Being a small YouTuber is actually way better than being a big YouTuber. If you're thinking, man, I wish I just had all those subs and made all that money, it'd be so much better, this is what I face from within, because I've had the experience of both. If you look at my subs and my views on this channel, you might think, well, what does this guy know about being a big YouTuber? My main channel has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I've gotten billions of impressions on YouTube, with a B. I've gotten billions of impressions on Facebook, had viral videos on TikTok and on X. So I can tell you, in my experience, what it's like to be a small creator and what it's like to be a big creator. And you don't think about the downsides of being a big creator.
Lately I've been catching myself thinking, man, I want 100,000-plus views on every video. I watch a MrBeast video and I think, yeah, I want to be the next MrBeast. And it's like, do you really? Haven't you already had a taste of that? Don't you see what it's like?
My normal, laid-back life as a small creator
Right now my daily life is very normal, except that instead of doing a real job, I film videos on eight different YouTube channels. That takes maybe two or three hours a day, and that's it. I have the rest of my time free. I spent the morning listening to an interview, watering the garden, walking the dog. I'm going to go to yoga in an hour and a half. I'm going to go to an AA meeting later, pick the kids up from school. I have a very normal, laid-back life, which is really nice.
That's what you can have as a small YouTuber. You can do what you love. You can earn enough to keep doing what you love and not need a real job. You can really just have bliss. After reading Neville Goddard, I was asking myself: what do I really, really, really want? Do I really want 100,000 views a video? Or do I just want to have fun, love what I do, feel good about what I do, and help other people? Isn't that what I really want? What else do we need?
Lately I've been setting up a music studio again. I got the Ableton Push and the APC Key, and I've been having fun making music in my studio. I'll upload videos on my brand new music channel, which I haven't even promoted anywhere else, and it's got like 15 subscribers. Then I upload a video and I get butthurt because only 10 people watched it, and two of those were me on my main channel watching my own video because I like my own music. And I think, well, I want 100,000 views a video on this. Do you really? Let me tell you what it's like being a big creator.
The difference between small and big is the inconveniences
The difference between being small and being big is the inconveniences. You might think it's just numbers. You might think, oh, Jerry's getting 10 views a video and that sucks, but getting 100,000 views a video is awesome. Well, yeah, the money. Almost all you probably think of is the money and how great the world thinks you are. If you haven't done it before, you probably focus on that a lot. Man, I'd be so awesome. I'd love myself if I had 100,000 views.
I've made millions of dollars online, and what I can tell you is that making money is cool at first. The first month I made over $10,000 was about a year and a half into working online, around six months after I quit my job to do my whole business online. I made $10,000 just sitting in my second bedroom on a laptop, with clients paying me to run Facebook ads in 2013. I felt like an absolute boss god. Look at me, at home. This was 11 years ago, way before anyone hardly worked from home and made money online. There were people doing it before me, but I really did feel good.
Then the next month I made like six or seven thousand, and I was disappointed. I thought, I suck now. I thought this was going to go straight up. For the next two years it was inconsistent money, ups and downs, and I had this idea in my head of growing, growing, growing. The money got old pretty quickly and it didn't satisfy me. I'd have months where I made $10,000 and felt like crap because I didn't make more. I was mostly frustrated. It was never enough.
Then I got to teaching on Udemy when it was brand new, and I got to be one of the top 10 instructors on there. The first month I made $100,000 in one month. I felt like a boss god, and it was pretty cool for a while. But then it got boring, old, and meaningless. And then I got banned, because they didn't like me. The money was so good that I got afraid of being banned — what am I going to do without the money? Then I got to be real big in the crypto YouTube space, with people paying me as much as $1,000 an hour.
The drama and the endless criticism
I know so far this sounds pretty cool. You're like, yeah, I'd love $100,000 in a month. But there's a lot of not-cool stuff too. There's always drama and endless criticism. When you're a small YouTuber, you mostly just have your friends and family saying, oh man, your videos are funny, I laughed at them, it was awesome. As you get bigger, people make videos dissing on you and hating on you. Then your biggest fans turn on you: hey, you used to make good videos, but you suck now, you fell off, I liked you how you used to be. You want to talk about getting your feelings hurt — my God. There are posts after posts, and every little thing you do, every single thing, is scrutinized in detail.
