Sarah* wants to be discreet. “I don’t think it will go down well in my line of work or my culture,” says the 33-year-old Middle Eastern doctor, who has agreed to speak with me over email on the condition of total anonymity. Sarah’s secret is simple and, perhaps at first, not at all shocking – she is a fan of YouTuber Logan Paul.
In January 2018, Paul filmed a dead body and uploaded the footage to YouTube. Many of his 15 million subscribers watched the video, which caused near-instant media uproar. Critics condemned not only the filming of a suicide victim, but the fact the vast majority of Paul’s subscribers appear to be children. When Paul appeared on Good Morning America and said “It’s not like I’m making content necessarily for kids,” journalist Taylor Lorenz tweeted her scepticism.
“Half his fan base is like 8 years old,” she wrote. “No 22 year olds watch Logan Paul.”
Patty Wszola is a 40-year-old Logangster. This nickname – along with #Maverick – is how Paul refers to his fans and how they often refer to themselves. Wszola has enjoyed Paul’s videos for over a year, and introduced the YouTuber to her 22-year-old son.
“He is very upbeat and entertains me,” Wszola says of why she likes Paul, “His videos take me away from my daily struggles even for just 10 minutes.” She and her son William have now spent over $2,000 (£1416) on Logan Paul merchandise.
Wszola and her son in Logan Paul T-shirts
There is no denying that much of Paul’s loyal fan base is young – very young. Though many online condemn those who remain fans of Paul after the controversial video, this loyalty is often excused with a simple “You’ll grow out of it”. But what of Paul’s older, more obscure, fans? Should they know better than to support a man who not only filmed a suicide victim, but also faked his own death in front of children, and went around Japan filming culturally insensitive pranks?
“I agree 100 per cent that it was completely tasteless, the thought process should’ve been a little deeper,” says Timothy Bridge, a 47-year-old truck driver and Logan Paul fan. “I agree that he did do it for the views.” Although Bridge doesn’t defend Paul’s choice to film a dead body, he believes people overreacted to the video. “As an older adult, I’ve got really thick skin, and I’ll be honest with you, I’m really sick and tired of the way this world works – everybody’s got thin skin.”
Bridge wears a Logan Paul backpack “everywhere” he goes. “I’m old enough to know better, that he screwed up, but I’m not gonna hold it against him for the rest of his life,” he says. Three of his four children also enjoy Paul’s videos, and he doesn’t mind his 15-year-old daughter watching them because she gets good grades. “Logan kinda reminded me of when I was a young kid, all the stupid stuff I’ve done,” he says of why he likes the star. “Of all the stupid stuff he would do… he would always for the most part end the vlog with the serious message of ‘Hey, don’t do this at home’.”
Timothy Bridge
Bridge believes there are more older Paul fans than people think, and Wszola agrees. “I believe there are many, many more middle-aged Logangsters out there. Some might not be as vocal as me, but they are there.” She “proudly” wears Paul’s T-shirts and hoodies and her colleagues are aware she’s a fan. Although she has had to defend the fact she likes him, particularly after the suicide video, she ultimately says: “I don’t care what people think.”
What makes a middle-aged person a Logan Paul fan? Many of the people I speak to talk of finding Paul at difficult times in their lives.
“I actually became a fan mainly cause I am going through battling cancer,” says Diego Reynoso, a 36-year-old currently on disability benefits and running an account on the live-streaming platform Twitch while he undergoes treatment for stage 4 colorectal cancer. “There would be times at chemo that I would be sick or feeling bad and his videos would help by making me laugh.”
Sarah, the doctor who wished to remain anonymous, says Paul’s videos provide “relief” from the stresses of her job. “I see at least 30 patients a day each with their individual medical and social problems,” she says over email, “Sometimes it’s like being kicked in the stomach over and over again for eight to 12 hours straight. Watching Logan’s vlogs is my chance to offload and laugh.” She says that in the medical profession this is called “housekeeping” – the idea you upkeep your “internal home” so you can continue to work.
