What if you lived your entire life primarily to produce content, rather than for whatever it is you're doing for yourself? Welcome to my life, where when I go out with a woman, I'm hoping it'll make for a great story for YouTube.
The Queen Video Monetized My Channel
Here's an example. I have my vlogs channel, which I'm grateful just got over a thousand subscribers and fully monetized on YouTube, which is awesome. What was the main thing I did to get it monetized? Well, a couple of months ago, I met this woman. Now, I didn't consciously go into it thinking this, but I did think, right before this: my primary purpose, the main thing I care about, is blowing up on YouTube, getting paid, and making tens of thousands of dollars a month. Because I'm a single dad, my house costs $2,700 a month in rent, and I need to make at least $10,000 a month before taxes to have enough to pay my rent, do stuff for my kids, and pay down debt as well. So I started dating this woman with that in mind. This channel was not even close to monetization. And I started just talking — I opened my heart, got really emotional, and made some dramatic story, which I lived out in real life. It was painful, and it was difficult. I sent this woman a 16-minute-long video message at 6:48 a.m. And then two days ago, I sold that video for $2,000 — which I called the queen video. Someone bought the exclusive premiere license to show this video to the public, minus the parts I took out that were her — me saying her name and stuff. I sold it for $2,000 on my website, and I monetized an entire channel. The queen story was the first thing I did that actually hooked people and got them interested in watching the channel. It was also part of why she didn't want to date me — me putting videos up about her.
Making Drama in Real Life
And then I realized: oh, my dating life is very interesting. So I started talking about my dating life, and I start making drama in my real life. I text this woman I hadn't seen in nine months. I ask a woman out at work. I bring back the queen video series. Then this podcast reacts to my emotional content. My date canceled? It's like — good, now I can do a great YouTube video about it. I spent $1,000 on Hinge? That's great YouTube material. Finally, yesterday, I posted a vlog from a few days ago about how the yoga studio gave me an etiquette warning because of my content online, after people complained — some about the content, some in person. See, I was going to the yoga studio trying to generate content. I'm thinking: I've got to pick another woman up at the yoga studio, or at least have interesting conversations, so I can get some content. I went out with a woman right before that and was pretty cold with her; she said no to a second date, and that motivated me to list the queen video for $2,000. Every vlog is like: what's next? This has gotten crazy, where everything in my life is now, I need to live my life in a way that naturally generates videos. Because when I was married and my life was kind of boring, my vlogs went nowhere. Almost nobody cared about me saying I took the kids to school, I had a nice day with my wife, I played tennis with the boys, I went to my AA meeting — that was my vlog basically every day. Even back then I would sometimes try to generate content that would be a little bit interesting, but it wasn't as interesting as this. So my dating life has literally turned into content for my videos, which has turned into a monetized YouTube channel, which has turned into me making thousands of dollars in the last week.
Can I Ever Live a Normal Life Again?
And the thing is — if I want to be a successful content creator, can I ever live a normal life again? Look at MrBeast. I had more subscribers than him in 2016, and he just kept making his life crazier and crazier to get attention. I'm feeling that pull too. I can't tell right now: do I want to go on dates? I love going on dates with women. But you know what I love even more? When I go on a date and the video about it generates thousands of views and hundreds of hours of watch time. There's one woman who literally accounted for two dating videos — thousands of views, people messaging me about dating coaching. The worse my dating life gets, the more money I make. "I expected this woman to reject me" — dude, I can't even tell what the motivation for my behavior is anymore. And I'm starting to assume that this dating channel is the next channel I'm going to monetize at this rate. I wouldn't be surprised if some people come in and spend thousands of dollars over the next month for dating coaching — and not so I can tell them how to do everything perfectly, but because they relate to me, and they feel like I'm a person who can listen and empathize, because of my videos. I'm not out here being an authority.
