The hardest part of being a content creator — especially a full-time one who's gotten over a billion views online — is that what I need to do to win at this game, which I know how to win, is often the exact opposite of what works in real life. I haven't had a job in 14 years. I made millions of dollars. I know how to win doing this. But YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X — they reward an extreme, polarizing, warrior, toxic version of me that real life punishes.
If you're a content creator, this will be one of the biggest conflicts you experience, especially if you like cooperative relationships that don't have drama. And I understand now why a woman wouldn't want to be with a guy that's a YouTuber or a content creator. It's tough. But other people have tough careers too. This in some ways feels like an easier version of what my mom experienced being in the military. When she showed up to work, she had to be this warrior, this soldier who would take orders and take charge. But then when she came home, she needed to be like a soft, loving, gentle mom. And that was difficult for her to do.
I deleted everything online last year in 2025 because I got tired of showing up and being rewarded for being this extreme version of myself that people in real life would often find offensive. Let me give you the best example. I know this woman from an AA meeting, and she's known me for years. She loves the person she sees at AA meetings. But then I sent her my content, and she's like, I just can't watch your videos, because who you are in your videos doesn't match up with what I see in real life. And it bothers me.
Watered-Down Content Is Boring Content
So I tried. I tried to make my content more all the same. I tried to make my content online more chill, more relaxed — not going after and criticizing and attacking and fueling drama. To try and just be more honest and loving. Well, I don't know if honest is the right word in this case, but more one single personality. And what I found is that often my real-life personality would drift towards the content creator personality. And if I watered down my content — if I make my content as loving and gentle and easy, like if I treat my content like I do my kids — then my content is boring. The watch time goes to zero. People stop clicking. They're like, there's nothing interesting here. I don't see why I'd watch this.
But then when I come out like this, when I come firing with passion, when I go after — like in crypto, I go after and attack all these coins. We go to war. I just made a video saying crypto is war. You want to go to war? I'll go to war. You want to go to war? I'll take you to war. I'm fighting. I'm a soldier and I'm dramatic. And then I post all these dating videos. And if I post a video where I'm so happy and I love someone and I met someone, nobody cares. When I post videos that I'm just having a happy marriage with my wife, nobody cares. But when I come out here and be like, she did that — and then I was crushed, and dating's crazy — then people watch.
In fact, I wonder how much my content creation has sabotaged my dating, because I set my primary goal that I want money and I want influence and I want to share my version of the world with as many people as possible. I want to dominate and conquer as much as I can in online content creation, which is why I publish automatically every day to all these platforms. But what happens when I take that mindset into real life?
You see, online it's like: look, I need to get attention. Whatever it takes, within the rules, I need to get attention. So I need to show up with the most clickbait title. I need to have the best story, the hardest, most interesting energy — where you watch my videos and you're like, dang, this guy's wild. And then you tell somebody, hey, I just watched this guy's video, you got to watch this, guy's nuts. But what if I just show up and I tell you it's a really nice planet? We can all just love each other, and let's be nice. You're like, ew, ew. That's so boring. I can't stand it. Criticize somebody.
Criticism, Roasts, and Manufactured Drama
And how have I gotten a lot of my attention recently? Criticism. Laying into these garbage crypto coins. And having other content creators that have an audience — they make a living criticizing others. I get on their radar as, look, this guy is so easy to roast. These podcasts are like, this guy's fantastic roast material. Here's another video and another video about how bad this guy is, about what a loser this guy is, about how his business is failing, about how his dating life is horrible, he's hopeless. And they get paid off of doing that kind of content. And I get followers off of doing that kind of content.
I had this whole series of videos with this woman I called the queen. And what happens if we would have had everything go great? Instead of me going all in on her and her pulling away and me getting hurt about that and then going on and on about that — what happens if she doesn't pull away and she just gives her love and her joy to me and makes a great partnership? I bet I have tens of thousands less views, tens of thousands less minutes watched than I do right now.
And that's the hardest thing with content creation: either I need to show up here and be dishonest and act like somebody I'm not in real life, or I need to make my real life fit my content creation goals. And it seems I'm doing the latter. It seems on some level I'm manufacturing drama in real life so I can make real hardcore videos about it. Like, this woman said she didn't feel a connection with me. Well, it's like I showed up with a closed heart and kind of was hoping I could make another dating drama video on a subconscious level. And then, boom, I got another dating drama video, and people are like, oh, let me watch that. This guy's funny. This guy's crazy. This guy's a loser. Let me see what he's doing so I can feel better about myself. Or, wow, I can relate to this guy — I'm having the same thing go on.
