Logan Paul

Logan Paul (born April 1, 1995) is an American social media personality, YouTuber, actor, boxer, and professional wrestler. Paul initially rose to fame in 2013 by posting short videos on the social media app Vine but pivoted to YouTube in 2015 when Vine began to lose popularity. Paul's YouTube Channel, which consists of vlogs, skits, and songs, is one of the most popular channels on the platform, having garnered over 5.8 billion views. In addition to his YouTube channel, Paul has been a part of several exhibition boxing matches and has performed with the WWE, with whom he signed a contract in 2022.

Paul was born April 1, 1995, in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He first expressed interest in social media at age ten, when he began posting videos on the internet with his younger brother, fellow social media influencer and boxer Jake Paul, using an app called Zoosh. Paul attended Westlake High School and Ohio University, where he was a member of both schools' wrestling teams.

In 2013, while in high school, Paul began posting short videos to Vine, a now-defunct social media app that allowed users to post short videos lasting no more than six seconds. Paul began to accumulate a significant following from his videos, which consisted of him telling jokes, playing pranks, and performing in skits. Paul created his first YouTube channel, TheOfficialLoganPaul, in October of that same year.

Paul's popularity continued to grow as he graduated high school and attended college, and in 2014, he dropped out to pursue social media and content creation full-time. Paul moved to Los Angeles, initially living with a number of other Vine stars in an apartment located on Vine St. As Vine's popularity began to wane (the app was shuttered by its parent company, Twitter, in 2016), Paul began creating more video content for his YouTube channel and Facebook pages, where he was garnering millions of views and making millions of dollars from ad revenue.

Using his YouTube success, Paul began to explore other opportunities outside of social media. Since 2015, he has had several guest spots and minor roles on TV shows, most notably Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Bizaardvark. He also appeared in several ad campaigns, with the most high profile being Dunkin' Donuts, Hanes, and Pepsi. In 2018, Paul ventured into boxing after British YouTuber KSI challenged him to a match. Paul would go on to fight KSI again in 2019, as well as Floyd Mayweather in an exhibition boxing match in 2021. Also in 2018, Paul started a podcast, Impaulsive, which has garnered 4 million subscribers as of 2023. In 2022, Paul launched a line of Energy drinks called Prime with KSI.

Paul's rise has not been without setbacks, as he has found himself at the center of numerous controversies. Paul's first big controversy happened in December 2017 during the social media star's trip to Japan. While visiting the Aokigahara, a forest near Mount Fuji that is infamously called Japan's suicide forest, Paul filmed a vlog that featured uncensored footage of a man who appeared to have hanged himself. After posting the video on his YouTube channel, Paul was met with outrage over his decision to include footage of the dead man. As a result, Paul removed the video and published an apology to Twitter, but not before YouTube removed him from its exclusive Google Preferred advertising tier.

Paul found himself in hot water again in 2018, after he uploaded a YouTube video in which he tasered two dead rats that he had found on his balcony. Animal rights organization PETA released a statement condemning Paul and demanding YouTube remove the video. In addition to taking down the video, YouTube placed an ad ban on all of Paul's videos, which prevented him from making any ad revenue from channel views. The ban was temporary, however, and Paul's channel was back to being monetized three weeks later.

Paul has also faced scrutiny for his energy drink company, Prime, which he founded with fellow YouTuber KSI in 2022. In 2023, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer asked the FDA to investigate Prime for its high caffeine content and marketing to children.