Paul American EP 1 & 2; the mythos of the digital.

In the self-made panopticon of the Paul family, anything that can be pierced through will have a price tag tied to it.

There is a root of truth in the idea of the Pauls being a self-made American folk tale in the age of ignorant, manufactured opulence.

Like other mythos or more extraordinary cultural allegories, we have to boil out signatory details to get the essentials that make the myth. Sure, the Pauls stem from the affluent neighborhoods of Cleveland. Sure, they have divorced parents and stemmed off step-family members from there which is untraditional in the American sense.

But, Cleveland is still in the Midwest and their parents are still a unit in some capacity.

Therefore, the fairytale format still applies, at least to Jake and Logan Paul.

And, like their many companies, outputs, and businesses, they need to sell us that myth, successfully or unsuccessfully.

That’s where we find the two in the first episode of Paul American.

Episode 1: I spoke with Mother Ayahuasca and she told me to fight Mike Tyson.

I wonder what historical figures would adapt into modern influencer roles; Johnny Appleseed’s crypto scheme stole my retirement fund. John Henry launched a menswear app with a yearly subscription. Paul Buynan’s dropshipping empire.

Jake and Logan Paul could’ve served in Buffalo Bill’s wild circus but Bill could never have written diss tracks against his fellow circus performers. “Little Annie Oakley standing on her own two feet…”

Anyways, we meet the Paul family at a promotional photoshoot.

“I just made a million on Crypto!” are Jake’s very first words in the series; Logan’s only emphasizes this further. We are then introduced to the rest of our cast; Greg (Dad), Pamela (Mom), and eventually Jake and Logan’s partners Jutta and Nina respectively.

We get a speedy montage of Jake and Logan’s rise on social media that incredibly dramatizes their internet personas.

Big chunks of their first impacts on the internet, most noticeable to me was the footnote Jake’s Team 10. Considering that venture was the internet’s admirable punching bag, it’s a large gap in building up the “uncancelable” persona the two of them are pushing with this series.

But seriously, not even a brief snippet of “It’s Everyday Bro” can pass the executive producers, who are both brothers.

The warts and all persona cannot be believed if warts have been frozen off or turned into scars. But then again, the perspective is tightly controlled so the warts the audience sees are the pretty ones. Or the ones that connect and make the most sense in terms of their attitudes and public aggression.

One of the more interesting scenes was Jake Facetiming with Mike Tyson, telling him about an Ayahuasca trip, meeting “mother Ayahuasca ” and accepting the idea of fighting Tyson which ended up happening last November.

For someone who eventually was later invited to the Trump Inauguration and who, in the following episode, promoted transphobic views towards athletes, this might seem like an unusually holistic method of achieving 40 million dollars.

However, this republican mysticism leading to massive profits has become the new American commerce pipeline in the second term of Trump; selling raw milk, homeschooling your kids, and opposing DEI initiatives go hand in hand.

Not that either of the Paul’s seemed progressive previously, but their move towards the night is now being spoken rather than suggestive. It also comes in the train of other content creators mixing these hippie personas with republican politics.

The Pauls aren’t innovating in this field, they’re dancing along the trend obnoxiously and with a magnetic spotlight that provides similar attention to the worst of internet personas.

There is an undercurrent of repression throughout the first episode. Referencing Logan and Jake’s long-standing and undetermined feud; if they were the Gallagher brothers, we would have a more interesting plot thread.

But they seemingly kick the dust-up between the two of them at slights or verbal miscommunications between them; Logan didn’t support Jake and now he’s fuming mad. It’s not so much walking on eggshells but rather non-sensical (or, the ramp towards the peak of that anger is cut) swipes at each other’s character for a perceived lack of confidence towards one another.

Those swipes can also be aimed towards others doubting the abilities of their respective brother and have a similarly quick 0-100 scale of becoming visibly and verbally angry..It’s a dynamic that has tension but it seems like most things, they’ll use the tension when they’d like and release it when it’s easier which only makes it more confusing as to why we’re being shown it.

When on camera pitching the very show you’re watching, however, like true modern men, will bury those issues until they’re convenient to mention in a talking head. Or it’ll go back to “we just have a weird relationship”, how classically American.

