James Allen just posted a video saying that he quits ICP, and here is my reaction to it. If you didn't catch it, the channel is called CityXcape, and he came out and said, "I quit ICP." The best response I've seen to this so far is the one Zero to Hero did based on the data. He went through the data, and the truth is that ICP, looking at everything except the price, is looking super bullish right now.
I'm a fan of CityXcape and James Allen, and I appreciate his channel. We did an interview together about a month ago, a long-format conversation that I really enjoyed, and I'd recommend it if you want to get to know him in more detail. Those were the two videos James did recently.
I quit too, in 2024
I want to share my own experience with the act of quitting, because as you may know, a few months ago I quit doing not just ICP specifically, I quit doing everything. I did a live stream on my crypto channel called "Goodbye" that ran for two hours to explain it all. That was August 14th, 2024, which is about five months ago now. I quit, and I didn't upload any videos or publish anything for about a month. Actually a little less than a month, at which point I posted "I'm back with new crypto videos." But then I sent people to my original channel, and about a month after that I came all the way back. For that month, though, I quit content creation altogether, and I rethought my entire life.
I asked myself what I could do besides being a YouTuber. I had all these other ideas: being a hypnotherapist, a massage therapist, a trash man, a police officer again. But the bottom line came back down to the fact that there is nothing I'm more crafted to do than be a YouTuber, and so I ended up coming back.
What I think might be going on with James
Another way of looking at me quitting is to analyze myself, because I don't know exactly what's going on in James's life. What I can see is that James Allen and I have a lot in common. Obviously we have some differences, but I'm analyzing it like this: I quit a few months ago, and this is what was going on with me, and I imagine there might be some overlap with him.
I quit because I was really burned out on YouTube. I felt like I wasn't making enough money. I felt like I wasn't delivering enough value for my viewers. I wasn't enjoying my videos enough, and I thought there might be something better I could do with my life. But what I found is that I don't see anything I could really offer right now that's superior to what I'm offering with my crypto videos.
There's another trend, though, that I've noticed looking deeper into my past, so I think it's very possible James might come back. The thing is, when I say goodbye and then come back a month later, that's clickbait twice. It's sensational twice. The first time, everybody's talking about how Jerry leaves and we don't know if we'll ever see him again. A month later, he's back. I would prefer not to do that again, and instead stay consistent and not burn out. However, when you identify so much as a content creator, even your own self-thinking tends to be sensational, because sensational videos get clicks and average, normal videos don't get hardly as many. So will James come back in a week, a month, a few months? I certainly hope so, as a content creator.
He said he quit content, not his coins
That said, he said he's quitting ICP content creation. I haven't seen his internet identity with 10,000 ICP pop up on IDGeek. The whole value matters here, because there are only a couple thousand ICP even available in total on IDGeek. So I don't see his internet identity, and he didn't say he was selling his ICP. Just like when I quit, I didn't sell my ICP. I don't see any accounts that have transacted a huge amount of ICP in the last week. So he did not say he was selling. He said he's not going to be an ICP content creator anymore.
I know it can be frustrating to get boxed into a certain niche, where you just have to create this one certain kind of content or people aren't happy. James is also a developer and an engineer, so he has an app to build. There's a lot he can do besides create ICP videos. I know it can get to where you feel totally boxed in creating content about a certain subject, which is exactly why I personally quit.
My pattern of self-sabotage
Something else I've noticed in my long-term past as a content creator, and in my life in general, is that often, right when I'm getting the exact things I want, self-sabotage comes into play. Lots of times, right when I'm in the perfect position, I'll either get really aggravated and mess up the opportunity, or blow it up myself. I'd go out on dates with girls and things would go great, and then I'd get myself all aggravated, nitpick some detail, send a nasty text message, and blow the whole thing up.
As a content creator, there are a bunch of times I've been very successful and done the same thing. I started from scratch on Udemy and got to be a top 10 instructor making millions of dollars, sometimes close to 100,000 in a single month. And then I ran my mouth endlessly, bad-mouthing a lot of the decisions they made, making them look bad over and over again. I wasn't violating any of the policies. But the last time they changed a policy, I ran my mouth about it and showed people how to get around it, and they banned me. They just made up a policy violation that was obviously stupid on the surface, and banned me because they were tired of me talking junk about them. That was such an incredible financial opportunity, and I self-sabotaged it.
I've done that in my own personal history repeatedly. I was one of the top 20 gamers on Facebook Gaming. There was a contest for the most engagement out of the big-follower creators, and I got one of the top 20 positions in January 2022. In February, I went viral for being controversial, bringing multiple sensitive subjects into one single post, and got canceled right after that. It's another example where I had exactly what I wanted and I destroyed it.
With crypto, that's happened a bunch of times too. I was in a perfect position with Bitcoin, and I dumped everything early. I'm grateful today that I've got another chance at it with ICP, at being a crypto content creator.
What I'd do differently: gentle transitions
Looking back at the past, I wish I would have been more comfortable just gently transitioning out of things, and more comfortable making smaller adjustments instead of dramatic moves. On Udemy, I could have just dialed back. Obviously, when there's self-sabotage, there is usually some part of you that really wants it. Some part of me wanted to be banned from Udemy, because I felt confined, and I felt free being banned, even though I felt angry too.
Going forward, I'd like to make more gentle adjustments. When I was all in on Udemy, Facebook Gaming, and my crypto channel before, I felt boxed in. But now I realize I'm not boxed in. I can cut back on the crypto videos I'm doing at any time. On my gaming videos on Facebook, I got tired of playing Warzone solos every day, and I could have easily just played more casually, occasionally, and accepted fewer followers, instead of blowing everything up. I could have built something else up at the same time. Same thing on Udemy: I could have just stopped creating several courses a month, enjoyed the income, and worked on building up my gaming following instead.
So I hope going forward that I'm able to apply these lessons: don't self-sabotage, and allow gentle transitions. You don't need to be so dramatic. I can take a week off, or a month off, from creating ICP videos next time. If you want to follow along with where my head is at on all of this, you can watch my ICP Crypto playlist.
That's kind of an internal analysis of what I've been through. I imagine James is having some experiences in common with that in his own life. But I don't want to try to guess at what's going on with his personal life or the bigger picture of his life, because I barely know about my own. Still, I imagine there's some overlap here.
What I can say in closing is that I really hope James comes back as an ICP creator. His voice has been very valuable in the community, and we do need criticism. At the same time, I criticize my wife occasionally, but most of the time I'm loyal and I keep being there in the marriage.