January is about to end so I suppose it’s fair for us now to say that 2018 had quite a rough start. Be it the dangerously idiotic Tide Pod Challenge trend or the continuing sexual harassment allegations leveraged towards prominent entertainment figures or the government shutdown, this month has not been the idyllic and righteous beginning to the New Year that many hoped for.

The start of the new atrocities can most likely be contributed to a prominent YouTube star, Logan Paul. On January 1, while the psyches of the world were still tender with hope for the amazing things the new year would bring, Logan Paul published a vlog about his recent trip to Japan—seems innocent enough. However, the entirety of the video consisted of the “Logang’s” disrespectful shenanigans wreaking havoc in the streets and undermining the authority of Japanese police. Most of these actions can be excused since most of the people involved with Logan’s brand are in their early twenties—obviously, one would assume that young adults would maintain their composure in a more mature manner but to an extent, they were just stupid kids having fun. There’s no real harm there.

However, the main problem with the video comes later, when Logan and his team take a tour through Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, infamous around the world for the record number of suicides that occur there. Logan included a shot of the body of a man who hanged himself in the vlog, and in the background you can hear his team laughing and hollering. Logan himself talked briefly about raising awareness for suicide in the video and censored the image of the body. Praise be for the small mercies.

Anyways, the internet basically exploded and it seemed like Logan Paul’s career ended overnight. There was a gigantic backlash against YouTube for not immediately taking the video down and even allowing it to be part of the trending list. Logan himself eventually took the video down and posted an apology video and a letter, but it seemed more like saving face than actual atonement for his actions. The internet kept screaming and YouTube cut ties with Logan, who decided to take a break from YouTube.

Just three weeks later, Logan is back with a new haircut, a grim demeanor and decidedly different content. His most recent video—“Suicide: Be Here Tomorrow”—shows him interacting with prominent suicide awareness and prevention projects and even Kevin Hines, a suicide survivor who now works as motivational speaker. I suppose the point of the video was to redefine the Logan Paul brand—Logan is a changed man. He is actively trying to show his remorse for his actions and using his 16 million strong fan base to raise awareness for suicide prevention. It is a message that can never be said enough.

In the days following the publication of Logan’s new video, there has been mixed reviews from content creators, fans, and your run-of-the-mill Twitter psychologists. The opposition to the video can best be summarized by a particularly incendiary Twitter thread from Jimmy Wong who accused Logan’s team of inauthentic intentions with this new video. Slow motion cuts of Logan Paul washing his hands and face to create some metaphorical rebirth does not a complete forgiveness equate. Basically, this “new image” is not enough to make up for his questionable content. Throngs of support from Mavericks, Logan’s nicknamed fan base, seems to diminish this opposition.

However, people are being just a little too harsh. In the beginning of the debacle, I’ll admit that I too was a strong Logan Paul dissenter—his borderline psychopathic apology video did absolutely nothing to make amends and his apology letter focused more on the impact of the backlash on himself than the mistake that he made. This new video, though, is a definitive change from Logan’s usually inane content and it sparks conversations that his predominantly adolescent fans need to get acquainted with.

At the end of the day, Logan made a mistake with his vlog—everyone and their mother has made that argument more times than I can count. But that’s exactly what it is—a mistake—and he’s basically a kid, five years older than I am. His mistakes are more public than mine will ever be because his enormous social influence comes with much responsibility. With this newest video, Logan is showing that he has started to become aware of that responsibility. We should reward any effort to fix one’s mistakes, because if we don’t, people like Logan Paul will stop making those efforts.

And that doesn’t make anything better.