About “The Mind of Jake Paul”
Shane Dawson has been making videos on YouTube for eight years, and has recently hit his peak popularity in 2017. As of September 2018, he began a series on YouTuber Jake Paul. The eight part series has collected a whopping 128,886,441 views as of Friday, and it will continue to climb as time goes on. Everyone I know has been talking about it, whether they’re watching it or not. Personally, I have watched all the series Dawson has done, which covered four controversial YouTubers: Grav3yardgirl, Tana Mongeau, Jeffree Star, and now Jake Paul.
Dawson has made a name for himself making documentaries about different YouTubers: why Bunny Meyer hides her life from her fans, the disaster of Tanacon, the scandals surrounding Jeffree Star, and the effects of being one of the most hated people on the internet in The Mind of Jake Paul. For the most part, tons of episodes have racked in over 20 million views each, and have earned Dawson “around $2m a month”, according to an industry expert who spoke to BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat.
In the series, Dawson speaks to Paul’s ex-friend, meets Paul and his girlfriend, and Paull’s ex-girlfriend, and many outstanding characters connected to Paul. The Mighty sums up Jake Paul precisely: he was fired from Disney, accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend and bullying ex-friends, was a public nuisance, making videos that put his friends in danger, and much more. Dawson attempts to find out why Paul has done what he has, and what the truth is behind all the accusations and drama.
Issues Dawson Created
Despite how well the series is doing, it doesn’t go without problems. There was a lot of controversy when Dawson announced the series in September, “with many viewers threatening to boycott Dawson due to his decision to create the series.” (Source: The Mighty).
There were more problems when the second episode, “The Dark Side of Jake Paul” was released September 27th. In the episode, Dawson speaks to a therapist, Kati Morton, about the nature of sociopaths to discuss if Paul fits the description of sociopaths. Dawson’s editing of the video, which included clips of horror movies and other YouTubers, caused backlash. People claimed that Dawson seemed to imply that many YouTubers have are sociopaths themselves, and all sociopaths are dangerous.
Dawson apologized on Twitter and again in his third episode. Although Dawson focused on how sociopaths lack the ability to have emotions, which can be scary to some, understand that sociopathy is not a mental illness. Sociopathy is on the spectrum of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), and Dawson furthered the stigma that sociopaths are as dangerous as murderers and people can self-diagnose others as sociopaths. Overall, it should have been explained better with more warnings. (Sources: Polygon and The Mighty).
The Media’s Take on Why Dawson is Doing This
According to The Verge, Dawson created the series because he truly believes YouTubers may have problems. Dawson directly said in part of the series, “‘Putting ourselves on camera all the time, being so open on camera all the time, having conventions with our name in it. There has to be something,’ he says over footage of YouTubers doing everything from crying on camera to announcing a pregnancy…‘I want to know the psychology of a YouTuber…Do you think, to be a YouTuber, you have to have something off?’” (Source: The Verge).
Hence, Dawson chose Paul to investigate because he’s “YouTube’s most hated personality”, but the goal is to discover something about all YouTubers, even himself, and The Verge points out how Dawson claims he and Paul are alike in many ways in being ostracized by many YouTubers, having haters, growing up with similar father figures, and other ways (source: The Verge)
The Verge claims that maybe “sociopath” isn’t necessarily the right word, but they agree there might be some damage done to YouTube’s biggest leaders, who are all people who are accustomed to their lives being broadcasted and nothing is private, they rely on excessive amounts of attention, and they often come up with crazy ideas to gain enough views (source: The Verge).
Another media source, The BBC, has looked far into the money Dawson is making for the series, and claims the main reason he made this series “is because there’s big business in getting ad sponsors at the beginning of his vlogs”. Jessica Brennan, an influencer marketing manager for the agency The Specialist Works, claims the series is attracting brands because of how viral it’s gone, and that “means that these types of people [YouTubers who go viral] are merging into a celebrity, more than just a YouTuber now because of how well they are known outside of their platform” (source: The BBC).
The BBC also talks about how smaller YouTube channels are uploading reactions and their own opinions on Dawson’s series, which is a tactic Brennan says is like jumping on the bandwagon, and it’s working. BBC explains that if Dawson was on TV, he’d share the income with his network or platform, but being a YouTuber, his earnings are all his and his editor’s. Brennan predicts more YouTubers will begin using YouTube as a platform for the same thing Dawson is doing. (Source: The BBC).
Analyzing the Media’s Stance
So it seems The Verge and The BBC have found different reasons Dawson made this series. The way I want to talk about the problems and strengths about each is by making an analogy. Dr. Phil owns a TV show, called Dr. Phil, which began in 2002 and has since aired 16 seasons. Dr. Phil is often surrounded by hatred for bringing people on his show who suffer from mental illness and psychological problems and showing their struggles to the public, despite their permission for him to do so.
In 2016, there was a specific case of this. Shelley Duvall, famous for her role in “The Shining” from 1980, was interviewed by Dr. Phil. Many people were angered by Dr. Phil for exposing Duvall instead of helping her privately and letting her live in peace (source: Deadline). People accused Dr. Phil of only caring about the money from entertaining others, and not helping his patients on the show.
Dr. Phil, a certified doctor, is definitely an entertainer, and makes exponentially more money from his TV show than he would from just helping patients in his own practice. But the younger population today is more inclined to watch YouTube and Netflix before television programming like our parents did, and that doesn’t imply YouTube creators have different intentions TV stars do. Dr. Phil would earn his income from the rating of his show, and he would share his profit with everyone who worked on the show, and the channel it’s broadcasted on, whereas Dawson is on a free platform where his only forms of income are 1 from sponsorships, and not all parts of the series are sponsored, and 2 from advertisements on his videos, which YouTube mainly controls based on their algorithms that decide how many ads play in Dawson’s 40-100 minute videos.
Dr. Phil is patronized for “exposing” the people on his show instead of helping them privately, but The Verge doesn’t see Dawson’s series as a bad thing. I can’t compare Dr. Phil’s patients to Dawson’s YouTubers because mental illness isn’t the topic on Dawson’s channel like it is on Dr Phil, but Dawson just wants to help who he can on his platform. But there seems to be a trend of news sources generalizing the intentions of series. Deadline, and many other news sources, claimed Dr. Phil exposes all his patients and Dawson is making claims about all YouTubers on the platform.
The three main problems the media covered about Dawson’s series were 1. he incorrectly represented sociopathy, 2. he is making a claim about all YouTubers, and 3. he is only in it for the money. I would like to know what you guys think. Dawson most likely misrepresented sociopathy because the therapist he worked with did not specialize in personality disorders, and only knew what she knew from reading books and sources, and Dawson knew nothing prior to filming. I also think Dawson could have changed his editing style, but he did apologize for the way it was done. I don’t necessarily think all YouTubers have “something” wrong with them, because for many, YouTube is a career, and it’s hard for in exchange for income. And, no, I don’t Shane Dawson is in it for the money. He and Paul have become very close, and Dawson has been able to clear drama and accusation and overall is making YouTube a better platform between many creators and their fans.