Day 4,589 as a YouTuber
Hi friends, my name is Jerry Banfield, and I'm a YouTuber. This is my 4,589th day on YouTube. It's December 23, 2023, and I'm here to give you a vlog, to let you know what it's like to be a YouTuber in real life, what my day is like, what I do, and what's going on. I'm doing that live here with you because that seems to be the best experience I can offer. So here is what I've been thinking about and what I've been up to today. I did a crypto live stream earlier.
If you're new here, I have three YouTube channels. This crypto channel is my main channel now. The original channel I'm streaming on is pretty dead, and I'm dreaming of bringing it back to life one day. But the crypto channel is my main one. I get like 10,000 plus views a day on it. Then I have a clips channel, Jerry Banfield Clips, that I just rebranded from Jerry Banfield Reviews. That one gets like 5,000 views a day. I've just started putting non-crypto videos on it, but I started it out as a crypto review channel. And then this channel I'm on now is the first channel I ever made, the channel I've been on since 2011. I deleted 4,000 videos off this channel after YouTube gave me my first ever community guidelines violation that was upheld. I deleted 4,000 videos off it.
So I'm starting a new vlog series here where I talk about my life. I hope that will be useful for those of you who are interested in hearing it. But perhaps more importantly, it will be useful for me also, to kind of speak into what's going on. Because sometimes just talking about what's going on in your life is different. Just getting it out and listening to yourself can be therapeutic, and especially sharing it with other people.
Getting My Feelings Hurt on Stream
So what have been some of the main things in my life today? Well, I did my crypto live stream earlier on my crypto channel, and I got my feelings hurt, which is pretty common doing a live stream. Being a YouTuber is pretty much either you have nobody watching and nobody cares and you're irrelevant, or you do have people watching and some people are relentlessly nasty. Now, most of the people on this stream earlier were so nice and so supportive and love me and really appreciate my content. But it only takes two or three people just trying to be jerks. Unfortunately, sometimes I get my feelings hurt easily.
One of my big struggles with YouTube in the past has been going back and forth between live streaming and making videos. What I do really well, my gift, my superpower, is to be able to just show up like this. I have no script. I just speak from the heart. And it actually makes sense and is decently entertaining, according to a few people at least. I've consistently gone back and forth between videos and live streams, when I know that what I'm really best at is live streams. This is where I really share my gift, and when you see it's a live stream, you also know it's going to be in real time. It's not going to be edited.
Now, there is definitely a place for videos, which is why I've got my clips channel. To me, videos are things to just throw up, tutorials, anything I think can help someone. There is definitely a place to film videos, for sure. But videos are not my strength. I've filmed like 10,000 videos and thousands of live streams. I've been thinking that I need to do something on YouTube, because it's important I give my gift in the best way possible to help people. And every time I get my feelings hurt, then I don't want to do live streams anymore and I just want to make videos. But there's so many of you that love the live streams.
I was one of the top partners on Facebook Gaming in 2021, and there were so many hurtful, nasty comments every day. Some days I was thick-skinned about it. And other days, I just came off my stream feeling disgusting, even if everything externally went good. There were streams where I made hundreds of dollars in tips and donations and supporters and stars, where I won Warzone games, and where I just got off my stream feeling disgusting. I remember the one thing I did that really changed that on Facebook Gaming was to put supporter-only chat on to shut up all the haters. The people really don't know any of that, or don't care about my live stream enough to support it, which is fine if that's you. I've got plenty of money. What I need is to not be constantly having these haters who are just purely looking to sabotage the stream, get attention, and be negative.
Switching to Members-Only Chat
So today I made the change. I'm going to members-only chat on both my channels. I would rather have a blank screen and talk to myself than read some of the nasty, toxic comments these people put out there. And that's what I'm going to do. On my crypto channel there's like 50 members, and there's a bunch of channel members here too, eight of them featured. There are like 50-plus people who pay or gifted five-dollar-a-month memberships, and from my view they don't get anything for being a member on this channel. So I'm going to make my crypto streams member-only chat as well.
The first thing my mind is saying is people are going to complain. Well, maybe they are, but I'm not going to hear it. It's like if a tree falls in a forest and I don't hear it, it doesn't matter, it's like it never happened. So I'm going to members-only chat on both my channels, and I'm going to do live streams as often as I can. It's not that I don't want anyone who could say any kind of criticism. I want to hear from people who have a real investment in what I'm creating. Five dollars a month to a content creator is a real investment, in my opinion, even though I shell out big money sometimes to support others. I've given thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to streamers and content creators collectively. It means something if you're going to give me five dollars a month.
