Why Jake Paul isn\u2019t the trendsetter he likes to think he is Instagram: jakepaulJake Paul is one of the most recognizable faces in online video, but he\u2019s not the big trendsetter that he likes to claim he is. No, he didn\u2019t didn\u2019t invent the content house. No, he didn\u2019t invent YouTube boxing, and no, he wasn\u2019t the first YouTuber to be raided by the FBI. [jwplayer smynPnSq] Jake Paul continues to be a major contributor \u2014 for good and evil \u2014 towards the wider debate around YouTube. But the cocky creator seems too eager to cement his place in the history of online video, making outlandish claims that he was the mastermind behind content houses, YouTube boxing and more. Overnight on November 15, the younger Paul brother courted controversy in the way he\u2019s become known for by tweeting an outlandish claim about his impact on the online video space. I create the first content house Then there\u2019s 500 content houses I start boxing Now every influencer is a boxer What\u2019s next? Y\u2019all gon get raided by the FBI on purpose? \u2014 Jake Paul (@jakepaul) November 15, 2020 Paul claimed he \u201ccreated the first content house,\u201d which gave birth to \u201c500 content houses.\u201d He said that \u201cevery influencer is a boxer\u201d after he started boxing. And he questioned what\u2019s next: \u201cY\u2019all gon get raided by the FBI on purpose?\u201d \u2014 a reference to an August 2020 incident when his Calabasas home was raided by the FBI connected to an investigation of him being filmed in the presence of looting at a mall in Scottsdale, Arizona. But Paul is overstating his impact. Yes, his every word is newsworthy \u2014 as evidenced by the fact we\u2019re talking about him here. But he didn\u2019t invent YouTube, and he doesn\u2019t necessarily create trends on the site anymore. MaiLinh Nguyen, a former videographer for Paul, felt the need to correct his claims, pointing out that others gathered together in a collab house long before Paul set up Team 10\u2019s mansion in Calabasas. I\u2026don\u2019t think we were the first content house though lol. Also, respectfully, other creators claiming they were..I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case either. While not a collective channel, wouldn\u2019t the Maker Studios house be the 1st? Like \u201809? (Someone correct me here if I\u2019m wrong) https:\/\/t.co\/p4ttvC5RfO \u2014 MaiLinh Nguyen (@mailinh) November 16, 2020 In her thread, Nguyen pointed out that Paul certainly wasn\u2019t the first. The Station, a collection of Maker Studios creators including Phil DeFranco, LisaNova and Shane Dawson, pioneered the idea in 2009, though not all of them lived together. In 2014, the O2L Mansion was born. Even the Sidemen house predated the Team 10 house by a couple of years. But collaborative places to work and produce online video existed long before YouTube: The Spot, which ran between 1995 and 1997, the year Paul was born, did a similar thing, though the cast was fictional. Paul could make a decent claim to have popularized the idea of collaborative working with peers in the same rough location, first as part of his membership of the loose collection of creators living at 1600 Vine, before then moving into the Team 10 mansion. Certainly, we\u2019re seeing vast numbers of collab houses pop up, inspired off the back of the Hype House, which had its precedent in the Team 10 mansion through founder Thomas Petrou. But, as Nguyen tweeted, \u201cthat\u2019s not what [Paul] claimed in his tweet.\u201d This isn\u2019t to say that Team 10 wasn\u2019t the spark of \u2728something\u2728 in the digital landscape \u2014 regarding social collectives that are run as a specific business from the jump. As I would be inclined to agree if that were the case, but that\u2019s not what he claimed in his tweet. \u2014 MaiLinh Nguyen (@mailinh) November 16, 2020 Likewise, Paul\u2019s claims to have invented YouTube boxing don\u2019t stand up. For one thing, neither he nor his brother were on the card at the first white collar YouTube boxing match, held in London in February 2018, which saw KSI beat Joe Weller. Seeing the success of that event, the Pauls got involved and turned the spectacle into a global phenomenon that sold out the Manchester Arena and took over Los Angeles. But he didn\u2019t invent it: in fact, he piggybacked on a pre-existing trend after seeing its popularity. That\u2019s something Paul often does; by sheer scale of his audience, he\u2019s often the person who popularizes trends to a mainstream audience, but scratch beneath the surface and you see other people have done it first. He\u2019s able to capitalize on spotting ideas just before the wave breaks on them becoming major movements. Yet by constantly looking at the latest trends, Paul ignores the long and storied history of online video. This is now a mature space, and a significant industry with a past that should be remembered and celebrated. It\u2019s important to remember the first vloggers who laid the path for those like Paul to make their millions \u2013 and too often, they\u2019re overlooked for the latest trends. It\u2019s important to remember seminal moments like The Spot, The Station and KSI versus Joe Weller. The internet moves fast, and we forget moments too quickly in favor of the new. As for Paul\u2019s claim that he invented YouTubers getting in trouble with and raided by the FBI, well, for one thing it\u2019s not a claim to fame most ordinary people would be so keen to grab. But even if it was, it\u2019s not something that Paul can factually say he did first, as far as influencers go. We even reported on IcePoseidon\u2019s FBI raid a year and a half before authorities rocked up at the gate of Paul\u2019s mansion in the hills. Paul\u2019s famous as a high school dropout, who\u2019s proven his teachers, who claimed he\u2019d never amount to much, wrong. But he \u2013 like all of us \u2013 could do with brushing up on his online video history out of class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Jake Paul isn\u2019t the trendsetter he likes to think he is Instagram: jakepaulJake Paul is one of the most recognizable faces in online video, but he\u2019s not the big trendsetter that he likes to claim he is. No, he didn\u2019t didn\u2019t invent the content house. No, he didn\u2019t invent YouTube boxing, and no, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}