Logan Paul is a self-made man. Well, actually self-made teenager.
He may only be 19, but Paul has built himself into a social media celebrity. When Vine debuted in 2013, Paul took an interest in the app. His Vine career started as a hobby, but it soon propelled him into the public image.
"Some of my original Vines took off," Paul says. "Those are the big kick-starters in the Vine world. I did the splits. Silly stuff like that. Physical comedy."
Paul's following took off. Today he has approximately 4.5 million Vine followers, 550K Snapchat friends, 454K Instagram followers, 164K Twitter followers, 171K YouTube subscribers and 40K Facebook likes.
For obvious reasons, Paul is surprised by his fame, but humble about it. Paul, who was a star wrestler and football player in high school in northeast Ohio, attributes his luck and skill to posting funny content that is consistent.
This summer, the Vine superstar is launching a campaign with Hanes. While wearing new Hanes X-Temp products such as underwear, T-shirts and socks, Paul will accept dares from his fans. Logan will perform the challenges in Vines with the hope he remains cool, dry and comfortable in Hanes X-Temp.
"I'm expecting crazy," he says. "Bring it on guys. Tweet me your craziest stuff."
Followers need to tweet dares with the hashtag #xtempstresstest @LoganPaul to make sure Paul gets his eyes on the text. He will continuously update his fans on his location and themes of his Vines. However, no one should be discouraged if they blink.
"Even if you don't know what the events are and don't know what's going on, tweet me a dare and maybe we'll fit it into the scenario because I want all the dares we can get," Paul says.
The campaign started one week ago in New Orleans at the Running of the Bulls. Unlike Pamplona, Spain, this festival does not involve real bulls. Instead, Paul dealt with people and objects. On Vine, he was dared to ole bulls.
"I dressed up in a matador costume, full on, and think I pulled it off pretty well," he says. "I oled a bull, I oled an Elvis, I oled a car and then I tried to ole a trash can, and got hit in the head with the trash can, hence the name of the Vine, "The World's Worst Matador."
The Vine can also be found at Hanes.com.
Michael Jordan released a Hanes X-Temp commercial Wednesday in conjunction with his 25-year anniversary as a spokesman for the brand. Paul joked with ThePostGame that he and Jordan are "on the same level," but made sure to confirm such conversation was jocular. MJ started advertising for Hanes before Paul was even born.
"It's very cool working with the same brand as Michael Jordan. It goes deeper than that," he says. "I've been wearing Hanes since I was just a little young Logan. And now that this platform that is a mobile application on an iPhone has allowed me to work with them? It's amazing."
A few years ago, Paul would have never been able to even fantasize about his career. Technology has given Paul an outlet to show off his adventurous and daring (quite literally) personality to the world. The Vine application was his dream recipe.
Paul's Vine experiences have spurred an acting career. Three weeks ago, Paul and his brother, Jake, moved on to Los Angeles to pursue film/TV aspirations. Paul attributes the little application on his phone for giving him an image.
"Vine gave me the outlet -- networks, feature film companies -- they go wow, this kid's kind of funny," he says. "There are eyeballs on me. Now, I'm going in for interviews because of this and getting really cool opportunities just because of this app. It makes it a lot easier to go into an interview and have people [say,] 'Oh, I know who you are. My son watches you.' And then we do the interview. It's a really cool head start."
Paul has no plans to halt his Vine-making. In fact, his tour with Hanes should only reignite his Vine flame and develop a greater number of followers. It may very well be his most exciting opportunity to connect with fans.
With that success comes the ability to dabble in other fields. That is where film/TV comes in. Paul may have a chance to expand his reach, along with Jake.
"Social media's great, but we want to go big," Paul says. "We want to be some of the biggest entertainers on the planet."
At heart, he is still just a kid taping a few videos. Paul wants to keep living in the moment.
Even if that moment is actually a six-second video with a few seconds cut out here and there.
-- Follow Jeffrey Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband.