I had a friend who was popping off on TikTok. He's like, Jerry, you can't say anything positive on TikTok if you want views. The people that are scrolling TikTok all day are angry, broke, and lonely. And you got to make videos for angry, broke, lonely people, because who do you think is spending all this time on these devices instead of hanging out with real people? And I was like, see, that makes me not want to create on TikTok. But guess who's back on TikTok?
I've observed this today because I went to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and I got there feeling a bit in conflict after the vlog video I did yesterday on my @jerrybanfield channel — a perfect example of where manufacturing a little drama gets attention. I'm grateful that channel's monetized and it's about to get full ad revenue. But look at the titles. The ones that are getting views: Dating Drama. I pay my rent with credit card cash advances. 12 years sober going to a nightclub. My date canceled. Five women said no. At 1 a.m., I sent her one more text. You see, if everything was like, hey, my life's great, I'm in love, women are so sweet and treating me awesome, I'm so grateful for this relationship — do people click on that? Just be real. Are my viewers clicking on that? I hope so.
There Was Always Drama — Udemy, Crypto, Gaming
And certainly I did have people watching before, when I was in a happy marriage. I certainly did get a ton of views when I was happily married and my life was going awesome. But there was always drama. Always drama with someone. Always at war with someone. Like 2015, I was showing people how to make money. And I created a lot of conflict by showing people exactly what to do, every single step, to print money on Udemy. Udemy got tired of me showing everybody how I was paying people in third-world countries a few thousand bucks to make an entire 15-hour course that I'm taking to marketing, taking a course for myself and making millions of dollars on it. And I'm telling everybody how to do this and set up your Google Ads, and I'm making everybody look dumb that doesn't do it and is just collecting a regular paycheck. Then I make a bunch of enemies.
Then I'm out here promoting crypto, and I make a bunch of enemies promoting coins. I'm out here playing video games, and then I'm making enemies with all the people who are cheating. Do you realize, if you're gaming and a content creator, you have — besides integrity — almost every incentive to cheat? And it seems to me, when I was on Facebook Gaming, my analysis was that the majority of top Facebook Gaming partners were cheating at the games they were playing. Not all of them, to be sure. But some of the top ones were absolutely cheating. That's why they're posting six kill-death ratios. They're wall hacking all over the place. But they're keeping their hacking secret. Meanwhile, Facebook's promoting the hell out of them. And then they get all these views because they drop world records — because they're cheaters.
So I go to my AA meeting this morning with this kind of conflict energy. But everybody at the meeting is ready to settle down and support each other, and it feels so good. We talk, we share our struggles and our challenges. And I leave with an open heart, feeling full of love. I'm like, thank you. This is how I need to feel. But I can't go create with an open heart. Because when I show up and I'm all love and light, and it's all good, everybody — there's no need to criticize. There's no need to manufacture drama. Let's just say Aum. Let's just support each other and love each other. Which I believe in. I absolutely believe in.
It's a conflict, though, between real life — where I generally get rewarded for being loving and cooperative and supportive — and what works online. Yes, there's a time in real life to be a little confrontational. But most of the time, probably 99% of the time, loving, listening, supportive, heartfelt, open — that's what works in real life. But what works online? Drama. And don't go online with an open heart. You see, I went online a lot of times with an open heart. And what happens? I get hurt. I get crushed. Why are people saying all these mean things about me? I don't want to do this anymore. Leave it. See, that's what happens.
That's why I don't read comments anymore on YouTube. If you want me to see what you have to say, go to jerrybanfield.com and you can talk to me there a bunch of ways. Joining the Skool community is probably the best. Join my chat. Pay for a call. Drop a tip. Lots of options. But if I show up online with an open heart, I just get destroyed. I can't take it.
All these people saying all these things about me. All these people doing all these things that are disgusting, that rip people off, that waste people's time. So I'm trying to navigate. And I realize I'm not unique. There's all kinds of people who go to work and have to act a certain way at work, and then come home and try not to act that way at home. Like my mom in the military.