The best way to talk with me and be part of what I'm building today is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, my free community where you can chat with me and be around people who actually care about what I'm creating. That's the place to connect with me directly. This is a big change I made today, and I understand if it pisses some of you off, like "how dare he," and "I can't chat for free." I feel you, I understand. It's a good opportunity in your life to think about what's important. If it's not important to chat in my live stream, then maybe you're better off not chatting.
So many people were so toxic when I did support-only chat on Facebook, but it was so good for me. I loved showing up and knowing that I wasn't going to get ripped by a bunch of random haters the whole stream. And I do want critical feedback from people who have an investment, or who are committed to my success, because the haters will almost never become members. I treasure critical feedback from my mother, my wife, my kids, my fellow YouTubers like Joe Parys, and from people at my meetings. If you know me and have a relationship and you care about what I do, then I do want your feedback, even if sometimes that feedback is critical. So that's probably the biggest change I've made today.
Burnout and Streams Running Too Long
Another thing: my live stream isn't beginning too long, and I've been feeling burnt out again. It's so freaking easy as a YouTuber to just burn out, because my crypto channel's been ripping lately. I started that channel a year ago and it has 25,000 subs. This live stream is already at 10,000 views ten hours later. A lot of my streams are getting seven, eight, ten, twelve thousand views. These are great views, and there's money, there's super chats. But they're getting too long. Some of the viewers are like, "Jerry, come on, I don't even want to start it if I see it's two hours long." That's critical feedback I appreciate from someone who cares. Someone in my Discord server said that yesterday. My Discord is paid only because, again, so many trolls and haters and spammers and scammers, and it's just fair. I also like things that are fair.
What a lot of YouTubers do instead of members-only mode is they have moderators. I've had a moderator, and Lisa and a couple of other moderators have done a great job, but the moderators have lives, especially if I don't give notice when I'm going to be on. I don't want to expect moderators to show up to my channel. One way a lot of channels do this is they add a whole bunch of moderators and then just shut everybody up who says things that are against the grain. But I want to hear things that are against the grain from people who care enough to contribute, to make sure this is truly a full-time income. If someone pays to be a member, then you can criticize. I wouldn't go crazy with it, but you have more leeway. If I see that someone's a member, you have more room to speak your mind.
What's wrong with having the moderators is people really get frustrated and moderation ends up being unfair. Some people are allowed to say some things, others aren't. I like things that are fair. If you're a member, you can chat, and as long as you don't really lose it, I'm not going to moderate you or silence you.
Where Evil Starts: My Feelings Were Hurt
I'm glad I'm getting better at acknowledging things like, you know, my feelings were hurt. Because a lot of what you might think of as evil in this world starts with "my feelings were hurt." That's the first thing that happens. My feelings were hurt, and then from there come the anger and the nasty words. To me, physical violence springs from that. At the bottom underneath it is "you hurt my feelings," or somebody else hurt my feelings. And part of me really loves the idea of being like a strong, tough guy when somebody hurts my feelings. But that's not true. I'm very sensitive, and being sensitive is useful to detect more of the subtleties in life.
Being thick-skinned is very helpful in a lot of circumstances, but I don't want to be so thick-skinned that when the haters lay all these comments down, I've simply put my wall up. When your heart's closed, you are protected from the nasty a lot of the time, but you're also prevented from experiencing the joy. I don't want to go around with a closed heart. I don't want to show up on my livestreams with a closed heart, getting defensive and nasty and fighting with people. I do these videos to try and help people feel better. That's my goal. I do these videos so that when you watch them, you feel better.
I've been wondering a lot lately: what should I do? Should I get a mentor? What do I do with my time? How can I most effectively help people on YouTube? I come on YouTube because I have a gift for speaking and teaching, and YouTube seems to be the best place for me to give it, where I get a fair share of the algorithm, especially on my crypto channel. My clips channel is doing pretty good too, and this channel is acceptable. To be fair, YouTube usually shows this to a couple thousand people. I'm not going to reach everyone, because I'm not one of those people whose stuff gets shown to folks who don't watch. But that's okay. I want to make things on this channel that ten years from now I might look back on and think, "Hey, what was I thinking, what was I going through?"
