YouTuber Shane Dawson has found astounding success in his new documentary series, “The Mind of Jake Paul.” The eight-part series delves into the life and mind of 21-year-old YouTuber Jake Paul.
Paul is one of the most controversial social media influencers, and it is pretty easy as an outsider to dislike him. He is the CEO of Team 10, which is a group of young kids that live in the same house and produce cringe-inducing content for social media. Ever since Team 10 became popular, Jake has been involved in a multitude of online disputes and has done his part to ensure anyone rational over the age of 8 years old finds his character and content absolutely vile.
So, when Dawson, a YouTube vet who is relatively well accepted on social media, announced that Paul would be the subject of his next YouTube documentary, people were skeptical as to how tolerable the series would be. People did not want this series to have a redemption arc that paints Paul to be this misunderstood victim. Initially, people were more interested in the concept of the documentary, rather than the subject, because a majority of YouTube’s content right now is shallow, one-dimensional and overdone. Shane’s documentary is refreshing with its production value and creativity. The reason people are tuning in is because it is innovative. However, Dawson is facing a myriad of critics who are saying the way in which he is choosing to produce the series is negatively influencing the way his audience may view mental illness.
The first couple of episodes appeared as if Dawson was trying to suggest Paul’s erratic behavior could be the result of him being a sociopath. This is a very intense claim to make about anyone without being a medical professional and to make the accusation with millions of impressionable viewers watching is largely insensitive. But the main problem for a lot of people is the way Shane has decided to portray what it means to be a sociopath. At one point in the video, Dawson is speaking to a psychiatrist about the characteristics of a sociopath. While they speak, ominous music plays in the background and the video cuts to clips of eerie stock footage, which could potentially manipulate the audience’s perceptions.
The backlash is not reflected in the like-to-dislike ratio, with the first video having 1.4 million likes and only 28,000 dislikes. So, despite the criticism, a lot of people seem to have a very strange interest in this 21-year-old man, considering every video has been exceeding 10 million views. Whether people are watching to reaffirm their hatred for Paul or because they have a genuine curiosity as to how he lives his life, there is no denying Dawson has done a wonderful job of putting together his findings. He is dramatic in his delivery, but that has always been his style. He is exuberant and a little over the top, but that is why he has found so much success in the series. We all have tendencies to demonize concepts we do not entirely understand, and that is what happened here. He took the concept of sociopaths not having any feelings or remorse and used that to try to give the storyline a creepy theme, which is what creators do. They know how their viewers want to receive their content, and they capitalize off it.
Overall, Dawson is doing a decent job of presenting someone as disliked as Paul in a humane way. It is obvious he wants to give the kid the benefit of the doubt, and ultimately the goal of the documentary is to show how Paul behaves behind the cameras, whether he is a sociopath or not. There are three more parts to the series, which will be posted on YouTube throughout the next two weeks.
Photo from Shane Dawson via YouTube
