I'm Jerry Banfield. It's August 14th, 2026. I'm a full-time YouTuber, and here's my real, raw life vlog. Thank you very much for your support.
What I'm really excited about to start this: I just started offering the ability to talk to me now on my website, jerrybanfield.com, and someone just bought it, which was really cool. I have a setting on the site where I can just click that I'm online, and these services open up — I built all of this on the ICP blockchain with AI, with Claude Fable. Someone went in and paid with their credit card with Stripe. Three minutes later, I sent them a message on WhatsApp, and three minutes after that, they were talking to me face to face. I know a lot of us want instant gratification in life, and I've now set that up: you want to talk to me right now? If I'm available — even if I'm filming videos — I'll just stop filming and talk to you right away.
I Filmed 120 Shorts in One Day
Yesterday I also filmed 120 shorts, which sounds insane, I know. But I'm a full-time content creator, and it's really about how much content I can crank out at once. I'll show you the files and my spreadsheet from yesterday. People ask why. Because I estimate I should get about 100,000 views on these shorts. On average my shorts get around 1,000 views each, and I haven't even had an outlier yet — not one that popped off and got 10,000 or 100,000 views, at least on these new accounts.
Yesterday I was just standing around thinking, all right, I want to see if I can do this. I generated 120 backgrounds with ChatGPT Pro immediately, and I had three hours between when my kids left and my AA meeting. Let's see if you can film 120 shorts at once, back to back to back. I have this custom AI model I trained with ChatGPT, where I had it generate 300 ideas for shorts based on all the videos and stuff I've already made. So I had that, but then I mostly just went off the top of my head. And it's funny — I've done all these live streams in the past for two to six hours, but taking two and a half hours to generate shorts will probably get you hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of new subscribers, whereas a two-hour live stream will probably only get a few thousand views and a handful of new subscribers. I'm obsessed with how I can work as efficiently as possible: how do I take my time and my creativity and put it out there, and then make myself as available and as easy as possible for you to talk with? On my website I have a chat membership as well, where you can just pop in and talk to me in the chat. I also have a Skool community — and I actually just banned somebody from it because they came in and started talking junk. Nope. I don't care about your money; if you're going to come in and talk junk in my community, you're out of here.
They Offered $1,000 for the Video I Sent the Queen
Yesterday a guy messaged me saying that Who Are These Podcasts had commented on one of my videos, which I didn't see, and they said they were willing to pay a thousand dollars for the video I sent to the queen a few weeks ago. Yes, I sent that to her — two and a half weeks ago at this point. She sent one or two messages back after that, and I didn't respond to the last message she sent, because she said she thought we were in different emotional and romantic places. I think I just didn't play the game very well. I got too excited. I tested whether I could just be really heartfelt, open up, and love a woman right away. Nope. Got to play the game. Got to do the dance. Got to do all this stuff to actually get to what I want. And fine — I'll do that. What I want is a happy, great relationship with a woman and to build a life together. Maybe it's possible there's some woman I could just authentically lead with that, but it doesn't seem like it. I kind of thought the queen was more open to that based on what she said — she wanted an authentic man — but it turns out that's often just what people say, men and women. I told her I'd take it slow. Your boy did not take it slow. I was thinking, wouldn't it be nice if she just reached out?
But then I started thinking: if I sell the video I sent her for a thousand dollars, is that worth it? Would you do that? Would you sell a video you made privately for somebody — epic roast material, pretty embarrassing, a great example of what not to do — for a thousand dollars, knowing someone is going to roast you and get thousands if not tens of thousands of views making fun of you? Well, I asked the AI. Last night I dropped the video — the one that says "dear queen" — into Claude Fable, and it went through the 16-minute video and said that if I were going to release it publicly, it recommended cutting about 8% of it: where I mentioned her name specifically, her age specifically, and the other clearly or potentially personally identifying details. And it said don't release this publicly — there's very little to gain, you've already got enough attention online, the money's not worth it, it's not a good look. You recorded that privately for her; don't release it publicly. I have thought about posting it on my dating channel with her private information redacted and then reacting to it. But that sounds like too much, because it's pretty cringe — and it's an exact example of the pullback test that I totally failed.
