By Joshua Raymundo

Staff Writer

On Dec. 31, 2017, YouTuber Logan Paul released a video depicting him and his friends laughing at a suicide victim, which generated waves of controversy.  He is one of hundreds of YouTubers who have moved away from creating videos solely for entertainment, and instead towards making videos for increased revenue. The YouTube corporation needs to enforce stronger regulations and punishments to prevent another video of this caliber from occurring.

Paul’s video is part of a YouTube phenomenon, wherein everything a creator posts, whether it is a funny video or an apology video, is all solely to better said YouTuber’s content and to increase subscriber numbers.

The Los Angeles Times describes that YouTuber Sam Pepper, notorious for his pranks, went too far.  He went around a city grabbing the buttocks of certain women as a “prank”, in order to increase his views.  His idea of a prank, in reality, was actually an unforgivable demonstration of sexual assault.

Pepper also had another video where he pretended to murder someone in front of his friends, but was forced to take down the video after it generated immense backlash from the YouTube community.

According to the Guardian, Pewdiepie, who owns YouTube’s top channel, released a video considered to be anti-semitic.  He had hired two men to hold a sign that said “Death to all Jews”, and proceeded to laugh about it in his commentary.  Disney decided to cut ties with Pewdiepie, however, his subscribers grew by 7 million.

This is exactly the problem. A desensitized and thoughtless media is publishing offensive videos for increased viewership, and they are being successful in their endeavors. Unfortunately, there is no surefire way to prevent YouTubers from producing insensitive content. However, it is easy to prevent said actions with appropriate measures.  

The YouTube Corporation needs to ensure that any offensive videos of Paul, Pepper, and Pewdiepie’s caliber are not only taken down, but that they lose special privileges.  This will make an example out of the most powerful YouTubers and will deter other YouTubers from following a similar path.

The Guardian noted, “Hatred is camouflaged in absurd memes and an overblown rhetorical style […] Nothing is serious; everything is a joke.” It is time that we look past the superficial content of YouTubers, and support a more wholesome YouTube community.