YouTube star Jake Paul recently launched an online subscription-based ‘educational’ course called The Financial Freedom Movement. The course is Jake’s ‘how to’ guide for achieving internet fame and wealth. But is this a genuine attempt to offer an alternative to what the website condemns as “outdated education”? Or is this a money grabbing scheme targeting the naivety of children?
At the bottom of The Financial Freedom Movement website Jake has included a ‘letter to parents’ in which he uses extremely manipulative language to persuade them to put their children through this course. It ends with this generous statement: “You’re an amazing parent for even reading this, and giving your child this gift and opportunity.”
But if online reviews of Jake’s YouTube Channel are anything to go by, parents may not invest in this particular opportunity. If you go on Commonsensemedia.org you can see the poor reviews of more than 40 parents next to his two-star rating.
Having said that, millions of kids still watch and idolise Jake, and therefore might buy his promise of ‘financial freedom’ both emotionally and – if their parents cough up the almost $20 a month for the course – literally. What these kids should remember though is that they probably won’t have had the privileged start that Jake had.
So while I agree with his claims that graduates find it hard to get jobs, and that elements of the education system are ‘outdated’, to my mind it is corrupt to try and pretend that this set of ‘how to’ talking head videos about being a social media influencer can be anything like an alternative to an ‘education’ – which means studying arts, humanities and science.
So Jake is both trying to seduce kids away from a proper education and selling them unlikely dreams of social media fame and wealth – when what’s most likely is that this course will leave them with their dreams crushed, and with their parents’ wallets light of $500 that could have been spent on something more productive.