This is an excerpt from my memoir, I Was Famous on the Internet — my honest story of 14 years of internet fame and what it really cost, and why I deleted it all to choose real life.
Unplugging, Support, and Redefining Success
I navigated other personal challenges while I was a content creator, and it was difficult. I didn’t have enough real-life support. As soon as my ex-wife and I talked about divorce, I started reaching out to all kinds of friends and family. Because I didn’t have videos to obsess over, I had time yesterday to talk to people in person and on the phone for more than six hours plus attend an AA meeting. Those conversations gave me valuable insights about how to move forward with love and joy, how to handle a divorce with gratitude, and how to do it in a way that is nice. I heard so many people’s experiences. Hearing from someone you know face-to-face, someone whose phone number you have, is so different from watching a video about somebody’s divorce on the internet. With a video, you don’t know the rest of the person, you can’t ask questions. It’s hard to navigate life when you don’t have a strong support network. I’m glad I had a few months to prepare my local support network to help me through this divorce.
I imagine if I hadn’t deleted everything, my ex-wife would have eventually asked for a divorce. She had been trying for years, but as long as she could tell I didn’t want it and wouldn’t cooperate, she only mentioned it in moments of high upset. I always pushed it aside because I felt like I couldn’t handle being a content creator and getting divorced at the same time. I didn’t have the bandwidth. That’s the sneaky thing: the internet saps your bandwidth. Watching all these platforms reduces the bandwidth you have to deal with real life. I imagine if I was still making videos while trying to navigate a divorce, I’d be struggling so much more.
Today, I’m not struggling much. I cried the day after we decided to get divorced—on and off all day, for hours, until my eyes hurt. Today I feel restored to sanity and reborn. Without media platforms as a coping mechanism, I’ve realized how many people use them to tolerate jobs, marriages, and family situations that would otherwise feel unacceptable. Without those platforms, they might make life changes instead of staying stuck. Unfortunately, other addictions—alcohol, drugs, overeating, misuse of plant medicines, unnecessary mind-altering prescriptions—go hand in hand with media platforms. If you had a strong support network and weren’t lonely, you might not need those things.
I’ve been a bad example for years, missing real life and not being present because I was obsessed with everything online. What many people saw as success—millions of dollars online, tons of followers—to me looks like failure. Everything I got wasn’t worth what I gave up. What I gave up were years that could have been a happier marriage, years spent distracted and avoiding problems, years of stunted maturity, years dealing with relentless criticism and hatred from strangers online that I’ll never meet—people who, if they met me in person, likely wouldn’t have acted that way. I traded a decade of my life for what now feels like nothing.
Still, I hope this book helps some of you learn from my experience. And at the same time, I have no regrets. I’m happy with where I am today. While I sometimes wonder what life would have looked like if I had taken a different path, from where I stand now, I wouldn’t go back and change anything. What I will not do is continue living the way I have been.
Some might argue this book is just another form of media, but there’s a big difference. I can create books like this without being distracted. I can read books without feeling consumed by the need to meet the author and make them part of my life. I can hear someone’s story in a book without developing lust or unhealthy attachment, because books aren’t sensational in the way media platforms are. For me, they don’t trigger that experience. With my own books, most people who read them so far actually know me and have my phone number. And if you don’t, it’s on jerrybanfield.com.
Apparently, I was famous enough that even after months of not uploading videos, somebody went to jerrybanfield.com, used the phone number posted at the top, and texted me saying, “I have your address, you fucking scammer.” I thought about replying that when I move out after the divorce, I’d send them my new address, but instead I just deleted the message and blocked them. By comparison, I haven’t gotten a message like that in a decade from anyone I’ve met in real life. Meeting people in person has been nothing but supportive and loving.
I appreciate your time reading this book. If you’re in the St. Petersburg, Florida area, I’d love to meet you in person, hear your thoughts, hear your story, maybe speak at an event you’re hosting, or do deeper work together if coaching interests you. If you enjoyed this book, know that I’m writing one or two new books every month right now. My hope is that for decades to come, you’ll always have something new from me to read.
If you want to hear more about my exact journey through divorce, I’ll have a new book about that soon in the journal entries that follow Author in St. Petersburg. If you want to see the days of my life leading up to this moment and writing this book, read Author in St. Petersburg and see if you can spot the signs of what was to come. If you want to hear my complete recovery story in addiction, read Speaker Meeting 2017, which tells, in graphic and unflinching honesty, about my alcoholism, sex addiction, video games, food, money, and the early years of recovery. I recommend listening to that on Audible. If you want to hear about my time as a police officer in South Carolina, read or listen to Officer Banfield. You can always see my newest books in the order I’ve published them on jerrybanfield.com and schedule a time to talk with me in person for the best experience.
Thank you very much for reading this. I hope it added value to your life without distracting you!
Sincerely,
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.