On the last day of the year, a great disturbance rippled through the Internet. Well, a certain part of the Internet: the section that pays attention to the exploits of brash YouTube celebrities like Logan Paul, a 22-year-old mega-vlogger who has the attention of some 15 million subscribers. On December 31, Paul uploaded a video from his travels in Japan, detailing his trek into the famous Aokigahara “suicide woods” near Mount Fuji, where he found a man who had apparently recently hanged himself. Paul showed the body, with his face blurred out, and filmed his own reaction, at first stunned, and then . . . well, one might say amused.

It didn’t go over well. By New Year’s Day, criticism of Paul was widespread and he issued the first of two apologies. Though, it came off as another crass bit of self-promotion, a fact pointed out in stringent fashion by the Queen of the North herself, Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner:

Wagons circled, attack mobs formed, and the Internet—or, again, a certain area of it—engaged in a battle of outrage and defense. People on one side were appalled that Paul would post such a video, while also maybe a little glad that he’d given them another concrete thing to throw at him. And his fans—the “Logang,” as Paul calls them—entrenched themselves in loyal service of their pranking, stunting, bragging hero. It’s a familiar narrative. Though a particularly egregious example of witless YouTube content, Paul’s video still seems likely to be only a minor and soon-forgotten bump on the way to whatever YouTube singularity we’re headed toward.

It almost feels like a waste of time, then, to get angry at Paul’s video in particular. Yes, it’s awful and exploitative and is a sterling example of what makes Paul—and his younger, but equally odious brother, Jake Paul—so distressing. But Paul is really just a symptom of a larger problem—one that we’ll all have to reckon with soon enough. Or, really, probably should be already.

Are bros taking over the Internet? Well, watching any of the Paul brothers’ videos, you might be inclined to think that. (Watch Logan brag about his year. And then watch his brother do it.) But there are also all those Nazi dweebs and men’s-rights toads racking up views and swaying people to their terrible causes, and I wouldn’t exactly call them bros. We should still resist most bro culture where we can, absolutely. But it’s only one head of the hydra.