Jake Paul
Who Is Jake Paul:
Internet Take Over
Savagery and Mook-ness
What is a Mook?
Originally popularized on MTV, the word mook became a blanket term to describe hyper-masculine archetypes appearing frequently in pop culture and media. A mook is characterized by being crude, loud, engaging in dangerous pranks, and being seen as an aggressive conqueror of women. From the inception of the mook, marketers discovered its appeal to and influence on teenage boys. In American society men who are considered feminine are devalued as successful members of society. Because the mook represents everything traditionally masculine (examples listed to the right of this paragraph) teenage boys look up to and identify with the mooks they see on television as it shirks all connections to femininity.
Gaining Subscribers
Jake can attribute his 17 million and counting subscribers to his self proclaimed “savageness”. Savage can be defined as not caring about the consequences of actions and having a general disregard for others feelings. Jake grew his Youtube channel by doing crazy and savage stunts including “MY NEW FIRE EXTINGUISHER JETPACK!!”. Jake also can attribute many of his preteen and hormone raging subscribers to his over sexualized content. One of his videos titled “DON’T WATCH THIS WITH YOUR PARENTS.” features a bikini clad girl in the thumbnail. Jake has also become skillful at combining over sexualization with dangerous stunts that make for clickable videos with titles such as: “SCARY CLOWN SHOWER PRANK ON GIRLFRIEND”, “50 foot CAR JUMP OVER my GIRLFRIEND”, and “ICY HOT MASSAGE PRANK ON MY GIRLFRIEND”. What make these videos troubling is Jake Paul's viewers are young and impressionable and what makes it possibly even more concerning is that he knows they are young. When asked by Vice, a online news outlet, who the average Jake Pauler is Paul responds: “an 8 to 18 year old”. Paul understands the over sexualization and dangerous pranks will continue to get him success as they are highly clickable videos and are attractive to young viewers.
Public Disputes
Paul is clearly not the ideal role model for the future of America as his self described "savageness" shows children it’s okay to treat women like objects and its admirable to risk everything (including your safety) for a prank. Paul's savageness bled out of the internet and into the real world as he became enthralled in a heated dispute with the neighbors of the previous Team 10 home. Problems with his neighbors began
because of Paul's loud, dangerous, and disruptive pranks and they continued as Paul created disturbances with fans coming to his home and people driving fast vehicles. To add fuel to the fire, the home’s address was leaked and fans flocked to Paul's home, waiting hours outside for the chance to see him first hand. Many believe the address was self-leaked by Paul and his team to increase publicity. Paul’s outrageous stunts were the main reason for the dispute with neighbors. Paul and the members of Team 10 lit a fire in their empty pool that quickly rose higher than the house. Neighbors expressed feeling concern for themselves and their families with one neighbor saying to KTLA 5: “it used to be a really nice quite street and now we’re just this war zone. We’re families here and we’re more than happy to have them live here if they are respectful of their neighbors but they’re not”. A reporter from KTLA 5 addressed Paul saying: “They say that you have created a living hell out here, that you’ve created a circus". Paul responded with a smirk: “But people like going to circuses, right?”. Paul’s blatant disregard for his neighbors and their concerns speaks to a greater issue of entitlement where Jake feels above the law.
Boxing Match
Jake continued in his streak of violence and over masculinized tricks as he joined his brother, another social media influencer, Logan Paul in a Boxing match again KSI and Deji, two brothers who are also popular Youtubers. The fights were broadly televised, sold for $10 on Pay-per-view and the entire arena sold out. Jake finished the boxing match blooded and went home with a win. The group is already planning a rematch to take place in Los Angeles. Paul’s behavior not only in his violent, click-batey videos, but on his property and in the ring beg the question: is he is a good role model for America’s youth? Even more than that, it begs the question: why is this type of Behavior entertaining to watch?
What makes his over the top personality so entertaining and click worthy?
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In the social media world, relevancy is everything. Without relevance there is no draw for people to be engaged. So the question becomes what is the secret to relevance and the answer is deceivingly simple: knowing what is “cool”. Paul has mastered this niche. He found a formula that is the perfect way to get clicks and in turn revenue. He has mastered the art of combining stunts, pranks, his over the top masculine archetype, and sexualized women to gain internet sensationalism. Paul's use of the mook character has allowed him to reach astronomical levels of fame as it helps to attract and engage teens. Furthermore, by showing his fans the appeal of the mook lifestyle (with fast cars, sprawling mansions, and women galore) he perpetuates the effectiveness of the mook and the fear of being demasculinized, thus ensuring that his formula for obtaining clicks will live on.