Diego Reynoso
Back in August, 32-year-old Sara Hughes first got into Logan Paul. “Honestly, it’s his positive outlook,” she says of why she likes his videos, “His energy.” Both Hughes and her 11-year-old daughter, Natalie, enjoy the YouTuber and forgave him for the dead body video.
“I don’t have a huge following and I’ve made some really bad mistakes in my life personally, I’ve been to court, and I’ve dealt with some embarrassing issues,” says Hughes. “I feel like because of that I’m forgiving, and I believe that he has learnt from this experience”.
Natalie, who speaks eloquently and passionately in defence of Paul, says “everybody should get a second chance”.
“When I saw the video I thought it was completely fine, he blurred out the body and everything,” she says. “You can definitely tell that he’s sorry and he does care.”
In fiercely defending her YouTube hero, Natalie isn’t an unusal 11-year-old. But the older Longagsters I speak to all feel as though there are more of them than people think. “I think maybe there’s more people that are older that don’t want to admit it,” says Hughes, while Sarah the medic says she has seen people refer to themselves as “Grandma Logangsters”.
Erica Ann Fisk, a 31-year-old self-described “stay at home mom to a princess”, has been fiercely defensive of Logan Paul on social media. “I think a lot of people fail to realise that Logan does have an older audience,” she tells me over email. “A large portion of his fan base is a younger crowd but I think equally there is an older viewing audience, we just aren’t out here mobbing him in public.” Fisk feels that because of this, Paul doesn’t need to “leave stuff out” of his video for the sake of children. “Kids are going to watch what they watch… if it’s not Logan they will be on another channel.”
Like all of the Logangsters I speak to, Fisk doesn’t defend the dead body video (“Should he have filmed the body? ABSOLUTELY not”). This might be because Logan himself told his fans not to defend his actions, or it may be because an older audience can be more discerning about YouTubers they are fans of. Tim Dunlevy, a 47-year-old coach and fan, was also disappointed with Paul’s other videos in Japan. “I wish he would have just stayed at home,” he says. Ultimately, however, he has found Paul’s dead body video to be useful.
Erica Ann Fisk
“I actually used his mistake to show my college baseball team, think before you do something, because once it is out on the web it’s there forever,” he says. “I mean, I was once a 22-year-old kid that made mistakes and had to learn from them.”
It’s a recurring sentiment. Older Paul fans believe it’s precisely because they are older that they can forgive what they see as a “young” man. This won’t fly with many critics, who perceive the star to be a reckless and irresponsible creator who needs to be reined in by YouTube. Many still will never be able to forgive the YouTuber’s callous act. As New Statesman contributor Imogen Groome wrote of the dead body video at the time: “Am I triggered? Yes. Have I been reminded of the suicidal thoughts I used to have? You bet.” Regardless of how many people Logan Paul makes laugh, shouldn’t YouTube punish creators who post such disturbing footage to audiences both young and old? And can’t people go to someone less troubling for their comedy?
Sarah, the doctor, says it’s not YouTube that needs to act, it’s parents. “If Logan’s fan base were 8 year olds, we should be going after their parents,” she says “Why on earth were children being allowed to access such content, why are parents not monitoring?”
From meet-up footage and fan comments, it’s undeniable that the most vocal part of Paul’s fan base are young children. The public are unable to see the demographics of a YouTuber’s followers, so only Paul and his team really know how common older Logangsters are. If there are thousands of them, could Paul split his audience with some kind of digital watershed? Or would that just cause even more children to lie about their age on YouTube, obscuring the problem? Conversely, if the majority of his fans are children, shouldn’t Paul’s content be regulated in the same way as children’s TV and films?
It seems likely that the majority of Pauls fans are children – and thus questions remain for both YouTube and the star himself. Older Longasters, however, just want to make it known they exist. Are they embarrassed? “Absolutely not,” says Fisk over email. “That’s one of the reasons I love Logan. He has taught me even as a 31 year old that no matter what BE YOURSELF and don’t care about what anyone thinks.”
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