In My Head Online, Out of My Head on a Date
So I'm intentionally seeing it. Like, for example, when I go out on a date with this mindset — when I go out on a date and I'm ready to talk and preach and emotionally share like this and tell my date how she ought to live her life and challenge my date and confront her — well, she doesn't feel the connection when I do that. Because my heart's closed and I'm all in my head. But you see, being in my head lets me crush it online. But when I'm on a date, I need to be out of my head and in my heart. I need to have an open heart and be ready to love a woman, and see a woman, and put aside everything I think I know about a woman, and just love the woman in front of me.
And the last woman that I talked about in my vlog and in my dating video — I just did a story on my dating channel about her. It's called "I expected her to reject me and then I made it happen." And then the same woman — I texted her for two days, and then she ended it. So, the moral of that story: I showed up and I was in my head. I was running game. I was applying these things people had told me on YouTube. And what I noticed is a lot of times the things people say online don't work in real life, in normal situations. Now sure, guys can tell you how to do your dating profile or something like that, and it may help, absolutely. But you show up on a date trying to run these games on a woman — like the last woman I went out with was beautiful, very intelligent. I didn't give her a single compliment on her appearance, because at least that's the recent videos: yeah, don't compliment her on her appearance. If you're a high-value man, you expect her to be beautiful. She's going to think you're a simp if you compliment her on her appearance. No, I don't give women any compliments on the first date. I make them work for that. She should be working for my validation. I don't give anything away for free.
Maybe that attitude works in some places, but the woman I went out with said she really appreciated effort. It was obvious she was feeling a bit insecure around me. So she gets around her parents for a week and decides there's no connection — which I actually agree with, because I didn't open my heart to her. The last woman I opened my heart with, at least for the first week, she was nuts for me. We were texting all the time. We spent 12 hours together. She loved it. Until I closed my heart. I started closing down and getting afraid, and she did the same thing, and then it didn't work out.
What's challenging for me is when I do these videos, I need to be in my head. I need to be analyzing, reading data, and sharing in a way that gets attention. And then when I turn this stuff off, I need to be opening my heart back up. Now, yes, you can get your heart crushed in real life. And yes, you can go online and hear a lot of beautiful, heartfelt content. But beautiful, heartfelt content, to me, is not what gets the majority of attention. I'm essentially hoping I can slip a little love and knowledge and heartfelt within videos that are driven by my head and knowledge and reason and learning and knowing how to do this.
This Is My Environment, and It Pays the Bills
So if you're a content creator and you've felt this tension between "I want to be a loving, nice person in real life, but I feel like I need to be a jerk to get attention online" — I feel you. And I've accepted it. It's like, look, this is my environment. I'm great at this. This is where I belong. I'm a soldier. I show up and I fight. And my job online is to fight for having a nice world — a world of authenticity and transparency, a world where we do work together, a world where we do live heartfelt lives. So I'm trying to pitch and encourage the version of me that shows up in real life to be communicated online. And I hope I can find the best way to kind of merge the two.
But for now, the best I can do — I know how I need to show up to get views online. And that is what pays the bills. And if I can't pay the bills, then what am I going to do? I got kids. I'm trying to date and have more kids. I need the bills paid, for sure. And this is the best way I know to pay them. I made $150 yesterday. I talked for 30 minutes to one person. I got a $50 tip. I made over $1,000 this week — and that's not counting ad revenue or the Skool income. That's just counting one-time income people paid. I imagine I'm going to make thousands within the next week also, based on everything that's in the air right now. Potential coaching. Maybe that Queen video will sell. I know how to make money doing this.
But I need to consciously turn it off. Like, look — you're on a date. You're not on YouTube. You're on a date. Switch. Get out of here and get into here. You're hanging out with your mom. Get out of here and get into here. You're hanging out with your kids. Out of here, into here. And I think it's important we be able to move.
So if you feel this as a content creator, go to jerrybanfield.com. Schedule a call and talk with me. Ask me some more questions. I've been through this for a long time — probably much longer than you or most of the other people coaching content creators.
I'm here to support you whenever you need me at jerrybanfield.com. And if you want to see how I actually navigate this game, my YouTube Coaching playlist has everything I've learned about winning online.