A Discourse Analysis on Logan Paul’s Apologies: Are They Apologetic Enough?

Abstract

In a world full of Internet sensations and Internet scandals, a famous YouTuber named Logan Paul raised to fame by bringing one of the biggest Internet controversies in the beginning of 2018, which was the filming of a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest. Although he later apologized for his mistakes, the audience was not just convinced by his words. In response to the criticism, he made another apology. This study seeks to answer the questions: "Were his attempts apologetic enough?" and "What made them apologetic or not apologetic?" Several analyses have attempted to examine whether his apologies were sincere or not. However, none of these analyses analyzes his apologies from the perspective of linguistics. To fill in this gap, this study examines Logan's apologies from a linguistic point of view. It employs the qualitative method and frameworks by Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper [1], Benoit [2], Schmitt, Gollwitzer, Förster & Montada [3], Lutzky & Kehoe [4], and Deutschmann [5]. The findings reveal that Logan's first attempt at apologizing was not apologetic enough, and that his second apology was more apologetic.