very famous with an internet connection and a video camera

[Bairnardo]

Im absolutely stunned to see Stormzy taking yet another rinsing.

[SANTAN]

Just now, Bairnardo said:

Im absolutely stunned to see Stormzy taking yet another rinsing.

Where? 

[19QOS19]

I was agreeing with everything you said til this part. That alone could be an unpopular opinion, unless I'm getting your take wrong, what's wrong with martial arts? 
As stated I think he's a cringey weirdo but think he has grown up quite a bit since then and genuinely understands and regrets what he did. 
ETA - I don't follow or subscribe to him and have never found those YouTubers interesting. 

There's nothing wrong with Martial Arts. I'm maybe just overthinking it but former 'YouTuber' turned MMA star is always going to draw attention and something I think he obviously still craves which makes me think his personality hasn't been effected as a result. That's all.

[SANTAN]

3 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

2 hours ago, SANTAN said:

I was agreeing with everything you said til this part. That alone could be an unpopular opinion, unless I'm getting your take wrong, what's wrong with martial arts? 
As stated I think he's a cringey weirdo but think he has grown up quite a bit since then and genuinely understands and regrets what he did. 
ETA - I don't follow or subscribe to him and have never found those YouTubers interesting. 

There's nothing wrong with Martial Arts. I'm maybe just overthinking it but former 'YouTuber' turned MMA star is always going to draw attention and something I think he obviously still craves which makes me think his personality hasn't been effected as a result. That's all.

Yeah that's fair, I would say all Youtubers are looking for attention in the first place which isn't such a bad thing as long as they do it in decent ways. I think he has an athletic background so perhaps channelling his attention craving in a healthy outlet like sports is better than filming dead people! 

[BFTD]

5 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Is like to see all YouTubers put up against professional boxers. 

Would happily pay upwards of £6.99 to watch Barry McGuigan batter DanTDM.

Years back, appalling film director (and amateur boxer) Uwe Boll put out an invite to his harshest internet critics (mainly a bunch of skinny kids) to take part in a series of boxing matches to be recorded for his new film. Just a bit of fun, nothing serious, we just dance about a bit in the ring and it'll be a nice bit of friendly publicity for all of us.

He then proceeded to line them up, one at a time, and mercilessly batter the absolute f**k out of them.

[throbber]

16 minutes ago, SANTAN said:

perhaps channelling his attention craving in a healthy outlet like sports is better than filming dead people! 

Such wisdom.

[Paul Kersey]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Years back, appalling film director (and amateur boxer) Uwe Boll put out an invite to his harshest internet critics (mainly a bunch of skinny kids) to take part in a series of boxing matches to be recorded for his new film. Just a bit of fun, nothing serious, we just dance about a bit in the ring and it'll be a nice bit of friendly publicity for all of us.

He then proceeded to line them up, one at a time, and mercilessly batter the absolute f**k out of them.

 

[BFTD]

Nelson Chance Minter  

[Paul Kersey]

8 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Nelson Chance Minter  

Minter by name Minter by nature.

There was a thread on here a few years ago about American sounding names. It could be due a bump.

[Thorongil]

4 hours ago, throbber said:

Well where do you draw the line with your “error of judgement” stance? Because you clearly think filming/laughing at someone dangling from a tree is forgivable. 

It’s none of my business never mind a matter for me to forgive or not. Random strangers on the internet are not accountable to me. Focus on your actual life perhaps.