How I Share in an AA Meeting
I went to a sober bar last night after my AA meeting — and you should hear how I share in an AA meeting. I had a room full of 30 dudes laughing, hooting at the stuff I said. Because of YouTube's terms and conditions I do need to limit what I say on here somewhat, and in a men's AA meeting I don't, especially. I share the cutting edge of exactly what I'm struggling with. My message in the meeting was that I think I'm living a little dangerously — like a week ago, when I went downtown during First Friday in St. Pete and just walked around all the people out drinking, just to see, just to feel. I don't have a sponsor in AA right now, and honestly I'm not looking that hard — I'm keeping my eyes open. I'm grateful that I can share that level of transparency in a room full of people, and then share at a level slightly below that here on YouTube in a mostly appropriate manner for the general public.
I also saw that one of my friends' YouTube channels got taken down, and it was pretty sketchy. It left me thinking: man, do I need to get on TikTok and Instagram? I started watching videos about how to automate all that, and that's part of what got me wanting to film more shorts too — shorts are really good for discovery, and those 120 shorts could be enough to start up a handful of Instagram and TikTok accounts, build them up to some followers, and send everybody back to my website. But for now it doesn't seem worth it to go onto Instagram and TikTok, since YouTube is my main platform and I'm already making thousands a month on YouTube. At this point I know how to do YouTube, and I can trust that I'm not going to have the issues that guy had with his channel. But I do want to get more people onto jerrybanfield.com, because that's a platform I actually control. And that's important.
The Sober Bar
I took my kids to school yesterday, and my daughter came by after a bit. And you know what's funny — I'm forgetting what I even did yesterday. You think you can go back to these memories like they're the truth, and I barely remember what I did yesterday at this point. That's why I think everyone should make a vlog and record your life, so you can honestly look back at the past as it happened.
So I went to this sober bar yesterday after my AA meeting. A couple of friends had said they went there and liked it. There were maybe seven or eight people in there when I arrived. I sat at the bar by myself and took like five minutes to obnoxiously research the zero-proof drinks they were offering — okay, are these derived from alcohol? There's a gin alternative, a vodka alternative. I searched, and no: they're not made from alcohol at all, they're plant-based stuff that's just supposed to have a little kick. So I tried a couple of drinks and ended up dropping $60 for dinner and a couple of mocktails, plus a $20 tip to the bartender.
While I was there, a woman at the bar gave me a compliment on my shirt. I said thank you, told her I appreciated the comment, and asked her name. She was maybe hitting on me — she was there with one of her girlfriends. She wasn't quite pretty enough for me to be interested, but I thought: that's nice. I sit down at a sober bar and a woman hits on me right away. And some fool posted in my comments — I try not to read YouTube comments, but YouTube Studio just has to show me one — saying "no women are checking you out, bro." People: women are hitting on me. All right? Not all of them, but it happens, and women are often a bit more subtle about it. I'm grateful. I'm good enough looking, I'm putting out the vibe, and it's nice when a woman hollers.
The bartender was talking about my shirt too, and I had time to just talk with her because everybody else left — it was just me in there with her, and her coworker in the back. So I decided to practice talking more manly with her, to be prepared for my couple of upcoming dates. I'd been watching a bunch of Bobby Rio videos, and the difference from what I've been doing on a lot of my previous dates is this: I'd been asking a bunch of questions. Where are you from? How many siblings do you have? You can fall asleep listening to that. I've had some boring dates with some women — not every single date, but a lot of them were more like interviews. And the real thing on a first date, especially, is to be building energy.
