2018 is off to a wild start. Like 2017, but without the Hollyweed sign as a symbol of hope.
Because Teen Mom 2 star Briana DeJesus is being slammed left and right over a tweet … all about vile YouTuber Logan Paul’s tasteless Suicide Forest video.
We saw a lot of bad takes about that suicide video, but Briana’s might be the very worst.
Teen Mom, as a franchise, is not something that we ever imagined having any kind of crossover with a famous YouTuber like Logan Paul.
Logan Paul is a 22-year-old professional prankster. Is he hot? Yes. Is he absolutely, infuriatingly obnoxious? Even more yes.
That hasn’t stopped him from making millions through YouTube.
To give you a hint of how obnoxious he is, he did a video with Danielle Bregoli, and was still easily the worst person in the room.
The first time that he came to my attention enough that I learned his name was when his neighbors were suing him for being, um, an insufferable nuisance who was ruining their lives.
This time, in an incident that we had hoped would be the final straw (like when Pewdiepie yelled the N-word back in September), Logan Paul traveled to Japan.
As you can see from the above photo, he’s not exactly the most tasteful tourist. (There’s nothing wrong with enjoying Pokemon; there’s everything wrong with treating Japan and Pokemon as near-synonyms)
Aokigahara forest is famous for the saddest reason — it is not an uncommon place for suicides. When Logan Paul and his cohorts entered the forest with cameras, they encountered a recent suicide victim.
At which point, they promptly started to do weird voices and appeared to mock the man and the entire situation. Positively ghoulish.
Logan Paul apologized again and again, but considering that he chose to monetize his apology video, many find his words insincere.
So … how does Briana DeJesus fit into all of this, you ask?
We don’t know if Briana was trying to “laugh it off” but has a terrible sense of humor, or if she was craving negative attention, or if she really has that terrible of a sense of taste.
But of all of the bad takes that we saw about Logan Paul and his atrocious video, Briana’s might be the worst.
The Teen Mom 2 star tweeted:
“My sister just made me watch a video of a whole bunch of boys going into the Suicide forest to explore and Wow men are p–sies lmao.”
Yikes.
So, it looks like she watched that awful video and her takeaway was that Logan Paul and his cronies were wimpy?
She didn’t question why he went there in the first place, or why he didn’t stop himself while editing and uploading the video.
Fans took it upon themselves to try to educate Briana:
“This is no fun hunted house. It’s a place where ppl go & commit suicide. If your gonna go, go to pray. Pay respect, or for awareness. This is far from a great tourist attraction. I like you but this isn’t right.”
“Seriously I think you should stop and consider how you would feel if this was one of your family members who had gone to this forest to end their life. It’s not a tourist attraction.”
Then Briana hit everyone with a twist:
“It wasn’t the Logan video. I said a bunch of men…last time I recalled Logan had females with him too lol.”
Fans, uh, didn’t necessarily buy that.
“Awfully coincidental that it happens to be when everyone is freaking out about the LP video. It’s very tasteless and he has apologized for it. Nothing to be ‘hype’ about a place where people often go to end their life”
It sure seems like she wouldn’t have tweeted what she tweeted unless she was trying to get attention.
But Briana claims that she means no disrespect to the dead:
“I did educate myself. I know what the Forest is known for but there’s also beautiful scenery out there and tons of ice caves. My uncle committed suicide so I had my fair share also it’s life, things happen like that everyday. I’ll never disrespect.”
Some fans pushed for Briana to be removed from Teen Mom 2. That … well, that’s overkill.
It sounds like Briana made a dumb tweet that may have been a misguided ploy for headlines.
Similarly, there’s a path to redemption for Logan Paul. Not as long as he keeps monetizing apologies, but he can do it.
He’s 22. He has years ahead of him before he stops being a beautiful idiot and starts just being a dumbass who has to actually be funny and likable in order to get views and fans.
Maybe he learned something from all of this. Like, actually learned something from all of this.
Only time will tell.