They Asked If I Was Actually There to Meet Someone
Last night, I went to a speed dating event where I got a chance to talk to over 20 women one on one for about three minutes each. Naturally, most of them asked, "What do you do?" And I said, "I'm a content creator." They're like, "Oh, really?" I'm like, "Yeah, I've been doing this since 2011, full time since 2012." And then many of them got skeptical and asked, "Well, are you actually here to meet someone, or are you just trying to generate content?" I said I definitely would love to meet someone here, but I get a guaranteed result of generating content. I knew this would be interesting enough that for my Jerry Banfield dating channel, I could absolutely film videos based off of this speed dating event. And sure enough, when I talked to all these women, I had conversations that were perfect for generating content.
The point of this post is to highlight the question: am I trying to live my life first, or, as a content creator, is my entire life all about creating content? I did a video yesterday that you all seem to have enjoyed. It's gotten the most views of any of my new videos, with lots of watch time and comments, called "YouTube Rewards My Worst Self. Real Life Punishes It." The speed dating example is perfect, because when anyone finds out I'm a content creator, it's like, "Are you going to tell my story in a video? Are you just here to make a video out of this, or do you actually care about it?" I don't even know anymore.
When Your Whole Life Becomes Content
This has become the complicated thing with content creation, because the easiest way to generate content is to live my life in a way that naturally leads to me making content. For example, going speed dating while being a content creator naturally leads into a video, to the point where I can hardly separate my work from the rest of my life anymore. This was one reason my ex-wife wanted a divorce. I just talked to a guy from the MaxFi team on my Jerry Banfield Crypto Reviews channel, and he shared a similar experience: he got that silver YouTube plaque, got famous online, made a bunch of money, and ended up getting divorced, because some people do not want to live like that. Everything in life becomes there to generate content. My ex-wife, when we were together, came to hate that any conversation she had with me, anything going on with anybody in her family, could turn into my next YouTube video and become part of my content. She felt like nothing was private anymore in her life.
So when I'm dating, I feel that I need to let women know up front: look, I'm a YouTuber. I'm a content creator. I'm a legitimate one. People actually watch. And the platform pushes me to focus on promoting the extremes. Like I talked about in my video yesterday about YouTube rewarding my worst self: when I come out on YouTube and say I'm just an ordinary guy having a regular life and everything's going great, nobody wants to watch that. When I was married, my vlogs got very little viewership. Now that I'm divorced and dating and I do vlogs about dating not going well, people show up. When I do a date and say, "Oh, I had a great time with this woman," nobody cares. When I do a date and say, "She canceled on me seven minutes beforehand," people love that.
Two Women, One Night
I even have a conflict right now that comes down to: do I want to make great content, or do I want to be an honorable man dating? I met two women last night. I got one number from the speed dating event, and this woman seems very enthusiastic to hang out with me. And I met another woman at a mixer that I went to, because I figured this would generate more content — if I stay at home, that won't generate more content. And I want to know for my dating audience: is going to speed dating worth it? Is going to mixers where people wear wristbands showing whether they're single or not worth it? I don't know, so I need to test.
Now both women I met last night want to go out with me tonight. I have a date with the one I'm most interested in earlier, but the other one is an hour and a half drive away, and I want to see both of them. I already spent an hour talking with the first one last night. The other one, from speed dating, I only got about three minutes with, and she seems even more eager to hang out with me and move faster than the first one. And even talking about each of them here individually is problematic if they watch my videos, because there's full transparency here. But it doesn't matter, because I guess I'm a content creator first and foremost, aren't I? I know there's some woman out there who will love this enough that she'll put up with me talking about everything, and maybe she'll even like it. Some women are like, "Oh, that's so cool, you're a content creator." Others are like, "Oh, okay," and they don't want to talk, which is fine.
Honorable Man or Better Content?
So I'm thinking at this point: as an honorable man, I would simply tell the second woman, "I don't think it's going to work out to see you tonight." But for content, I should definitely double book, right? That's better content. I should just double book both of them. The first one set it up so that she said, "I've got three hours, then I could see you." I thought and spoke too fast — I said, "Oh, three hours with you sounds great." But then this other woman wants to see me, so I'd need to cut the first date short, down to an hour, to go see the second one. It would make much better content if I try to see both of them in one night, because if I'm having a lot of fun with the first one, then I'll just cancel on the second one. But that's dishonorable in real life, isn't it? That's rude. That's what women have been doing to me — flaking and canceling last minute, because they found some guy they wanted to go out with more, or whatever else happened in their life.
