These last days i have been watch the Logan brother, Jake and Paul who seem to be doing extremely well on youtube, and a series of episodes that portrait some kind of internal fight with “Roast” videos that make fun of each other and the whole thing reminded me of a very common and succesfull promotional tactic of professional Combat sports.
The “beef” or as UFC fighter and Stockton slap creator would say, “selling wolf tickets”
Wolfticket: To bark withtout the intention to bite.
Starting Beef as a mean or promotion is the standard tactic in combat sports.
A fight can be popular on its own but from early on promoters and fighters realised that in order to make people care more, that had to make the fight more personal for everyone involved.
That way the fighters werent just two athletes trying to get the vitory, but two people who really disliked eachother and instead of a match, people would think they would see a real fight, with real feelings and real consuquences.
Sooner or later they also noticed that it helped if the two fighters had totaly diferent characters or came from totaly different background or had a seemingly legitimate reason for the beef. The working class would stick by its champion where the higher class would defend their own fighter. The irish would support the irish boxer and the italians would do the same etc.
And from that we got the pro wrestling notions of the “heel” and the “Face”. The first one is scripted to be a bad guy character and the second the good guy. Also, breaking apart from regual combat sports, they went full on scripted with their “matches” up to the final result itself.
Though it s not that scripted and set up in combat sports, the beef still remains as the number one, go to, promotional tactic.
UFC superstar Conor Mcgregor sold more pay per views in his second fight against Nate Diaz, in a bout that had no connection to titles and athletic achievements, just by the charisma of their Beef and their public dislike for each other, than when he fough Eddie Alvarexz for the lightweight belt in a win that made history as he became the first UFC fighter to hold two belts at the same time.
Sometimes there are genuanly bad intentions and sometimes its just for show, but “creating a beef” on some kind of premise, that is followed by resolution through the fight, after which they both hug and praise eachother, has been a recognised staple for promotion for many many years.
Now what does that have to do with the Logan bothers.
Their beef started when the younger one Jake upload a raptrack where he is roasting, or making fun of, his brother Logan and his followers who have their own nickname the “LoGANG” . Logan then uploaded his own song as a replay in which he disses on not just his brother but his fans called “jakepaulers” .
Yeah i know this sounds stupid to me too,BUT its exactly what we said above about polarising the fans and making it personal and selling more.
Also, their not fighters they are not gonna “squash” the beef in the cage but the premise is clear. They are having sibling rivalry, where the young one is the rebel who tries to rise above the older one who decides to dish out some “hard love”. The first one is the heel and the second one the face but since we are talking about a Disney Crowd here, dont expect bottle and chair throwing like in the UFC or the WWE.
They even created some side drama like when Logan said he had a mole in Jakes team, when they used ex girlfriends and family relations and when they teased their fans with a second verse of the song that was supposed to be very cruel but ultimately “decided” not to upload it.
Other youtubers jumped on the opportunity to comment, roast or simply react to their beef bringing even more attention to those two.
After a couple of days they both uploaded songs where they say that they love eachother and how they have made up and how the “Pauls” will take over the world and what a happy ending it was!
To be honest i dont know if it was all scripted and if it was preagreed to create a fake beef and get all that attention but it looks so much like a “work” that i m surprised i didnt see it on WWE.
As a content consumer myself, i have to say i find it extremely cringey and the songs just plain bad but as a promotional effort (if it was one) it was brilliant.
It was all there, the believable and relatable premise (most siblings have some sort of rivarly) , the “fight” was there with the extremely cringie rap songs, it had some side drama and of course the happy ending resolution every Disney script must have.
The extra attention, clicks, views and money they earned in a span of a few days was HUGE, probably record breaking and in a youtube that its all about numbers and money they scored big. I kinda wish it was all planned cause at least i canappreciate how well they played the game by borrowing the “wolf tickets” tactic.
Of course they wouldnt be the first people on youtube to create a fake feud and fake drama, but they did it (allegedly) the best and in a very similar pattern to what we see in combat sports.
Also, i hope i get some extra clicks for making a videos about them 😉
Some Kind Of Fighter 