Creating more than I consume

What a whirlwind these past six weeks have been—especially now that this is my full focus. Over on YouTube, I just passed a huge milestone of 500 subscribers. If you’re one of them, I want to thank you deeply for sharing your time with me. Over the past few months, I’ve made more than 30 long-form videos and hundreds of shorts to get to this point.

If my research is right, I’ll need to make roughly 70 more videos to reach monetization. And then what? That’s the question I keep coming back to. I think we often put too much focus on the end goal and not enough on the process. Why are you creating? Why am I doing this? I ask myself the same thing sometimes. But the truth is, the one thing I’m doing more of than ever is creating—and I wish more people would do the same.

I’ve been making films for nearly 20 years. Most of them have only been seen by a handful of people, and none have made back their budgets. So why keep going? While researching how to monetize YouTube, I’ve been led astray by plenty of gurus telling me what I should—and more often what I should not—be doing. That’s exactly why I’ve decided to figure this out myself. Every meaningful part of my journey has come from the process, not the destination. But I also understand that my definition of success may not be yours.

My earliest memories are of a trailer and a small house in the woods. I split my time between separated parents and saw multiple realities of the human experience. One thing I rarely saw was people sitting around enjoying their free time. As I grew up, I had an insatiable appetite to “be successful.” I remember telling people I wanted a house so big I wouldn’t even go into some of the rooms. Looking back, that’s such a wild thing to want—a space so large no one would use it, while others had none. But it didn’t come from my imagination. It was implicitly taught to me through what I watched and consumed. Eventually, I broke that spell and realized that, for me, success was never going to be about money.

For the past 15 years, I’ve spent my time both creating and consuming. When consumption outweighed creation, I’d feel stressed and lost, though I didn’t always know why. But when I spent even a few hours creating, everything changed. I had space to explore the chaos of life and see what was possible. That same feeling is with me now as I write this. I’m creating full-time, yet there’s still a little voice in my head whispering, “Why aren’t you making more money?” But why do we feel this way?

That question led me to research YouTube more seriously. I wanted to understand how this platform works for artists. I discovered that most channels quit before reaching monetization—1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. For me, the watch hours are the toughest part, especially when you’re not rage-baiting or click-baiting people. It’s even harder when you’re trying to share your real creative journey instead of just trying to keep people online longer. These platforms are designed to consume your time and keep you from other places. I know this, and I actively work against it—even while questioning what success really means.

This past week, I got an email saying my channel—at around 300 watch hours and 508 subscribers—is doing better than 60% of all channels, out of roughly 65 million. When I saw that, I felt both good and uneasy. Many define success as monetization. But even then, you’re still creating for free most of the time, ads or no ads. So what does that mean for creators? Do viewers even realize how many people are creating purely out of love?

Being an artist is in direct conflict with capitalism and money-making. Over these 15 years, I’ve made three features and over a dozen shorts. Many have had distribution, but none have made their money back. So why haven’t I quit? Because I can’t imagine a world where I only consume. Creating allows me to share how I see the world. Even if only 14 people watch a video, those 14 people are my people. I also think we’ve grown completely unrealistic about “success” in terms of views and subscribers. Just look at the chart above. This is what is considered a success on these platforms if you remove the money making aspect of the process.

When I premiered my feature at TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd, there were about 75 people in the audience. At Raindance Film Festival, around 15. These were real people who chose to spend their time with my work. That matters. YouTube says I’m in the top half of creators, and some of my videos have just 15 views. It’s time to redefine success.

For me, success isn’t measured in dollars. If we’ve learned anything from the greed of the world, it’s that money only brings more problems—and I can’t eat paper. Success is writing this to you while listening to music in my garage studio. It’s being able to step away in the middle of the day to support someone I care about. It’s waking up without an alarm. Money is necessary, but it doesn’t define success. Too many people chase financial success by stepping over others. That’s not my path.

I’m running a marathon with no finish line. My idea of success is rooted in legacy. After we’re gone, what will we be remembered for? For me, success has always been tied to the most precious resource I have: time. I’ll never get it back. And if spending that time means having less money but being surrounded by other creatives, sharing knowledge and building together—then that’s where I’ll shine my light.

Thank you for being part of this moment on the long road of creativity. My goal is to eventually turn Bronson into a physical space for creating and sharing others’ work. I want to build a movie theater and showcase other filmmakers’ work. I want my success to be measured by how much I’ve shared, not taken—by how much I’ve created, not consumed.

And if you’ve made it to the end of this message, I know you feel some of this too. Make sure to click HERE to subscribe to the YouTube channel—because as soon as my cables arrive, I’ll be going live so we can create together. Let’s build a community of creators and make it less about consuming.

Jerry

Photo dump: Here are some images from a test roll of film I tried out last week, it’s spooky season!