And yet, when I asked a couple of my guy friends, they said, "Definitely double book. You know how women have been flaking and canceling on you, so what if that happens? Go out with the first one. If she's not really exciting after the first hour, just tell her you had a nice night and you're heading out, then go see the second one. And if you're having too much fun with the first one, just tell the second one you're canceling, can't make it, and would like to reschedule."
See, that's better content, isn't it? You can already see the video titles coming out of my mind. If I just go out with one woman and I'm a decent guy, there's not really an interesting video title there. But if I double book two women, then whatever I do is going to be interesting content. "I double booked two women and had to cancel on the second one." Or, "I double booked two women and pissed the first one off by leaving to go see the second one." You can see how the second case is guaranteed to be better content. So my brain is trying to calculate: is it more important to be an honorable man, or is it more important to make money, get viewers, and pay your bills? Because making more degenerate content is much easier for paying the bills and getting views. Making content that's wholesome and genuinely helpful to people is not usually rewarded on YouTube. There are exceptions, but I didn't delete millions of followers casually online because things were going great and it was a nice place.
The Matrix That Drains People Like Batteries
In my experience, content creation is very much like a simulation — like the Matrix — there to drain people like batteries. And I feel like I'm going in like Neo, trying to help pull people out of the Matrix, saying, "Wake up, you're getting drained like a battery." But then I can't help but wonder: am I actually waking people up, or am I helping more people get drained? If I try to genuinely wake people up directly, be an honorable man, and lead by example, that's not usually going to get the views.
So I'm not sure what to do tonight. The part of me that wants to just be a loving, considerate man wants to tell the second woman, "Sorry, I can't make it tonight." And the part of me that's a content creator says, "You have to double book. Absolutely double book. That's guaranteed content." Because even if I double book and one of them flakes and cancels, then the story becomes, "I double booked and she canceled." Perfect. If I only book one, there's nothing. You can see that if you really want to be a successful content creator, this is what you're looking at.
And this is not special to YouTubers. Stand-up comedians, according to the ones I've listened to, say their whole life is generating jokes. Ironically, they make their best jokes when their life is full of misery, suffering, and crazy stuff — making better jokes is hard when everything's going smooth. That's why a lot of the best stand-up comedians — not all, but certainly some of the best — have had crazy personal lives, because that makes for the best jokes. When you can genuinely laugh at your pain, like Kevin Hart, and pull from your own personal experience, those make the most heartfelt, relatable jokes. So for me, if I want to be a successful content creator, having a life that is naturally more chaotic and drama-filled instantly gives me better content, and it gets more clicks. And honestly, I'm enjoying this. This is fun. But if you're not up for living this lifestyle, don't think you're going to be a full-time content creator.
What This Lifestyle Really Takes
If you don't want to start wondering all the time whether you're somewhere just for a video or whether you're there to actually meet someone — in any circumstance — don't do this. This lifestyle isn't for you. And if you want to really know what it takes to truly be a successful content creator, understand what I've lived: I had more subscribers than MrBeast up until 2016, and I deleted more followers than most people will ever get. Now I'm rapidly growing again from scratch. In less than six months, I've gotten millions and millions of impressions on YouTube. I just instantly started up around 12 new Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts, and all of them are churning out thousands of videos on autopilot with clips taken from my long-form YouTube videos. I'm crushing this as a content creator — I've got three channels monetized. I know this life.
But I feel like this is almost a lifestyle kind of like the mafia: you get into it, and I've found it's difficult to get out of it. It's difficult to even stop being in it. It's difficult to not think of every single thing I'm doing as generating content — even parenting my kids. That's one of the few places I feel like I can stop generating content, but often they're sitting here playing video games at my house while I'm doing work.
I hope you've had some new insights from the world of content creation. Come join the Jerry Banfield Family on Skool, or message me and share what you're doing — ask for my feedback, show me what you've got.
I love seeing what other content creators are doing, and I love talking content creation. If you want to know what it really takes to start from zero, or to do better with where you're at now, I've got you.
I also have a coaching program for YouTubers and content creators available on my website, where you can also schedule a one-on-one call with me.
If you want to go deeper on what this life actually takes, everything I'm learning about building as a creator lives on my YouTube Coaching playlist. I can't wait to see what my next video is — and whether I double book these two women tonight or not.