When you're a small YouTuber, you can put the craziest stuff out there, and as long as you don't trigger the automatic algorithms, it doesn't get reported. Nobody even notices it. But the bigger you get — on Udemy I was following every term and condition when they banned me. I was so big that I'd aroused a bunch of jealousy in people. Most of the other instructors making a fortune like I was kept their mouths shut and just took their paychecks like a good boy or a good girl and didn't cause trouble. But I'm out there telling everybody what I'm doing. I'm showing off all my paychecks, and the people working at Udemy — I'm making more in a month than they make all year. They're getting jealous: look at this guy. And then I'm out there telling them how they should do things because I have a bigger voice than they do. I was having a good time with it. But at the same time, you'll have a lot of negative experiences that you're not quite prepared for.
The bigger you get, the more it hits your real life
When you're a small YouTuber, you can say whatever you want and it's very free. You can do whatever you want. But the bigger you get, the more it impacts your real life. When I started on YouTube I didn't have any kids — I have my daughters now. Back then I'd just throw out the craziest videos, and so what, because not that many people were watching them. I rarely even had to answer to my wife or my family about them. But then you get bigger and bigger, and all of a sudden your family is watching your videos, your friends are watching your videos — and not just the friends who encouraged me to start on YouTube. Now I've got parents at my kids' school watching my videos. I can't do all the crazy stuff I did before. With every video I have to think: is this something I want the principal at my daughter's school to watch? Not that she necessarily watches every video, but she could. They know I'm on YouTube, they do watch some of my videos, and I don't know which ones.
I've put 5,000 videos on YouTube and I deleted 4,000 of them, because there were so many with so much crazy stuff in them. I just wanted to start over, because people will find these old videos. And like MrBeast — MrBeast can't go anywhere or do anything. He has a five-minute rule. He can't just go to Walmart. Now you might think, well, I could do without going to Walmart or Target the rest of my life. But Jimmy Donaldson can't just be a regular person. His entire life has to be this curated experience, because anytime he goes out in public, even in another country, it becomes an event. He said he was down in Chile filming the Antarctica video, and he was there incognito for a little while, but eventually one person found out: hey, MrBeast is here. The entire hotel was surrounded with people mobbing it. There's a huge crowd outside. That's not fun.
When fans love you like a best friend and you feel nothing
I remember the first time I went to a conference in person where it was a big deal. I'd been to conferences before where nobody cares — it's Jerry Banfield, so what. But I went to SteemFest in 2017. I was the number one author on Steem, I was a YouTuber who'd brought all these people into the community, and there were so many people who loved me there. They'd walk up: oh my God, Jerry, I love your videos, you're so amazing. In your mind you'd think that's an awesome experience. You'd tell yourself you really want that. But to me it felt wrong, because your mind is used to having mutual emotions with someone. You're used to your friends and your family, the people you really know, feeling the same way about each other. When your best friend comes up all excited to see you, your brain expects that and reacts, and you return it.
I had all these people I didn't know loving me like a best friend. Oh my God, Jerry, I love you, it's so nice to see you in person, this is my name. And my brain's going, what's wrong with you? Why don't you know this person? This must be your best friend, you must have just forgotten you know them, because look how they feel about you — and you feel nothing about them. If anything, it felt awkward. Eventually I thought, I can't stand this. I don't want to be around people who watch my videos. I don't want to just be this celebrity. I had friends I'd come to the conference with, and by the end I barely went to anything, because I just wanted to be with people where I'm just Jerry, not "it's Jerry Banfield, the YouTube guy, the Facebook guy." And that was just one conference. If you get bigger and bigger, you can't go anywhere without that happening.
deadmau5 has talked about being in the bathroom and somebody going, oh my God, dude, deadmau5, I love your music. I don't want to be accosted in the bathroom by a fan. You've heard about this — Eminem talks about it, people asking for autographs in the bathroom stall. You don't think of this stuff, but the bigger you get, the more it happens. It sucks. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, it's weird.
