Logan Paul uploaded the video to YouTube on December 31, 2017, as part three of his "Tokyo Adventures" vlog series2. The day before, he had teased it on Twitter, telling followers: "tomorrow's vlog will be the craziest and most real video I've ever uploaded"4. The video was not behind any age gate and appeared in YouTube's trending section almost immediately5.

In the clip, Paul enters Aokigahara with stated plans to explore its "haunted" reputation and camp overnight2. Early into the trek, the group spots a body. "Yo, are you alive? Are you fucking with us?" Paul calls out8. After realizing what he's looking at, he turns the camera on himself: "A lot of things going through my mind. This is a first for me"2. He then films the body up close, noting, "His hands are purple. He did this this morning"8. The video closes with Paul stating that "suicide is not a joke" and that "depression and mental illness are not a joke," while the YouTube description linked to the American Society for Suicide Prevention2.

The video pulled in over 6.2 million views before Paul himself deleted it roughly 24 hours later on January 1, 20185. YouTube did not remove it4.

The suicide forest video was a watershed moment for discussions about influencer ethics and platform responsibility. It generated coverage from the New York Times1, The Verge3, NY Magazine2, BuzzFeed News4, Global News6, The Daily Beast7, and dozens of other outlets, making it one of the most covered YouTube controversies ever.

YouTube's response to the scandal directly influenced its policy changes around creator monetization and content guidelines. The platform tightened requirements for the YouTube Partner Program in the weeks following, raising the threshold for monetization eligibility3. The incident also put Google Preferred under a spotlight, making advertisers more cautious about which creators they were associated with4.

Anna Akana, a YouTuber who had lost a family member to suicide, was quoted in YouTube's own open letter: "That body was a person someone loved. You do not walk into a suicide forest with a camera and claim mental health awareness"8. The line became one of the most shared responses to the incident.

The event also helped shape the modern "YouTuber apology video" as a genre. Paul's progression from dismissive text apology to tearful video apology to charity pledge set a template that dozens of creators would follow in subsequent controversies.

The fallout from the Aokigahara video didn't end with Paul's return. Within weeks, he was back to generating controversy. He encouraged followers to attempt the Tide Pod challenge, took a fish out of his pond to jokingly give it CPR, and uploaded a video of himself tasering a dead rat3. YouTube cited this "recent pattern of behavior" when it took its harshest action yet: on February 9, 2018, the platform temporarily suspended all advertising on Paul's channels3. Social media analytics firm SocialBlade estimated his ad revenue at up to $1.2 million per month, all of which was now frozen3.

The ad suspension went beyond anything YouTube had previously done to a top creator. The company's statement explicitly framed its concern not just in terms of Paul's conduct but in terms of the risk to the "broader creator community" and to advertisers3. YouTube's advertiser-friendly guidelines were clear: monetizing content that violates their rules could result in loss of monetization features3.

Despite the professional consequences, Paul's audience barely flinched. BuzzFeed News reported that even while he was offline, Paul gained over 400,000 new subscribers4. His "So Sorry" apology video alone pulled 38 million views4. PewDiePie, who had faced his own controversy after posting videos with antisemitic imagery, noted what he saw as a double standard: "It seemed like I got in a lot more shit for a lot less," he said, before half-jokingly asking YouTube to bring back his cancelled YouTube Red series4.

The personal toll extended beyond Logan. His brother Jake Paul later revealed in an interview that the scandal cost him a $10 million brand deal and led every affiliated brand to drop him, despite not appearing in the video9. "Every brand that I was affiliated with dropped me," Jake said. "I wasn't even the one who filmed the video"9. Jake described experiencing suicidal ideation in the aftermath, saying, "I thought my own friends, who I thought I would be with and know forever, they were gone"9.

The Dwayne Johnson fallout was another casualty Paul didn't see coming. During an appearance on the True Geordie Podcast, Paul revealed that Johnson's shared publicist called to say the actor "has asked that you remove every video and picture that you've done with him"13. Johnson's reaction was personal: his mother had attempted suicide when he was 1513. While Johnson later reached out via Instagram DM, Paul said he never responded13.

Nearly a year later, in December 2018, Indonesian YouTuber Qorygore filmed his own trip to Aokigahara and uploaded a video in which he declared, "No dead bodies, no fun" and, upon finding what appeared to be a body, announced, "I went all the way to Japan. This is Logan Paul 2.0"11. The video attracted 575,000 views before YouTube removed it11. Qorygore later claimed the body might not have been real but admitted he didn't edit it out because he wanted to "trigger" viewers12.

The Paul scandal also became a lens through which critics examined YouTube's content moderation failures. Before the suicide forest incident, the platform had already faced scrutiny over child exploitation content and inconsistent enforcement of community guidelines6. YouTube's slow, measured responses throughout January 2018 drew criticism for being reactive rather than preventive7. The company's open letter acknowledged as much: "It's taken us a long time to respond, but we've been listening to everything you've been saying"6.

By the end of 2018, Forbes reported that Paul had earned $14.5 million between June 2017 and June 2018, a 16% year-over-year increase, with the majority still coming from YouTube ads12. The scandal, for all its severity, did not destroy his career. Paul pivoted to professional boxing, launched the Impaulsive podcast, and gradually rebuilt his brand. But as multiple sources noted, the stain of the video never fully washed away12. A month after his return, Paul was getting dragged again for leaving an insensitive comment on Cardi B's Instagram referencing crucifixion10.