Jake Paul: Is he really beating all the competition?

October 12, 2017 — by Alex Wang and Victor Liu

Reporters cover one of YouTube's biggest sensations Jake Paul and how he got his fame and success.

“It’s everyday, bro with that Disney Channel flow,” YouTube vlogger Jake Paul “rapped” in his hit summer single, “It’s Everyday Bro.” The song, which has a so-horrible-that-it’s-funny status that rivals songs such as Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” has reached 127 million views as of early October.

Paul became famous by association through his Vine-sensation brother Logan Paul and amassed his YouTube audience after transitioning to YouTube following Vine’s shutdown earlier in January.

Over the past three months, Paul has reached almost 11 million total subscribers, which he creatively calls his “Jake Paul-ers,” and has gained more than 2.3 billion total views on his channel.

In addition to his YouTube following, he also has 2.3 million followers on Twitter and 10 million on Instagram. A combination of online drama between him and other popular online personalities and Jake Paul’s ability to push new content out onto his channel every day has generated this large fan base.

However, Paul’s recent popularity has become a topic of controversy.

With so much support and viewership across multiple social media platforms, it may seem like Paul is a well-liked celebrity. But after delving deeper than the poorly rhymed verses in “It’s Everyday Bro,” we have realized that there is more to Jake Paul than meets the eye.

Unlike Rebecca Black, who has barely managed to break the 50,000 view mark after the sensation surrounding “Friday” died down, Jake Paul shows no signs of stopping, surging past 3 million views on nearly every single daily video upload. He may not seem that smart on camera — he thinks England is a city, for example — but he has created a formula for YouTube success that has propelled him to the spotlight, which we find both laudable and lamentable.

After struggling through a couple of his videos, we noticed a fairly simple pattern. Upon first glance, Paul, like a female baboon who attracts male attention by showing off her colorful behind, uses clickbait to draw in viewers. The attention-grabbing misleading titles, are usually capitalized, bolded exclamations like “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT WE DID…” and “I BET YOU $10,000 YOU CAN'T GUESS WHO I MADE A SONG WITH.”

Most of these titles refer to equally false thumbnails, usually a picture of Paul doing something vaguely related to the title accompanied with a silhouette of an expensive car or an emoji. Occasionally, he includes red arrows in the videos’ thumbnails that don’t seem to be pointing to anything.

In his videos, Paul flaunts his lavish life and often tries to disrupt the public with his stunts and invasions on others’ privacy. He has set furniture on fire and posted his address publicly, attracting crowds of fans to his door like a carcass draws in turkey vultures. He has a reputation of mistreating others and  has received criticism for his behavior from neighbors and the media, which even his 11 million subscriber count cannot justify.

In fact, Paul was released from his roles on Disney Channel for his repeated disruptive acts.

His videos are no better than his disorderly behavior. The content usually contains a lot of shouting, pranks and plugs about his merchandise and social media accounts.

Paul also releases music videos, where he tries to rap and sing simultaneously, ending up with disastrous songs. His diss tracks are not well written either and he comically spews lines that make no sense at all, such as “and I just dropped some new merch and it's selling like a god church.”

Ultimately, Paul does not bring much to the table in terms of watchable content. His channel is based on clickbaiting viewers, doing outlandish things and disrespecting others. Viewers should follow Disney’s example and expel Jake Paul from their lives because it’s not everyday, bro.

 
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