Why I keep starting small channels on purpose
There's something funny with me, because on some level I know I'm a big YouTuber — that's just who I am. And I've made a lot of efforts not to be. I start new channels, because to me being a big YouTuber is easy. Anything you do works. Whereas when you're a small YouTuber, you can really see how good at YouTube you are, because growing from small is challenging. When you've got hundreds of thousands of subs, you post any video and you start to get this false sense of how great you are. Any video I post on my main channel gets thousands and thousands of views, and it's like, well, that's just because people have seen you before. Your video is really pretty ordinary, but they're familiar with you. I actually killed off my main channel in a bunch of different ways, because I got tired of it and it became meaningless to me.
The handlers and the hidden contracts
I got to be huge on Facebook too. What you also don't know is that the bigger you get, the more you start to attract handlers. Handlers are people on the platforms who get ahold of the top talent and provide additional hidden terms of service and conditions that are not public, with non-disclosure agreements attached. That's what happened on Facebook. I got so big that they gave me a partner manager and a partner contract. I was free not to sign it, but I chose to sign it, because that's how you really get the serious amounts of views.
As soon as I signed that partner contract, I got access to all kinds of additional money opportunities, and they pushed my videos like crazy. My videos were doing great without the partner, and they ripped so hard afterward that a lady from the Facebook research department had a video call with me. You know how hard it is to get ahold of these people when you want something — but when they want something from you, they show up. They asked: how are your videos doing so good? And I explained it. Part of it was that Facebook partner contract. The contract says you don't get a boost in the algorithm. That's not true, in my experience — they're blatantly lying. The public perception is that you don't get a boost. Not everybody who signed a contract did well, but if you get these extra terms and conditions, you also get this extra pressure and stress put on you. The smaller you are, the more free you are to just have fun and play.
The constant demand to keep posting
For example, I've got tens of thousands of people on crypto YouTube — my crypto channels are the most popular. I started two crypto channels from scratch within the last year and a half. One's got almost 40,000 subs and the other's on its way to 20,000, and my videos get thousands of views every single time. If I don't post a crypto video basically constantly, my fans seem to want a video a day, at least, two if you can handle it. If I don't constantly post crypto videos, I feel people's dissatisfaction with me. Come on, where's my Jerry Banfield crypto video today? And there are so many critics. No matter what you do, someone's always critical. The bigger you get, the more crazy stuff happens. I keep a community for people who actually want to go deeper with me on all of this — that's what the Jerry Banfield Family is for — but out in the open feeds, the bigger you get, the more it turns into pressure.
I read Tim Ferriss's post where he says you don't want to be famous. Crazy people come out of nowhere and start stuff with you, blame you for things, file lawsuits. deadmau5 has talked about getting sued by Disney over his mouse helmet, and other lawsuits that only happened because he was big. If he'd been a small unknown electronic musician, no one would have sued him. No one would have cared. But because he has this huge audience, Disney sued him over the mouse helmet — a seven-year lawsuit over the mouse helmet.
The police at my door
I've gotten big enough that crazy stuff like that has happened to me. My daughter was at a private school with expensive tuition, and the parents called the police and made up the most ridiculous story over what I'd put up online. The police didn't buy it, the school didn't buy it, but the parents said such outrageous stuff that everybody had to come investigate for themselves. The police came to my door at 8:30 at night — thankfully when the kids were in bed and my wife was out for a run. Great timing. The officers came up like, Jerry, we just have to follow up on these things the parents said. And I'm like, come on in. I've got everything, I'm transparent, come look in my house. They're insane.
