In this vlog, Victor Justin Rhodes (the creator) walks viewers through a series of self‑imposed YouTube production rules he’s deliberately breaking to experiment with his channel. He starts by discussing his title‑length rule, noting YouTube’s 100‑character limit and how only the first ~70 characters appear on mobile, then explains his camera setup (primarily a chest‑mounted GoPro with a quick‑collapse tripod, occasional iPhone filler) and his typical workflow of shooting 180‑220 short clips per day. He examines audience‑retention metrics, especially the critical first 30 seconds, referencing advice from fellow creators like Morgan Gold and MrBeast about matching the title in the opening moments and the “10‑second rule” for varied angles. Rhodes announces a shift in his posting schedule after six years of near‑daily uploads, planning to skip certain days to avoid burnout and give himself creative freedom. He shares his personal backstory of financial hardship—living on food stamps, maxed‑out credit cards, and dumpster diving—before building a successful homesteading business that now funds the channel. Looking ahead, he promotes the upcoming Homesteaders of America Spring Event, describing limited tickets and a planned “shopping‑spree” video inspired by MrBeast, where attendees will have a timed budget to select items from vendors. He also mentions a “spectacular generosity” concept, the involvement of his editing partner Dan, and his broader philosophy that creators should only make content they themselves want to watch, serving the audience with authenticity. The vlog ends with a brief note about upcoming film‑festival content, premium membership offers, and a reminder that this video intentionally breaks several of his usual rules.
Chapters
I have certain rules I have for myself and my content on YouTube. If you're watching this, you've already saw the ridiculously long title. I try to make my titles as short but as exciting as as possible. Um, I, I asked Mr. Google Pants, how long is the possible title on YouTube? It's 100 characters. That was 100 characters. Google, if, if, if I— if a video showed up in search, is only 70 characters. So if you saw this on your phone or somewhere like that, you probably only got the first sentence. Further Next step, I rare— another rule I've for myself is I rarely film on the iPhone. Sometimes as filler. Lately, I'm usually capturing footage on a GoPro. You'll see it on my chest. This is my main shooter. Super— this is ridiculous. This is a ridiculous setup, but This tripod is super quick. You just lift these levers and it collapses and, and picks up, and then it's at the people at your level, so it's like you're there with me. And then, uh, this point-and-shoot, always on my hip. So most of the footage comes from that main camera. And then, and every day I shoot not one clip— like today, today's going to be just one clip. I usually have altogether probably 180 to 220 clips to edit. That is, that means I hit record and stop 200 times. I'm not gonna, I won't torture you, I won't torture you that bad, but I've only hit it like 10 times, and usually I'm, I'm not holding it selfie like this. Usually I'm setting it up here, which looks like it needs to be raised up. I lowered it. Let me see if I can show you. This is kind of breaking a rule that I'm setting the cam— you know, a lot of times I've set the camera up like that and then talk to it. I call that locking it on. I should, I should keep holding it, but I am going to show you this difference because I'm trying to break my rules today. But rules are hard to break. Anyway, how quickly this adjusts Okay, you clamp it in, and now it's at my height, and I might say something like, oh, we're going to castrate the baby lambs and get some management over our farm again. I was dead. I was quiet that first 30 seconds because I lose Um, if 20% of the people who click on the video, 20% drop within the first 30 seconds. I don't understand that psychology. If I watch a video, I might fast forward the first 30 seconds, but I'm not clicking off. Uh, and a lot are clicking off like right away, but that's a thing apparently. And actually, Talking to Morgan Gold, a good, great YouTuber, said that that's actually good. That's actually something to strive for, not losing. And lately I've been trying to do better than keeping— do better there. And I've tried different things. The most exciting part of the vlog. I've tried teasers there. I've tried just getting straight into the content. I've tried MrBeast. Another great YouTuber, probably one of the most popular— well, the most popular YouTuber says you want your title— you want to match or mimic your title in that first 30 seconds, basically repeat it. And we've tried that and it's the same, so I guess we're doing pretty good there. Then we want people to stay on throughout, and that helps to have the different cameras. And here's another rule I'm breaking. I've been talking to you guys for more than 10 seconds at this one angle. You'll notice in my show it's called the 10-second rule. I abide by that. So in a normal vlog, I would say, oh, we're gonna go— hold on, I'm filming, guys— we're gonna go, uh, we're gonna go castrate the lambs. And I might be Maybe the shipment, then maybe that's it. Grabbing the shipment. Okay. And I won't keep blabbering on about it. For your sake, try to mix it up. And mine. I like to make movies that I want to watch. And maybe that's