https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16875188/logan-paul-aokigahara-suicide-forest-japan

The Internet has long been fascinated with Japan for all the wrong reasons. A country with a rich and complicated history, Japan and its people are frequently reduced to caricatures and clickbait about ninjas, outrageous game shows, animated pornography, and weird commercials. Search Google or YouTube for “weird Japan,” and you’ll find a goldmine of terrible content stereotyping Japan as the sum of its most bizarre media and traditions — a metric that would reflect poorly on any country — and treating the idiosyncrasies of its oddest subcultures as quirky national characteristics.

Last week, Youtube star Logan Paul became the latest offender in this category when he uploaded a video of a corpse at Aokigahara, a site known to foreigners as the “suicide forest” because of the large number of people who end their lives each year in the Sea of Trees. The crude stunt ignited a firestorm of controversy in both Japan and America, and Youtube eventually responded by removing Paul from the top-tier ad platform and putting his Youtube Red projects on hold. It also produced an apology from the young Youtube star, who insisted it had been about “suicide prevention” and that he “didn’t do it for the views.”