I've run into people in person who were big fans initially, who I'd hang out with, and then they turn on me. All of a sudden they're using their friendship with me to blast me online and talk about why they won't follow me anymore. Stuff I've put out there has resulted in people at AA meetings laughing at me, making fun of me, treating me differently. People who were initially friendly to me are out there reading and watching the stuff I put out, and all of a sudden they've made me into the bad guy and they create these ridiculous stories. Well, he said this here, so that's what he means.
It's addicting, so I've tried to blow it up
I've gotten so tired of it that I've intentionally been as controversial as possible to destroy my own platform — because it's also very addicting. The more people you get watching your videos... Sometimes I think, what could I do besides YouTube or social media? Part of me really would like to find out. But as long as every video I make has people watching it, it's hard to walk away. Even though I love the small-YouTuber experience — having 10 or 20 people who cared enough to watch a video nobody else watched — that's really special to me. For some reason it's not as special to everybody to just watch a video because that's what everybody else is doing.
It's worth it to really dive deep, because I was thinking today: do I want a life like deadmau5, where I'm on the road doing shows and the bigger you get, the more people want stuff out of you all the time? I've had to set very firm boundaries. I try to make it difficult to contact me or message me. You have to pay to chat with me, because there are so many critical and nasty comments and so many people who want stuff out of me. Then there are all the scammers and spammers popping up trying to rip my fans off, and I can't do much about it — I get a fake profile taken down and they just make new ones. There are a lot of downsides.
The flattering stuff that turns out not to be nice
So I was thinking today: do I want more of a deadmau5 kind of life, where I get to meet all these famous people and go do shows and go all these places, but when I'm going to the bathroom, when I'm at the movies with my family, people are walking up? Because I've run into people at AA meetings and just all over the place who've seen my videos, even where I'm at now. Sometimes it's really flattering. There were these two beautiful young women, mid-twenties, and they said, oh my God, I love your TikTok videos. I'd been getting millions of views on TikTok and didn't even know who was really watching — I figured a lot of it was bots. But these girls said, I love your TikTok videos, you're amazing. They're big fans, and they're like, here, sit with me. It's really flattering, and I liked it initially. But then on the way home I'm thinking about them. Now they want to go out to lunch with me. And it's like, I have a wife, I have a busy schedule. I don't have time. I have videos people want me to film, and if I'm out to lunch I'm not filming videos. And if I'm hanging out with these cute girls who are 10 or 15 years younger than me and have a little crush on me because they've watched my videos, now I'm not thinking about my wife, and now I feel bad about myself. Why are you thinking about these girls?
I have girls come up and get these euphoric crushes on me immediately, and it's nice, but overall it ends up being not nice.
Becoming afraid of people who might watch
I even got to the point where I was afraid. I used to put out very strong viewpoints, very controversial videos — things that would go viral, things that would aggravate people, things my family would call me up about: you need to take that down, that's wrong, you shouldn't be saying that, what about your kids and your family? And I got to the point where I'd start to be afraid of people who I knew had differing viewpoints. At the yoga studio, some of the videos I'd posted were basically trashing a lot of the things they were representing, and I started to be afraid of them. I'd think, man, I hope they don't watch my videos, especially on certain platforms like Instagram. I don't want them to follow me. I don't want them to see what I post, because maybe they'll kick me out of the yoga studio. Maybe they won't want me here.
So I finally just deleted my Facebook, my Instagram, and my TikTok. I don't want to put videos on platforms that seem to be filled with drama. At least on YouTube, people seem to more intentionally seek content out. On some of these other platforms you'll follow each other, and people at the yoga studio were following me and I was following them. I just deleted it. People know I'm a YouTuber, but a lot of the time they don't go watch my videos on YouTube, and I really feel better at the yoga studio now, because most people aren't going there to watch my stuff — though some have. There was a beautiful young girl at the yoga studio one day who had a crush on me. I wear shirts that say Jerry Banfield on them, because that's what I bought and I'm not buying new shirts, and I like to talk about what I do with people. Her friend was introducing me, and she said, oh, you're a gamer. And I'm like, how'd you know I was a gamer? Because I often wouldn't say it directly. She got embarrassed, because she'd watched my videos online, and then it was awkward.