Talking Like I'm in Charge Again
I used to build that energy pretty well in my twenties. I was used to being a police officer and a corrections officer, where I was in charge, and I talked like I was in charge all the time. Some people didn't like it, but I talked with this very manly aura about me, and women really liked it. I got with a number of pretty women in my mid-twenties, and they loved that very masculine, very in-charge presence. When I talked to you, I didn't sit down at a date and ask a bunch of questions — I would just assume stuff and talk off the top of my head. Dates with me were not interviews; dates with me were flirting and playing around and being a leader. And I reflected on that and realized I've been going about dates like boring interviews. I need to talk how I used to talk. My mom asked what that even means, and I said: especially now that most of the women I'm talking to are five, ten, fifteen, twenty years younger — where in my twenties most were close to my age — I should be talking like a man who knows life well enough to take educated guesses.
So I watched a bunch of Bobby Rio videos about this and tried it on with the bartender. Instead of asking her questions about herself, I just started assuming things and going from there. For example, instead of asking "did you work at a bar before this?" I assumed this probably isn't her first job behind a bar and said, "You probably like working here better than a real bar." And she immediately starts talking — yeah, she used to work at this sports bar. Then I said, "Well, you probably don't get as good of tips working here, though." See the difference? I'm thinking about her and her life so much that I'm putting it together instead of interrogating her — and that shows more life experience and consideration. She said, "Yeah, but it's worth it not to have to deal with all the frat guys where I used to work." So then I said, "You probably don't get hit on as much here either." She said something like, "Yeah, I don't miss that." I was testing her with that statement to see how she replied — whether she'd be interested in me hitting on her. Her reply read cool, neutral, not at all suggestive or opening, so I didn't ask if she was single or try anything. I just practiced my conversation, got her laughing a few times, made a few ridiculous statements taking things at unexpected angles.
You Are the Robot and the Operator
What I realized is that this talking is just adjusting routines in my mind. Sometimes that makes dating feel not magical at all, because for me it's all very robotic: you adjust these routines, execute them, adjust the code in my mind, and then it executes differently — and women respond to me differently. I know there's magic and human connection, but there's also game, there's dance, there's just executing routines in your head. I work with a lot of AI — Claude, custom GPTs, something running in the background right now — so I think very much in code, and these brains often work just like that. One of the big things is to realize that in some ways you are basically a robot, and you are also the operator of the robot. If you want to change how the robot works, the first step is to figure out how it works now, and why — because at some point you decided it should work that way, or somebody else programmed you through repetition or emotional experiences. Then you decide how you want it to execute going forward.
With talking to women, I want to assert: I am a leader. I am a man. I am a strong man. I'm a man with options, a man worth having, a man that doesn't need you in my life — and a man interested in building a life with an amazing woman, but I'm not just going to say yes to anybody. I don't have time to waste. I'm going to be qualifying you to see whether you fit, rather than trying to sell myself. And I'll demonstrate that through my communication — flirty, leadership-style communication — instead of showing up like I'm at a job interview trying to get her to hire me.
The whole time my mind is going: this is so dumb. We should be able to just be honest, authentic people and share and connect however, and it should just work. But then again, I went to a dance class a few weeks ago, and you could argue the individual dance moves there were dumb too. They have a specific way you move and step, and it was awkward to learn, but it helps you communicate and make some beautiful dancing. You learn the basic rules so you know how to dance, so you can make beautiful dances. Maybe love and romance are like that. There's a dance you learn, and the dance is not the same all over the world — it's different in different countries, different communities — and it ends up complicated. But look: I already knew how to dance pretty well in my twenties. I just haven't danced in a while. I'm learning to dance again, and I'm going to dance with lots of women, and the women the dances go best with — we'll have a chance to make a long-term partnership.
It seems like it needs to be the woman's idea to have a long-term partnership with me rather than the other way around. And for some reason women like to make this mysterious game of it: "Oh, I just want to have lunch." "I'm just looking for a friend." "I'm just looking for companionship, a guy to watch TV with, to go have adventures with." From my point of view: why aren't you looking at the long term? You're looking for marriage, family, a house together — that's the vision of where you're going. Maybe I need to slow down and say I'm just looking to have an interesting conversation. But my actions now are always aligned to where I want to go long-term. I'm building this business to share my views and teach the world, then do only that and have it pay ten-plus thousand a month — each individual action I take is set up toward that goal. It's the same reason I filmed 120 shorts yesterday: I want to see if I can get out to a hundred thousand people. I know that at least one out of a thousand of them — if not one in a hundred — is going to watch one of my videos one time and think, "Damn, I've got to keep watching this guy. There's something unusual here." It's my job to execute my videos and my business in a way that brings the people I want. And I think that's the same thing with dating.