Drama Creates Authority
If I did videos telling people what to do instead of sharing my own life, I'd get a fraction of the views. Just look at the channel: the most popular videos are the videos I've done about my own drama. Almost every one starts with the letter I, or it's my dating life, or what she did. Do you see a theme? And the least popular videos? The least popular videos are me telling other people what to do — me saying, well, this is how you do it — because I don't have any perceived authority. And yet the more drama I create, the more perceived authority gets automatically attributed to me because of the viewership I have. Dude, content creation is so crazy. It's nuts. I don't think most rational, sane people would want to do this. Here's the crazy thing: the more I've embarrassed myself — the more I've lived my life to be sensational content I can honestly report on — the more it sets me up to get views. And the more views, the more I'm in a position to be an authority. How insane is that? Back when I started this Jerry Banfield for Creators channel, nobody cared what I had to say when I was trying to tell people what to do. Then I get monetized by embarrassing myself. I put out videos showing people how to do stuff and hardly anybody wants to see that — but the more I embarrass myself, the more I get views, the more I get to be my worst self, the more I get to be an authority about any subject I want. I can literally keep making mistake after mistake, failing and failing at dating, and at some point I'd have enough viewership that I could just start telling people what to do and selling an online course. You might argue: you just came out here and fed drama, and now you're getting paid for it. This is the reality of being a content creator — many of the top creators I see are only good at manufacturing drama. They're not necessarily people you'd want to learn something from in real life. I try to live my real life in a way that's loving and cooperative, where I get along with other people. But my motivation for my job encourages me to live real life in a way that generates content.
Everything Is a Potential Video
Like the video where I said: I went speed dating, and they asked if I was using it for content. My main motivation to go to speed dating was that I knew I could get some content out of it. I figured it was pretty unlikely I'd meet a woman there, because usually I'm not that attracted to the majority of women at speed dating. I saw some women getting out of a car and walking toward this coffee shop and thought, there must be a speed dating event here. It's like speed dating is basically women who can't get matches on dating apps taking guys hostage for three minutes — that's how it feels — and I'm sure they would say the same thing about the guys. I go there thinking, I'm too pretty and too much fun to be at a speed dating event, and still I only got one single date out of it. So yeah, maybe I need to get back to online dating. But they asked me: are you here for content, or are you here to find a woman? I'd love to find a woman — but I know I'm going to generate content. I'm going to play tennis with a beautiful woman right after this, and I'd love for something to work out dating her, but I'm sure whatever happens, it's going to generate some content.
The one area where I at least feel like I can show up without trying to generate content is parenting my kids, which is a relief — and interacting with my mom. But even going to AA meetings: maybe if I cause some trouble at an AA meeting, maybe if my sponsor fires me, or maybe if this AA meeting wants to fight me, then I can go make a video about it. One of my recent videos was literally: I took my power back at AA, and people wanted to fight me, and then my sponsor fired me. The incentives as a creator are aligned this way. I thought being a content creator was such a better deal than having a job — I used to joke and rag on people that had jobs. I've got to say: in some ways, having a nine-to-five is better than what I do. At least when you go to a nine-to-five, you know where you're selling your soul, you're getting some benefits and consistent paychecks — and when you're NOT at your nine-to-five, you can often live your life. Me? I'm always a content creator. Parenting my kids, speed dating, going to the yoga studio, even going to sleep trying to figure out what videos I'm going to make and what dreams I'm going to have, walking in the park — I'm always trying to generate content. Everything's a potential video. Even hanging out with my friends: I have friends who are content creators, and they're always looking for the next video. My friend — she's a massage therapist — posted a funny video of us on Instagram, on the Jerry Banfield Show, and it's like, well, we're hanging out, why don't we film a video too? And that's cool. At the same time, it's hard to tell what you're doing because you like it. That video is based on a real-life story — a real-life story that happened partly because, when your primary objective is to manufacture content, well, might as well, right? Even clothes: I want to get new clothes so they'll be better for my content.
I'm made for this lifestyle, but this lifestyle is not for everybody. And once you get into this lifestyle, it's hard to get out. I tried — I left for nine months. If you're in this lifestyle already, I'd suggest you schedule a call with me. I've been in this 15 years. I tried to leave. I've had all kinds of success, burnout, failure, viral, canceled — I know about all of it. I've been there and done almost everything you do as a content creator, besides Squid Game or Beast Games, and you can see just about all of it in my YouTube Coaching playlist. I'm here whenever you want to talk.
Let's see what my next viral video idea will be.