Some days I wish I was something normal, like an electrician or a plumber. Although — I don't want to be an electrician or a plumber, scratch that. You get electrocuted as an electrician. A plumber deals with a lot of nasty stuff. No, I like my nice clean little office studio setup in here. This is great. I don't have to go over to people's houses and serve clients. It's really nice.
Do you really want 100,000 views?
But the whole point here is to really dive deep into myself and ask: do you really want to be a big YouTuber? Do you really want 100,000 views a video? Because that's going to mean a lot more of the stuff you don't want. And you can change lives with a video that has 10 views on it. Some of the people who've made the biggest difference in my life never made a video online — they were there at AA meetings, they shared their life with me, and they're heroes to me. Many of the people whose videos I've watched online have made almost no difference in my life, and some of them have blatantly wasted my time and been a distraction. This is an introspective one for me, and I hope it's useful for you if you're on YouTube making videos and always trying to get more views and feeling like it's not enough.
The biggest difference in the world is having enough versus not having enough. I'm really glad today that however many views this gets, it's enough. Whether it gets 20 or 100,000, it really doesn't matter. I don't need money out of that channel. I'm just trying to share my experience and help a fellow YouTuber out. Part of my mind says that's a lie — it'd be better if it was 100,000 views, it'd be better if you were making more money and getting more invitations to conferences. But I was thinking the other day about how I often can't stand the things people invite me to do.
Getting good at saying no
People say, can you speak on this Twitter Space? No. I don't care about your Twitter Space. I don't follow you on Twitter. I don't even use Twitter — I just automatically post my video links there. If people share something useful, I'll look at the post, but I don't scroll Twitter. I'm only on Twitter to boost video reach on YouTube, because other people expect me to be there and because scammers will rip people off using my name if I'm not there. No, I don't want to do your Twitter Space.
You have to get really good at saying no, because the bigger you get, the more people invite you to do all kinds of stuff that's boring and that's ripping you off. One guy had me on his livestream. I hadn't thought about whether I really wanted to do it, and then I looked and I'm the biggest name on there by far, and it's just promoting his sketchy brand. My followers were like, hey, don't go on that guy's livestream, he's just using you to promote his sketchy stuff. And I'm like, you're right. So I canceled on him, and then I felt bad that I canceled 24 hours in advance after agreeing to it two months earlier. I'll be out in my garden thinking, why do I agree to do stuff for other people? I barely have enough time to get in my own studio and make the stuff I really want to make. I look at my calendar at the next thing coming up and think, I don't want to do this. I only said yes because it'll look bad if I say no. People expect me to be there and show up.
Once you get enough money and enough followers, everything else gets annoying. It comes down to: do I want to spend more time with my wife tonight, or go play tennis in person, or be in my studio — or be on somebody else's platform that I don't care about, mostly helping their audience? The more life gives you, the more people try to use you, and the bigger you get, the easier it is to get jaded and be like, stay away from me, I just want to be in my studio and film my videos and be left alone. I do love my one-on-one calls, though — getting to know people. People pay $300 an hour to talk to me, and sometimes I think $300 an hour isn't enough for this call, and other times it's this awesome conversation where I'd have done it for free and I got $300, and it's a great deal. If you ever want that kind of access, that's exactly what I built the Jerry Banfield Family around.
This has been a good thing for me to think about today, and I hope it's been good for you. It ties into a lot of what I keep coming back to: having fun first as a creator and accepting the views you get, how I measure success without views or money, and why so many of those views are worthless anyway. If you want to go deeper on the creator side of all this, I keep these conversations going in my YouTube Coaching playlist.
Every situation in life has its ups and downs. Being a small YouTuber is awesome if you just want to have fun, enjoy what you're doing, and be free. Being a big YouTuber is awesome if you want other people to constantly demand things out of you, expect all kinds of things out of you, and get upset whenever you say something. Everything has its ups and downs. Overall, being small is probably best for most people.