Logan Paul bounces back from suicide video fiasco with new, more tasteful suicide video

After releasing a uniquely tasteless “moment in YouTube history” in which he glibly uncovered a suicide victim in a country beset by high rates of suicide, unremarkable but, sadly, famous bro Logan Paul has now fashioned himself a suicide prevention advocate. Sure, this might have something to do with the ensuing backlash to his video, as well as his tasteless semi-apology that mostly consisted of humblebrags (“I didn’t do it for the views. I get views”), resulting in an avalanche of bad press, severed promotional deals with YouTube, and one very sternly worded letter from a clothing brand. But, look: maybe Logan Paul is being genuine.

The above video is his grand redemption play, and it is—well, it’s a fucking YouTube personality video, built around his “journey” to discover more, with pledges to “immerse myself in the conversation” around suicide prevention. He’s learned, he tells the viewer repeatedly over slow-motion footage of him washing his hands and face, walking into the sunlight, and feeding a tiny fucking dog. The clip’s most mournful music is played over a montage of his bad press clippings; this pivots to blandly optimistic electronic music as drone footage surveys the wild, suicide-prevention-learnin’ adventure Paul went on, with time-lapse footage of him hanging out of a cab and just taking things on. Learning. He also has a new, significantly less stupid haircut.

To his credit, the video does, in its hollow way, deliver statistics and hammer in a few core suicide prevention techniques, and features a few minutes of impassioned testimony from suicide survivor Kevin Hines. Paul also pledges $1 million to suicide prevention organizations, which is a good-faith effort to help prevent the very thing he so glibly trivialized just three weeks ago. Nevertheless, the whole thing is, if this even needs to be pointed out, as focus-grouped and finessed a PR video as can be imagined, and has already racked up some 10 million views on YouTube.

All of which is to say that he’ll likely be back to, um, pretending he fucked his brother’s girlfriend or whatever soon enough. The YouTube economy wants what it wants.