Setting a hard limit on my time and yours
I've also been thinking I need to be more considerate of your time. My livestreams should never just be me standing here fishing for attention, sucking up as much of your time as you'll give me. I need to get on here, say what I've got to say, and then get off. So I'm setting a hard limit of 30 minutes on my livestreams now. If I do a couple of livestreams at 30 minutes each, you could in theory watch both of those in a day and it wouldn't take your whole day up. But if I do a two-hour stream on one channel, an hour stream on another channel, and then upload clips, it's like I'm asking too much. I've watched all these "how to YouTube" tutorials, and I've been on YouTube 12 years.
I actually talked with a guy today, one on one. From his point of view, I'm blowing up and I'm so successful, and he's so happy to talk to me, and I'm like, thank you. I'm used to this. I realize to some of you it looks amazing that I've been on YouTube so long. I've got over 30 million views on my YouTube videos on this channel alone, and then I've got millions more on my crypto channel and my clips channel, plus lots more views outside of YouTube. If you'd love to talk with me and be part of the conversations I'm having like that one, the best way to do it now is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, where we show up for each other every day.
At what point is it enough?
Today's been a day where I've been feeling that "never enough" feeling. But at least now my mind is working in my favor, because it's asking: what's not enough? What is not enough at this point? You upload a life advice video on your crypto reviews channel and get 500 views on it in 22 hours. You upload your journey and your waistline stuff and people watch that. On this new channel alone you've got 600,000 views, and this main channel now has 1.7 million views in less than a year, all organic, making thousands of dollars a month. What's not enough about that? People sometimes give hundreds of dollars of Super Chat in a single livestream. What's not enough about that? My wife has a great job; she could pay all the bills by herself. At what point is it enough?
This is something a lot of us face. At what point is it enough? How many Christmas presents do you need to get before it's enough? It looks ridiculous when you watch Harry Potter and Dudley gets 38 Christmas presents for his birthday and he breaks down because there were 39 last year. It looks ridiculous when you see somebody else do it, and it might look ridiculous to you when I do it, but can you spot it in yourself? At what point is it, "Okay, I have enough today. This is enough. I don't need any more. This is plenty. I'm grateful for it. I'm good. I don't need anything else."
I've actually decided to take all my old membership levels and options off, because I don't want to have all those tiers anymore. I looked at that today, and it felt good to simplify. If you want to support what I do and be part of it, I'd rather just have you in one place with me and everyone else in the community. There are only three members on this channel right now, but that's fine. I've got a bunch on the other channel. So back to the question: at what point can you stop and say, "Look, I'm good. It's enough. I've got enough. I don't need anything else. I appreciate where I'm at. It's really nice." That's the main thing I've been thinking about.
What else I did today
Let me tell you what else I did today. I did a hot power yoga, 75 minutes, and it's like 90 to 100 degrees in there. My heart rate gets really high, and I felt just gassed afterward, like, man, that was too intense for me to even handle. I've been going there every week, plus I do yoga the other six days a week, just not usually the hot ones. I've been thinking maybe the intelligent thing to do would be to skip that hot yoga and just do regular yoga, because I love to have energy all day. I can do the hot yoga, but I don't appreciate feeling like I need to rest the rest of the day, because everything I want to do involves standing up or being active, and a lot of it is just house chores. I want to clean the kitchen, hang clothes. If that yoga takes so much out of my energy that I end up just sitting on the couch, that's not what I want.
Now, if I keep doing it, it won't be that intense, but maybe I need to do more cardio and run a little bit more. I do power yoga classes most days; they get my heart rate up some. Sometimes you think, "Well, I should do this," or "I want to do it," but you get the whole package with stuff. So I think we're going to swap that hot yoga out for regular yoga, because the regular yogas don't leave me feeling drained so often, and I have a lot of things I want to do.
The lawnmower did the creepiest thing today
The kids went to do something at Largo Central Park today. That was fun for them. I stayed home and hung out with my mom. And the lawnmower did the creepiest thing today. I have an electric lawnmower; you put an 80-volt battery in it, and there's a handle and a button to push to start it. My mom has a dog, and we were cleaning up the dog poop in the backyard. The lawnmower was just sitting there with the battery in it. I had not started it at all since putting the battery in, and it had sat there for like 10 minutes. All of a sudden it starts. It just starts. Nothing was touching it. I'm like, oh my God, this is some horror movie stuff right now. And it wasn't dark; it was like five in the afternoon, the sun was still up, shining outside, and all of a sudden the lawnmower just kicks on. I'm like, oh my God, that is so creepy.
