On August 14, 2024, I posted my goodbye live stream for two hours on my Jerry Banfield crypto channel to let everybody know that I'm not doing YouTube anymore. I'm going offline. I'm tired of all this online crap. I'm tired of feeling like I'm disconnected. I feel like the crypto videos I do are never enough. They don't matter. I'm wasting my time. There's got to be something better I can do with my life.
Facing my community
I made this decision a few days ago, and today is the day for me to go face my community. Based on all the times I've quit in the past, who knows if I'm really quitting, or if this is just another clickbait, sensational strategy where I'll come back and say I'm back. There's a significant amount of people who don't believe I'm really quitting or really leaving, and I've realized there's a possibility that they might be right. However, this is what I'm doing today, and I'm really excited for the future.
I'm planning on doing an in-person show. I'm not sure yet whether it will be comedy or music or live classes. I've got a venue lined up that would be happy to have me, and I'm grateful for this chance to say goodbye to my community and all the super chats, and to remember the good times we've had together.
The relief after going live
I feel a big buildup of energy before I go live to do the live stream, and afterwards I feel relieved, like I've got something over with that I needed to do, and now I'm free to move on with my life. Now I'm free to not think of myself as a YouTuber anymore. I've put out exactly what I'm doing into the universe. I don't know exactly how I'll make money, but I'm sure something will come along. I trust in the process here, and it's really nice to just experience a new version of me and lean into the unknown. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I do. And I'm going to explore that.
The world is my oyster
I'm thinking that there are so many ideas I have. Maybe I'll be an author and write books, or be a musician, but just in person, and make music. Or maybe I'll be a hypnotherapist, or even a garbage man. I don't know. The world is my oyster and full of possibilities.
All I know today is that I absolutely can't go on creating these crypto videos anymore, and I don't see any point in creating other kinds of videos on YouTube when my audience is so small. I get so little money doing anything outside of crypto, and crypto is so boring, so pointless. It's just the same old crap, the same old coins every day. Why even bother at this point? There's got to be something else I can contribute to the world that will be more valuable than these crypto videos. If you want to follow where this leads next, you can watch more of these daily reflections in my Life playlist, and if you've ever wondered what pulls me back, I wrote about how viewers help me not quit YouTube again.