Jake Paul is a name I’m sure you’ve heard of before. Despite only being 21 years old (he was born on January 17th, 1997 – if you were keeping notes) he’s already built quite a career for himself that hasn’t been saved of controversy. The controversy is probably more related to his brother, Logan Paul, so we’ll try not to get into too much detail about that. I mean, we’ve all heard of that particular video and that particular story.
Jake started off on the seemingly ancient video service Vine. He posted loads of videos on it, as social media people do, and had about 2 million views in total by the time the app shut down. This jump-started his career and gave him a role on Disney’s Bizaardvark. It was all pretty tame up until 2017, when Jake Paul got to that weird “I’m over 18 so I can do what I want” age that all boys go through.
Jake then moved over to YouTube, where he had to push the boundaries of his videos to stay relevant. It’s hard being a YouTube personality when there’s a billion of vloggers that are all directly competing with you, I guess. At a White House party early 2017, Jake hid in a bathroom and snuck out of the White House in the middle of the night without being confronted by security. You can imagine the people in charge didn’t find that very cool, but Jake’s followers did.
Jake Paul then had a really bad summer. His house was made public – by himself – leading loads of fans to gather outside his house, turning it into a public nuisance. A class action lawsuit was filed against him by his neighbors and he was sued by the company that owned his house for $2,5 million. Shortly after this news was made public, Jake Paul got fired by Disney.
Now, in 2018, Jake’s been focusing more on his acting and personal YouTube brand. Early this year however, he posted a video stating he “lost his virginity”, which was deemed far too sexually explicit for his younger audience – especially given his Disney background. A video was also leaked of Paul rapping and using the word we don’t use to describe black people multiple times.
It’s hard to imagine we’ve heard the last of Jake Paul, but it’s also hard to imagine this downward spiral of the last three years can be overturned easily. Jake went from a Disney star to a partying, noise-making, disrespectful modern version of Vanilla Ice. There’s quite a few paths one can take in life, but let’s hope Jake can still get off the one he’s been on for a few years now.