Then I took the battery out and tried to start the lawnmower, and it would not come on. Then I put the battery back in, and as soon as I stuck the battery in, it started again. Thank God I didn't have my foot under there or anything. I've always been sure to clean the lawnmower with the battery out, except one time I think I cleaned it with the battery in, but the other 99 times I always make sure to take the battery out. There's a lawnmower repair place in town. I think it got wet in my shed; some water may have leaked in. It looks like there's water on top of it, so it may have a short or something. I was thwarted in cutting my mom's grass, but I wanted to rest anyway, so I made popcorn and sat with my mom and watched the original Battlestar Galactica, second episode, part one. That was pretty fun.
I'm proud that I made sure to make time for my mom, because we're going to go to Michigan in a few days to visit family up there and to give the kids a winter vacation. I've been thinking, what am I going to do with my YouTube? What are people going to do when Jerry Banfield's not on like this? I could stream on my iPad. Maybe I'll do a little vlog on my iPad. I don't know if I want to do my crypto videos on my iPad, but I'm setting the intention to relax and really enjoy what I do, because there are a lot of people who dream of doing what I'm doing. My kids thought it was really cool. They watch these YouTubers and they're like, "Dad, you have a silver play button." I'm like, yeah, I've had this silver play button for six or seven years. And at this rate, I may get the next one too.
A second silver play button, and why I'm all in on YouTube
I picked up a second silver play button on my crypto channel, and some people are just blown away that I have a silver play button. Honestly, I thought about giving it away before I even got it. I literally didn't care that much about the plaque itself. But I'm a YouTuber through and through. I've tried every other place out there. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. I actually did really well on Facebook for a while, until I was demonetized. I've been all over the place, including Udemy back when I sold courses there. And after all of that, YouTube is the best deal by far for creators. It's by far the best deal, and I'm focusing fully on YouTube now.
For a long time I was doing so many things, trying to take my videos and put them everywhere else, and eventually I asked myself, why not just do YouTube? People spend something like a thousand hours a day watching my videos, mainly on those two channels, the crypto channel and the clips channel. A thousand hours a day. When I sit with that, I think, how much more attention does one person really need? I'm good. I'm glad I took the time to spend with my mom today.
Choosing flexibility over the schedule
I'm going to watch something in a bit. I think my wife and I are going to watch Moonstruck before bed. And in the next 15 or 20 minutes, I'm going to stop scheduling my live streams ahead of time. I know scheduling is helpful, and it lets you figure out when I'm going to be on, but one of the real benefits of doing what I do is flexibility. If the chat is going to be empty or limited anyway, I can just go live whenever I feel like it.
On YouTube you really have to think about the viewers who are watching later, because most people watch most of what I do after it's already live. So I'm remembering the importance of thinking about that person watching this after the stream has ended. If you're someone who studies this side of the platform, the way I think through timing, audience, and building a channel over the long haul is something I keep coming back to in my YouTube Coaching playlist.
Feeling excited for what's ahead
I'm feeling very excited for the future. After 12 years on YouTube, I think I'm finally getting there. I'm really breaking through, really coming out now, and I'm in a great place. My life is good, my relationships with everybody are good, and my body feels good too. I plan to do little vlog streams like this as often as I can, and I'll keep them members-only chat indefinitely, so we don't have to deal with the random people who just aren't there for good reasons. Some of them are feeling bad and hurt, and they want somebody else to hurt too. If you want to be part of these more personal streams and the community around them, the best way to be there with me is to join the Jerry Banfield Family.
So thank you, so much. I love you each, and I'll be back tomorrow on Christmas Eve if I have the time. We shall see. I'll make some more music and put it on my clips channel too. I just realized something about that channel. I was thinking, well, I have to take this from live streams, don't I? And then it hit me, no, I can film a five-minute video. I'm even thinking about really going after some of these crypto YouTubers by name and pointing out the worst of what they've done. Then I catch myself and think, oh my god, this is the worst thing that I've done in my life, and I'm not even sure what I know about them yet. So we'll see what happens. All right.