The drama of this first episode seems forced for the sake of providing background but, it’s not engaging or it doesn’t seem to stick.

EP 2: Logans a Dad, Jakes a Fighter and I still want Greg Paul out of my Headphones.

Episode 2 picks up with where Episode One left off; the result of Logan Paul’s fiance revealing the results of her pregnancy test. It is positive and she breaks the news to Logan later by putting the stick in an empty prime bottle and handing it over to him, which he immediately becomes ecstatic.

This sets up his plot thread for the episode, which is him gradually telling all of his family members the news, leaving Jake for the very end, telling him at the Day party aka “Darty” after his fight with Andre August.

Objectively, compared with the exposition of the first episode, this finds its footing in traditional reality show narratives but in a way that is initially interesting.

How does someone as wild as Logan Paul find himself now that he has a child he’ll have to care for? It’s a compelling idea of him having to reflect somewhat on his past and how he’ll take it in the future. We do see that a bit with seeing his perceived genuine reaction to finding out this news, however, it becomes a spectacle in a way only a Paul can execute.

He calls his mother on FaceTime to tell the news, ramps it up to taping the test to one of his wrestling belts to tell his father, and the climax of him telling Jake falls so flat because it becomes more of a comma than an exclamation point. Perhaps if these moments weren’t recorded for a wide audience, they would read genuine or even have a hint of genuine feeling.

In the self-made panopticon of the Paul family, however, anything that can be pierced will have a price tag tied to it.

Jake’s journey to boxing takes up most of the episode and again, it is initially compelling. Finding a healthy outlet for anger in a sport is a pipeline that can be (and in this case is) exploited by men’s activists to ween people on republican ideals and politics. Jake doesn’t start like this, but he bumbles his way into it with a blase “fuck-you” attitude that parallels many online wormholes.

In an interview before this fight, Jake (with Logan bounding over to take over the boom microphone) is asked his opinion on transgender athletes. After doing a whole physical comedy routine to dance around answering the question, he says women should fight women and men should fight men.

It’s not surprising that this is his opinion but what seemed weirder was the following scene of the two brothers in the car. Jake becomes more emboldened, claiming people could be hurt by fighting trans athletes.

(you can watch this episode of Last Week Tonight which dispels many of these ideas in an easily packaged way.)

He adds “Everything they see in me represents what they aren’t doing” towards his haters and adds that the news media asked him that “all because they wanted some bullshit.”

He even joked about rescinding the comments if sponsored are offended, showing the flimsiness of his emotional attachment to this bigoted ideology.

He’ll be transphobic as long as he’s paid and there’s an upward trajectory for more income down the line. And he’s not the only one taking this path at the expense of trans people and other disenfranchised groups’ rights and safety.

His anger doesn’t stem from any political knowledge, which doesn’t erase its insidious or bigoted nature. But it’s the same sort of anger he’s displayed at internet haters or his brother or KSI or any other party that seemingly questions his confidence or abilities or skills.

People pushed back against him for being so new to boxing and we weren’t shown him acting like that or given a platform in which he spoke like that.

But his hating of haters or others jealous of him has seemingly translated directly towards a republican political ideology; he believes in it, but it’s from a place of “you can’t cancel me.”

It parallels spineless internet creators who spout awful, bigoted opinions and then when confronted, hide behind a joke or say people are jealous or insert another dancing-around excuse to hide their true animosity.

It’s a weak but impactful tactic that’s become very popular and Jake Paul has jumped onto it.

Anything can be a personal attack; therefore, those groups are invalid or dangerous. If anything, this is shockingly becoming a widely absorbed idea towards disenfranchised groups.

Jake Paul is just saying it in the most basic, dull way.

If this show had come out before both Pauls attended the Trump inauguration, this might’ve seemed more shocking but in it’s aftermath, it isn’t very surprising.

It is the most common American archetype; mealy-mouthed steamrolling over others to get ahead.

Speaking of not shocking, anytime Jake speaks after Greg Paul, who is the most eye-rollingly obnoxious of this show’s characters, I see where he gets it from and I wouldn’t like to see more.

But we have more to go, unfortunately.

Come back for Episodes 3 & 4 next week.