The kids of the world are being corrupted by a pair of brothers, more specifically one of them; Logan Paul. If you are asking yourself who in the hell is that, you are probably over the age of 16 years old. Logan Paul is a 23-year-old boy from Ohio who first grew to fame on the app Vine, then moved to vlogs on YouTube. He uploads a new video every single day, owns a multi-million-dollar home in the Los Angeles hills, and influences many kids of today. His fans follow every word he says, he motto is Be a Maverick. Yep you read that right, Be a Maverick. To me this as stupid of a catch phase as YOLO, but these three words come with so much more behind them than you may think.
In the rhetorical theory – fantasy-theme criticism, which “is a method of rhetorical criticism that seeks to understand how shared realities within a group shape the way people think and act…” (The VCG). Its purpose is to figure out why the groups that are following the artifact by looking at the characters and actions of the piece or in this case the phrase and the person behind it. If you apply this criticism to the phrase Logan Paul has crafted his ‘brand’ around, you may start to understand why his ‘fans’ are obsessed with him (if they even know why).
If you apply the symbolic convergence theory as well, having two main concepts to factor in to the phrase – “communication creates reality and that reality is shared as a social construction” (Bormann/Read-Davidson), you would be able to deceiver how Logan uses his platform to create his own reality of what is true and makes it ‘Savage’ to get people to subscribe, follow, or buy merch.
According to Logan is reasons for his brand name and his bird’s name is that, “If you’re a Maverick you’re someone who paves your own path which has become my way of life.” In retrospect the phrase has a great message for kids, go out and be unique and different and don’t think about what others are doing, be someone great. The only problem is that, Logan doesn’t emulate that message in a good light, with morals. He views it as a next level opportunity to gain subscribers and people to buy his merch. He only wants to be the biggest entertainer in the world and he won’t stop for nothing.
Kids see him doing videos of pranking his brother back and forth, trying to one up each other and ultimately, they show how siblings should be treating each other to their viewers. Because why wouldn’t you sleep with your brother’s ex-girlfriend and everything would be amazing between you?
The one thing that rocked Logan’s world that made his motto “Be a Maverick” go to the top of the WORST level cam on New Year’s Day 2018. Logan put out a video of a dead body he had found while in the Japanese Suicide Forest and masked it as a prevention video. He showed a poor man’s lifeless body with only the head burred out and laughed. Even in the video he saw some fans in the parking lot and told them to “not go over there” pointing in the direction of where he had found the body.
Kids from all over the world, from the ages of 8 years old to 18 years old, watch Logan Paul every day and idolize what this message ensues. Be a Maverick, be Savage, be the best of the best always or no one will care. A man who filmed a dead body, has young fans wanting to be him. A man who says he has sociopathic tendencies and that those who have tendencies are just “a little more savage.”
YouTube has their golden boy back on top after a rough start to the year. He fought KSI, another YouTuber, in August for the biggest YouTube event in its history online. And kids everywhere are still trying to #BeAMaverick. The likability of the guy is just apparently too strong for kids to understand they are being manipulated into a life of wanting to be Logan Paul. God help us all.
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