One of the biggest mistakes I've made as a YouTuber and content creator, one of the biggest things I would never do again, is this: I had millions of followers online, and in 2025 I deleted everything. All my YouTube channels, all my Twitch. Today, about nine months later, I've started over and I'm building from scratch. The interesting question is, why would anyone delete all of that? The reason I deleted it shows how, as a content creator especially, your personal relationships have such a big influence on you.
Why I deleted millions of followers
My wife at the time did not like me doing content. She was happy enough when I made some money, but she would have preferred I have a regular job and stop doing all the YouTube stuff, and stop talking about her personal life online. I also felt really burnt out on content. My wife did not support my work. She resented the work I did, and we weren't getting along. On some level I was thinking that if I deleted all this content, I'd have a much better chance at getting along with my wife and having a happier marriage.
So I deleted millions of followers online because I felt like it was draining me. I had started telling all these negative stories about it. I got to the point where I felt like nothing I did online mattered, that I wasn't getting enough from being online, and I got to thinking there'd be a better opportunity for me to do something else with my life. I also had a desire to explore what else I could do, because honestly I didn't know what else I could do.
I enrolled in massage school, and my wife at the time was very supportive of me going. She was really excited about it. She thought it would be great for me to have an in-person, real career. Then she was furious, and she divorced me shortly after I dropped out of massage school, especially when I said I wanted to go back and write books. Her reaction was essentially, "More of this same crap. Your books are trash, and I'm done with you." So one reason I deleted everything online was that the influence my wife was having on me was outweighing everyone online.
Losing frame in my marriage
At the same time, I was not doing a good job separating everything. There are some men who wouldn't have lost frame to their wife like that. In my relationship I had totally lost frame to my wife, where everything was about what she was thinking. When the relationship started, I was very much the one holding frame, and she was very attracted to that. But at some point, especially when we moved near her family, that changed. In her family the women dominate across the board, and the men just kind of sit there and try to be seen and not heard. The longer we lived near her family, the more that's what happened in our house. She started taking that role, and it screwed up things in our relationship.
Her negativity, and the way she offloaded everything onto me, also left me feeling really bad about my content. She was masterful in how she did it. She hated listening to me talk about my work. She didn't want to hear about it. When I changed my race and got canceled, she was one of the biggest critics. She was just disgusted with me, and that was the most devastating blow. I changed my race, and I got canceled on Facebook. I didn't get canceled anywhere else, just Facebook, where I was most popular at the time. Then came all the critics and haters calling me racist and making all these nasty videos talking about me. And then I would sit down with my wife at the end of the day, and she would say the same thing everybody else said. It was devastating.
She did her best. She tried. At the same time, her resentment of me and my work left me always feeling like it didn't matter what people said online, because the woman I had at home didn't respect what I do. She never told anybody about it. I would go on vacation with her parents and her sister, and nobody would ask me anything at all about my life for the entire trip. We went on a week-long trip, and not her mom, her dad, or her sister asked me a single thing. They would actively try to ignore me, not talk to me, and act weird around me. I am glad I'm divorced, because now I feel like I can finally be the content creator I've wanted to be.
She inspired me to start, then became the dominant one
What's interesting is that when I first dated my wife, she inspired me to start creating content and to break out of the previous idea I had for my life. When we first got together, she inspired me, and I started creating all over again from that. But the longer we were together, the dynamic switched to her being the dominant one in the relationship. Maybe we were equals for a while and doing really well, but eventually she became the dominant one, and that vibe did not work very well for either of us.
I'm really grateful for everybody who made it through me deleting everything, including the longtime fans who were on so many of the live streams. I will remember this going forward: whoever I date next, I'm not going to lose that position again. Ideally she needs to be a fan of my work. Whoever I date next needs to be a big supporter of what I do and love what I do, because this kind of work is not the usual kind of work.
I'm super grateful now that, being single, I feel like I'm finally taking off on YouTube. The momentum I've had on YouTube has been amazing, and I feel like I can reach my full potential as a content creator because the woman at home is not holding me back, not judging me, not criticizing me, and not thinking negatively of me and my work. This is not a bad thing about her. She has every right to want a guy like the one she has now, with a corporate job. That's what she wanted, and that's what she thought she was getting when she started dating me. She thought she was getting a guy who was going to have a regular job and be a professor. But I started on YouTube about six months in, and then I went full time right before we got married. At first she was more supportive, but from the very beginning she hated me talking about my work.
Why I'm telling this story
I'd like to say that I did what most people think is crazy and deleted millions of followers, and I did it as a last-ditch effort to try to save my marriage. That's how loyal I was. That's how much I cared about my marriage. I'm saying this now because I never want to forget again. I never want to disrespect what I do. I never want to forget the people who are supporting me here. Whoever I date is going to have to respect and love what's happening here in order to date me. A lot of women have already chosen not to date me because they don't want to date a guy whose world is public, talking about all this stuff. If you want more stories like this about building a channel and a life around it, you can find them in my Content Creators playlist.
So I am super grateful for all of you who got through me deleting everything. I appreciate your patience. I know that was difficult. It was hard for me, and it was hard for you. And I'm back, and I'm here to stay.