what a lot of this about is. Actually, I should maybe tell you, look, it's taken me 5 minutes and 43 seconds to get to the point. Which I would have gotten to the point a lot quicker if this were a normal vlog. So then I might put the shoe here, or the camera here, and I could even do it with the iPhone. There's really no excuses. Then I'll put it on my phone. But you know, castrating sheep really isn't about castrating sheep. So, uh, and then I like to get shots like this, and sometimes I have Dan pop it. Like, I'll, I'll say pop this down, I'll be putting on my shoes, and then I'll say, suddenly I appear here, you know, and you missed the walking over. Who needs to see me walking over? You get the point. Might come pet the cat. It's not about the castration, is it? For us, it's about the control and taking control of our farm. And that's something anybody can relate to, really. That's what I hope my movies would be about, and that it would be about life And you know, sometimes it gets extra topical and I think that's okay. So the point of this is I probably lost— maybe the title was interesting, so maybe some people clicked on it, but now if I didn't lose them in that first 30 seconds of silence, I probably lost more than— watch, it might be funny. I might go back and I didn't even look. I lost only 10% in that first 30 seconds. Wouldn't that be stupid? Um, but I lost, but the reality is I probably have to cut something by 7 minutes. I've lost everybody, my super fans. And really that's, this message is for you guys. I've been posting daily for 6 years. Uh, and what I mean by daily, it's been 5 to 7 days a week. And we've said it and it's been like clockwork. Even lately we post it. This is coming out at 3 PM. I should break that rule too. This is coming out Wednesday. When's the worst possible time to put this out? Probably 8 PM. So I'm gonna put this out at 8 PM. Not because I don't care, I'm just making a point. And I'm actually talking to you super fans and wanting you to know Because if somebody's not a super fan and they just watch one here and there just because it's super interesting— I'm talking to you people who click on everything, and I appreciate you, I deeply appreciate you. So it's only fair to talk to you about, uh, these kinds of changes. And honestly, it might not even be that— the changes might be so that you don't even notice except One thing you might notice is I'm gonna give myself permission to get off the daily post treadmill. I think it's not so much that I'm burned out. I love it, actually. It will be a day off and the camera's there and I will have good feelings towards it when I walk by. It's not like I have to hide the camera to rest. No, sometimes I have to— it's only been lately that— well, I'm always forcing myself to rest. It's been only lately that I can actually enjoy that rest and not feel guilty. So we come from a place of grind, and we were not doing well financially. We were doing terribly financially, maxing out credit cards, living on food stamps, grown food for survival, dumpster diving, all the things. And we worked really hard on many different things and found something that really resonated with a lot of people and grew a business from this. So now here we are and posting every day, and I feel like Uh, lately you'll notice a lot of the shows have been spanning over multiple days and we'll post. But let me give you an example. So we're going to an event this week at Homesteaders of America Spring Event. There are something like 80-ish tickets left, only 300 people capped there, so it's going to be an intimate event. I would encourage you guys to come to it. Told Amy, hey, how many tickets you got left? I'm gonna see if I can get some more sold. Come hang out with us this weekend. We're gonna do something really fun and really different. It's funny that I'm telling you guys this is different. This is not, you know, normally I would film, oh, we're having breakfast. Oh, I'm speaking today. This is what I'm speaking on. Oh, it makes me nervous. Oh, but here we are meeting all these people and then a time-lapse. And that's fun. That's good. But how about we do a video— oh my goodness, goose! Hey, hey! What in the— I've never known a female goose to do this. Hey, you stop that! Stop it! Wow, dang, I thought only the male goose did that. Yeah, she's been persecuted. She was acting like that under the coop last night. Shoot, I hate that when the goose attacks a chicken because that means we're gonna have to cull that goose. All right, anyway, what was I— uh, okay, this weekend. Yeah, that kind of— that's kind of a mood kill, isn't it? So normally I can, in a normal vlog, I can keep— I could, I would mention that, but probably at a strategic time, not to just like suddenly in and go in and out of a mood. Oh, but the chicken's all right. So there's our happy ending before we transition. She's got a— she's pecking around. You can't see her because she's behind that raised bed. Okay, so that's all right. All right, so this weekend, instead of the normal just follow me, this is what I'm doing, how about I get— I want to give back to the community. So what if I do like one of these, uh, I call it, uh, spectacular generosity video, where in this case, how about we give people a surprise shopping spree at Homesteaders of America. So you might want to come. Like, uh, what if I don't tell them how much, but I say you have a shopping spree, you have 