The Jerk Math
Sometimes it all feels like — couldn't we just do something that's more honest? A guy just sent me a message saying he hates the whole desperate-man thing. And I think logically about the stories I've heard: the queen told me stories of how these guys were just awful to her. I look back now and think, yeah — I'd rather be the guy that's kind of a jerk, that makes a girl I'm dating pay for the Uber every time, never picks her up, makes her come to me, makes no effort. I'd rather be the guy that does nothing and has beautiful women coming over and putting up with it, than the guy that's all heartfelt and loving that the woman then acts horrible with. "It's too much. I'm going to cancel our date." "It's too much to even have a phone call with you after we've been dating." If one person's going to be a jerk, I'd rather it be me. I am not going to be the one that's all loving and nice and gets treated like crap.
I would love it if we could just be nice to each other and love each other. Maybe the women I've dated so far this year just aren't a good example of that. Maybe there is a woman where we could both be nice and loving to each other. I had a 15-year relationship, and I absolutely was the jerk in that scenario. I didn't pick her up and bring her to my apartment once — she had a car, but she almost always had to drive to me. We listened to the music I wanted. We did the stuff I wanted. I don't ever remember even considering that I should learn about the kind of music she liked and play that. It was: we're listening to what I want to listen to, I don't care if you like it — I didn't even think about whether she'd like it. This is my world and she's in it. And I would just love to have a relationship based more on mutual love and both people treating each other nicely. I'm not sure if that's possible.
Villain or Victim
I'm not sure if it's possible that you can both just love each other, be nice, and have a great life together. It almost seems like one person has to be the more self-centered one that demands what they want, that leads and gets it, and the other person has to deal with that and be part of their world. And I will not be the one that deals with it. If dating the queen taught me anything, it's that I am not going to put up with someone who isn't treating me with love and respect and showing up. I'd much rather be one of the guys she talked about that was a jerk than the guy she's probably talking about now — "oh, he's such a loser, he wanted to talk to me all the time, he said he loved me, he said I was his queen." I'd much rather be the guy that just has her come over and doesn't have to do anything for it. Sometimes I feel bad about that — I'm jealous of the dude that got to have that experience instead of me being all loving and nice and getting crapped on for it. That's how I used to be, and at some point I decided it was crappy to be that.
But think about the men who are very nice. I know some guys just like that — such sweet, nice guys — and they choose the most evil woman to be their wife. I know this guy — I can't say where I know him from — and his wife just dominates him and roasts him. He can hardly even listen to me talk, because part of him wants to be like me. It sounds like a horrible marriage that I would have left; I couldn't have stood being in it. And he just takes it. He makes himself wrong and feels bad about what he does all the time. Look: if I've got to pick one role or the other, I'd much rather be the villain than the victim. I'd like a relationship where there's no villain and no victim. But when I was the villain, the relationship worked a lot better with my ex — she was very attracted to me being the villain, she wanted it really bad. And when she kind of turned into the villain herself, that didn't work well for either of us. I went around feeling like the victim all the time; she tried to deny being the villain but acted like it. Can't I just have a relationship where we love each other and there's no villain and no victim? Maybe. But if there's going to be a villain, it's going to be me. I'm never being the victim — the nice one that gets walked all over, stepped on, and dates canceled on. Never doing that again.
That's enough for today. This vlog is part of how I'm building my whole business as a full-time YouTuber — I share everything I'm learning about growing channels on my YouTube Coaching playlist if you want to see how the machine works.
If you want to talk to me and tell me what you think, go to jerrybanfield.com and join that chat — one payment, lifetime access. Support me and you'll feel good about it. You can talk to me instantly whenever I'm online: just pop in and share your thoughts with me. All right — I just talked for 24 minutes. That's enough, right? I'm good.