Can Reality TV Redeem Jake and Logan Paul?

On the archetypal occurrence of “Paul American,” a caller reality-TV amusement presently streaming connected Max, the YouTuber, influencer, and wrestler Logan Paul mounts a PowerPoint transportation for his fiancée, the Danish supermodel Nina Agdal, successful bid to person her that being connected world tv would payment the couple. Logan and his younger brother, Jake Paul—himself a YouTuber and influencer, who has besides turned to boxing—have been celebrated for much than a decennary now, and world television, Logan explains to Agdal, would beryllium the apex of the pyramid that the siblings person been scaling. “This amusement is portion of my earthy evolution,” Logan says, pulling up a descent featuring a banal graphic of the step-by-step improvement from ape to Homo sapiens. Each fig successful the illustration is labelled for a signifier successful Logan’s vocation path, from the defunct short-form video-hosting level Vine, connected which the Paul brothers got their start, done vlogging, podcasting, and, finally, live-TV wrestling and boxing. The definitive signifier successful this years-long development, Logan concludes, is “the household reality-TV show.”

Agdal cracks up: the transportation is intelligibly tongue-in-cheek, and yet it nevertheless corresponds to the extremity “Paul American” is trying to achieve, which is to contiguous Logan and Jake, for the archetypal time, arsenic afloat fledged quality beings alternatively than half-baked Neanderthals. With each we cognize astir world television—its cunning edits, its cooked-up communicative lines, its behind-the-scenes manipulations—it mightiness look similar a agelong to presumption the genre arsenic an accidental for the show of real, multidimensional individuality. Still, it’s each relative. Compared to the Pauls’ erstwhile outputs, “Paul American” is practically “The Brothers Karamazov.”

Until now, authenticity and extent of quality haven’t precisely been apical of caput for either of the Pauls. They came up arsenic teen-agers connected the Wild West net of the twenty-tens, which saw the lucrative detonation of social-media and self-produced-content platforms. Born successful Ohio to Pam, a nurse, and Greg, a real-estate agent, roofer, and escaped cannon, who often appears connected the amusement with a hunting weapon strapped to his forearm (“Cancel civilization tin suck my ass each time long,” helium says astatine 1 point), the brothers each recovered aboriginal occurrence successful 2013 by making pratfall- and prank-filled six-second Vines. Within a mates of years, they had moved to Los Angeles and taken their endeavor to YouTube. Jake enacted physically risky, progressively extravagant stunts astatine the Team 10 influencer location (erecting an tremendous snowfall descent extracurricular the mansion; turning the location into a trampoline park), portion Logan developed a estimation successful his ain vlogs arsenic a stunt-happy jokester bro (bringing sixty 1000 pounds of snowfall to California; freaking retired a caller roommate with a unrecorded alligator).

As their careers grew, Logan’s and Jake’s marque gathering grew much and much cartoonish. Similarly blond and muscled—the 2 are alike capable to beryllium twins, though Jake present wears a bushy, jutting beard, whereas Logan’s is much intimately cropped—the brothers often beefed. Logan stole Jake’s emotion interest, and each released a diss way tearing the different down. (Logan’s: “I’m a savage, you are mean / I’m a beast I’m going chaotic / This opus volition beryllium the decease of you / I’m ’bout to beryllium an lone child.” Jake’s: “You thirsty for the views, telephone it Kalahari / You the Karate Kid and I’m Mr. Miyagi / You conscionable a Prius and I’m a Bugatti.”) They drove luxury vehicles and flashed abdominous stacks of bills; they wore iced-out watches worthy hundreds of thousands of dollars and courted mayhem and controversy. (In a 2017 vlog, Logan filmed the assemblage of a termination unfortunate successful Japan, a determination for which helium aboriginal apologized; successful 2020, Jake’s Calabasas mansion was raided for firearms.) Even earlier entering the existent ring, they had already fashioned themselves arsenic pugilistic, larger-than-life characters, with nicknames to lucifer (Jake: the Problem Child; Logan: the Maverick). Unsurprisingly, their contented resonated mostly with young men, and aft amassing astir a 100 and 50 cardinal followers crossed large platforms they began to crook their online scope into occurrence successful immoderate real-world ventures. Logan, who is present thirty, became a W.W.E. champ with his ain vigor drink, Prime; Jake, twenty-eight, became a boxer with a body-care enactment for men, W. (“You astir apt odor . . . get W astatine Walmart.”)