30 minutes, you can buy— you can go and select anything from these catalogs. I don't think people have inventory there, but they could go look at the Premier One fences, the McMurray Hatchery chicks, uh, these things. And I give them this shopping screen. I don't tell them what the limit is, and if they go over the limit, they can't keep it. I saw MrBeast do something like this. Uh, that might be fun. That'd be like a way for you guys to see the event, see the sponsors, see the people of the event, and it might draw a crowd. It might not. At least maybe have like 3 sets of contestants or something. to run through. Oh, and they have to go to Amy or to Rory. They have to find them. That's included in, in that 30 minutes. You gotta find, you not only gotta shop, you gotta find Amy or you gotta find Rory. And then we calculate how much they picked out. And then Amy or Rory have the sheet of paper that just opens up and tells them if they went over or under. So, um, I'd like to make that kind of video. That's, that's kind of something I would want to watch. Uh, it wouldn't— another rule that I usually abide by is I try and get shots of the family, uh, of Rebecca or the kids. And so, you know, maybe that one— I mean, I'd be breaking that rule anyway because only, uh, Josiah and Gideon are going with us, or Henry. So, um, I— so I guess I'm telling the super fans that, uh, I'm just not gonna commit to the 5 days. For example, you're seeing this today, there's not going to be a video tomorrow, but then Friday's video is probably going to be longer. It's certainly— it's going to have Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and probably some today if our banding gets here. And we ban those sheep out in the field, uh, it will— I don't know how much longer it will be, but it will have a span of more days. So there won't be a video Thursday, and I don't, I don't want to have to announce that every time. Uh, and then there won't be a video Monday because I only want to shoot the one video at HUA. I don't want to try to film when I'm traveling or anything like that. That's not interesting to me anymore. It was. It used to be interesting to me. Maybe I'll eat my words. And it's okay. I can change my mind. And then, so there'll be nothing Monday, and then Tuesday will be the Homesteaders of America Good Lord Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise video where we have given all the— and I'm super nervous about that. That's definitely out of my wheelhouse. I'd rather do this. Than randomly, like, say to pretty much strangers— they know me, I'll be getting to know them— say, hey, I'm gonna give you some money, I want to put you on a shopping spree. It can be kind of weird, right? And then it could happen in front of all these other people, like, ah, but I think it would be fun. I think, I think after it's over, I think, and after it's edited, I would look forward to watching that edit before we push Push Publish. Like, this is where I— what I want. I send my videos off to be edited by Dan, my buddy, my good buddy. Um, and I love that arrangement. It's been working out great. Helps me focus on Abundance Plus and my own healing. I've been spending a lot of time on my healing, guys, and I don't always want to film that, and I don't know if it's always interesting to the audience or to me. So basically, I think if I think it's interesting, if I want to watch it because I think it's interesting, I think you will too. And I don't mean that in the most— that doesn't mean— I don't mean that conceited in any way. I think that's a general rule. Like, the creator of something really needs to find interest in it and get behind it. 100% than the other way, and then it ends up being better for the audience. So that's what it's all about anyway, is I want to serve. I want to— we've made it into success, we're doing well. I want to move and continue to move into significance, so continue to serve the audience in a big way. And to do that, I'm needing to just get some freedom in my creativity. And I'll continue to challenge myself to make different kinds of, of shows. And so next week, no Video Monday, but we probably will post all next week because we've got a film festival coming up next weekend. It's going to be totally free. You're going to get 3 samples from Abundance Plus, 2 movies from, from there, or 3 movies from that. And so we'll want to be talking about that next week. And then the week after that, we've got member, um, spring member registration where we open up premium membership. We do 10% off. We've got some bonuses. I'll probably post every day or nearly every day that day because there's so much to talk about. There's so much going on. In the spring, but like certainly winter. Like, I don't know, who knows? Maybe we got a project going and it makes sense, but I got some ideas coming and I can't wait for sharing with you. And I can't— look, we're at like 18, 24 minutes on one clip. So I, I should make— I should make this clear. I broke my rules of YouTube. I like my rules. I like keeping the audience engaged. I definitely like the 10-second rule. You'll notice I mix things up. Oh, most of the time I have music. There's no music on this, but I did do a video, the hairpin video. Did you notice there's no music? It was just ambiance. It was just the spring noises. I really liked it. It was a little slower pace. All right, mom needs me. I better go. We'll talk to you guys later.
