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Social media is full of grifters, and one of the most enticing grifts is that of the side hustle. The pitch entices you: make money from your couch, while you sleep, or while you're working your day-job. Creators have built successful channels exposing the best, most effective side hustles. Real estate, laundromats, ATMs, and more. The information is free. So, why does it seem like nobody actually does this stuff? It's a paradox, you see.
The creators who are shilling these business schematics — they work a full-time job. It takes time to write, create, and publish several videos a day showcasing their side hustle ideas. It takes time to reply to questions and comments. It could take a year before you're even eligible for monetization on a given social media platform. Each day, mind you, the distaste for online grifting grows. The folks who are trying to convince you to do their side hustle may not be doing it themselves.
Look at Clipping, one of the most popular side hustles. It's simple: edit a video of someone else's media property, add music, and replace the bottom half of the video with someone else's media property. But even with clipping, you're looking at months to a year before monetization. Even then, building consistent viewership to reap actual reward takes time and effort.
Here's the deal: some of these people are making real money while sitting on a beach. They worked to find their first exploit, like you would if you were building a multi-million dollar startup. They use the exploit to pull a bit more profit as they continue on. Then they find another, whether it's offloading labor, creating new course material, or investing in new social media accounts. This cycle continues, as it would if you, again, were building a multi-million dollar startup. One day, they're on the beach overseeing a well-oiled TikTok machine. That's growth, and it takes time and money.
So, we realize that we both can and cannot simply make passive income. We can choose to excel in something, to find the exploits necessary to succeed in our vision, and we know this can't be done solely from the comfort of our couch. So if you'd like, you can start your account today, and yell into the algorithm: I'm making five figures per month, and you can too, from the comfort of your couch. In time, the lie just might become true. That's the paradox. That's also the pitch.