Jake Paul Vs. Mike Tyson: An American Cultural Zeitgeist
To put it plainly, the fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was the epitome, if not the ultimate outcome, of YouTube. Jake Paul recently fought (and beat) legend Mike Tyson in a non-professional, Netflix fight. In many ways this was not even a real sporting event. More so, it was the idea of a sporting event. There is a term for this phenomenon, and it is a defining factor of American Culture today: clickbait.
The event was intensely American, taking place in Texas and opening with the Dallas Cowgirls, fresh off their recent Netflix documentary, "America's Sweethearts" and in a poignant moment of fame. The fight night began with matches of other fighters, hungry for a piece of the glory.
Jake Paul, former Viner, YouTuber, Gen-Z icon and now boxer, has the world at his fingertips; he plans a fight and millions will tune in. It is not only his wealth, his image or his connections that affords him this influence. Jake Paul is the Internet and has been for a long time.
Paul's cultural influence has grown so great that he was able to create this event with Netflix, book a massive stadium, sell 70,000 tickets, and of course got Mike Tyson to fight after many years of retirement, his last official fight being in 2005. Sources note that over 60 million households watched the main fight on Netflix, and yet it was underwhelming and boring. To understand the failure of the event, one must understand the culture of YouTube.
Whether you liked or hated Paul, he was—and is—undeniably and widely successful on social media, the petri dish of fame in the 21st century. Jake Paul has a viral sort of fame, from vlogs and music videos posted on the internet racking up millions of views in a matter of minutes—a feat impossible 20 years ago.
Paul has kept the image he built online, but after beginning a boxing career, he now has a means of gaining fame outside of social media. However, his history of internet fame follows him, and he is very much Gen Z—arguably one of the most defining figures of this internet generation.
Jake Paul himself and the pervasive nature of the internet in this day in America show why this fight went the way it did. For years, Jake Paul has tailored his YouTube videos to get as many clicks as possible.
Virality on the internet happens because of clickbait. The way one brands a piece of content, whether on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or anywhere else, defines its success and how it is received. Specifically, YouTubers succeed by getting people to click on their videos, in order to expose them to the ads before the real content.
Clickbait, therefore, is the system of naming and branding videos as something they are not, in order to get people to click, and therefore fund the creator. The video itself need not be interesting, real or even entertaining for the creator to be successful, creating a largely synthetic platform. So, quality content exponentially declines.
The Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight was just a large ad with a clickbait title— brands were promoted, Netflix Originals were mentioned and very little real fighting happened in the main card. The event felt more like a rehearsal than anything.
I'm sure Jake Paul and Mike Tyson made plenty of money off the event. Jake Paul won in more ways than one; he gamed the system in a way he knew would lead to popularity and conversation, and therefore money. Mike Tyson may have lost, but as part of the fabricated idea of the fight, more than the actual fight itself, he still came out with an estimated $20 million, according to CBS News.
As viewers in a culture that leans more towards the idea of content than actual content, we are all the losers, left disappointed and wishing for the intensity of the events of days past.