In each their endeavors, the Pauls’ main purpose has been to pull the maximum fig of viewers and likes, which the brace freely sermon connected the show. “Having your contented beryllium received by a batch of eyeballs is success,” Logan says. Controversy has played good with the brothers’ people audience: Logan’s diss way of Jake, for instance, is his “most-viewed video of each time,” a information that helium present claims helium regrets, and “Paul American” works to amusement the brothers arsenic recently reflective, softer, and acceptable to marque amends. (“[Logan]’s the lone 1 that knows what I’ve been done and I’m the lone 1 that knows what he’s been through, and there’s a trauma enslaved successful that,” Jake says, sounding amazingly touchy-feely.) In 2021, the brothers moved to Puerto Rico, which, starting successful 2012, became a taxation haven, particularly for high-net-worth individuals who’ve go affluent acknowledgment to cryptocurrency. Since the determination they person grown closer, and person taken to grooming together—Jake with the extremity of being a world-champion boxer, and Logan to fortify his presumption successful the W.W.E., truthful that helium tin “become the look of 1 of the biggest media conglomerates successful the full world.”

The roadworthy toward brotherly love, however, is shown to beryllium a bumpy one. At 1 point, we spot Logan hosting the British influencer and rapper KSI, who is Jake’s sworn enemy, connected his podcast, and the 2 gag connected aerial astir Jake’s upcoming combat against Mike Tyson, whom helium hopes to best. “It’s conscionable not what brothers should do,” an irate Jake says. (Logan brushes the ailment off. Jake is “sensitive and I’m an asshole,” helium says.) But Jake, who went pro successful 2020, is presumably tender astir this flimsy due to the fact that helium wants to determination past being an influencer-boxer, who fights for likes, and look arsenic a real-world champ, similar Tyson himself was successful his prime. Being capable to woody definitive blows successful a ring, astatine immoderate region from the online world, is Jake’s heart’s desire. Can helium be, arsenic the podcaster Joe Rogan suggests, successful a clip shared connected the show, “for real”?

The question of realness is 1 that comes up repeatedly successful “Paul American.” Jutta Leerdam, Jake’s Dutch girlfriend, who is an Olympic velocity skater, chides him erstwhile helium slips backmost into vlog-like bombast. On a backstage jet, the brace instrumentality to Minnesota to sojourn the mill wherever the W body-care marque is produced, Jake clowns around, bellowing astatine the camera that Joe Biden—then inactive President—should usage W due to the fact that he’s “probably sweating done [his] suit.” But Leerdam is displeased by this performance. “Babe, this is reality. You are your quality a lot,” she says. “So drawback retired of it . . . beryllium a existent person.” Jake throws his caput back, arsenic if considering this. “Boooring,” helium yet brays. One of his worker friends, besides connected the flight, is heard saying disconnected camera, “He’s a mislaid cause.”

Both Leerdam and Agdal, look to impact Jake and Logan arsenic ameliorating agents, but adjacent they can’t marque these leopards wholly alteration their spots. The Paul-brother enactment is simply a hard happening to shed, and, aft all, it’s wherever the wealth is. “The happening that keeps radical glued is the crap show,” Logan says. He notes that helium loves to combat successful the W.W.E. due to the fact that “I get to beryllium a showman, I get to archer stories, and usage it arsenic a conveyance adjacent to conscionable beforehand my brands. Most of all, get paid.” When helium and Jake transportation their world amusement to assorted networks, they contiguous it arsenic “the testosterone Kardashians . . . you know, existent hardcore American family.” As a clip of Logan receiving a MAGA chapeau from Trump flashes connected the screen, alongside different moments—Jake brawling aft a fight, Logan shooting a rifle, Pam rolling astir successful a heap of twenty-dollar bills—we perceive Jake explicate that “this is America, and we are from the bosom of America.” On the mode to ticker Logan combat astatine a WrestleMania lawsuit successful Philadelphia, connected yet different backstage pitchy ride, Leerdam, who has ne'er attended specified a match, tells Jake that she’s not definite what to expect. “Well, a clump of men—” helium begins, arsenic Leerdam cuts in. “It’s truthful American! It’s the astir American happening ever!” Jake chuckles. “Well, yes, indeed, brother,” helium says. ♦