Please, For The Love Of God, Don't Take Financial Advice From Jake Paul

No one anyone outside of actual children would look at YouTuber Jake Paul, a sentient energy drink can that mostly makes his living from staging lavish fake weddings and annoying his neighbors, and think "This man has the soul of an educator." Jake Paul knows this, which is why he's launched his new subscription service that promises to teach those kids how to "live life on your own terms" and "achieve your dream goals." Called the Financial Freedom Movement (a name you'll probably be hearing in future lawsuits), the subscription includes a letter to parents explaining why they shouldn't send their kids to college and instead pay him to teach them how to be YouTubers. The answer, somehow, is robots.

The service was kicked off with a rally on Saturday at Hollywood Sports Park, where Paul and friends brandished Sharpied signs that said things like "School sucks start a YouTube channel today." Paul, who dropped out of high school before cheating his way to an online diploma, elaborated on his hostility toward education by telling reporters "I was like, 'Why are we sitting in class right now, learning the quadratic formula when we should be learning about taxes and insurance?'" and they were all too polite to explain that that's a different class.

So what do you get for $20 a month? Apparently, a series of videos in which Paul and a panel of "experts" vaguely expound upon the concept of "hustling." One of those experts is a man whose qualifications include having spent $60 million on social media influencers, a statement that should only qualify him to be a cautionary tale. Among the many terrible tips given to Paul's fans is to quit their jobs and pick up gig work with companies like Uber and DoorDash while they wait until they wither up and blow away to hit it big on YouTube. That's the "financial freedom" Jake Paul wants us to achieve: a dystopia where billions of people drive for Uber and no one knows how to perform surgery.

It's no surprise that Paul has tried this before or that this is just one genre of a wide variety of scams he's pulled on children or that he appears to imagine himself as some sort of lifestyle guru with the secrets to the good life, such as "just don't have anxiety." The terrifying thing is that it appears to work, and while a brand-new circle of hell of doubtlessly awaiting him, in the meantime, please don't listen to Jake Paul. Don't let your children listen to Jake Paul. Maybe petition for a law against being Jake Paul. There are no bad ideas here, people.

Don't listen to Manna on Twitter, either, but follow her anyway.