Is this a “surefire” way to make money — or a load of hot air?
Tired of burning through cash during the holidays? Not to fear, an enterprising influencer has allegedly discovered a “surefire” way to earn nearly $36,000 a month from October to February — by creating a fireplace video for families to use during the festive season. A clip describing this allegedly smoldering side hustle boasts over 765,800 TikTok views as viewers debate whether or not the poster is blowing smoke.
“Millions of families that don’t have an actual campfire will play this video and the sound over their TV so they get the Christmas vibe,” TikTok influencer Jay who runs the account @investment_updates, declares in the clip.
The flaunt-repreneur then cuts to a YouTube video of a fireplace, which boasts nearly 6 million views. “That many views on a 10-hour YouTube video make a lot of money,” boasts Jay, who has over 258,000 TikTok followers.
Best of all, this pyrotechnic paymaker doesn’t even require any filming or real fire, per the tutorial. Users simply go to Pexels.com, look up “fireplace,” and then grab one of the videos that pops up and download it for free. They then put the flaming footage on a loop for about five hours and overlay it with free fire sound effects downloaded from mixkit.com, Jay explains.
Finally, digital firestarters upload it on YouTube slapped with the same hashtags used by other viral fire videos, including “fireplace 4k,” “Christmas,” “relaxing sounds” and more.
Jay didn’t disclose how much he made from the smoldering side hustle. However, another YouTuber, coincidentally also named Jay, posted a video describing how one person made up to $35,900 per month off of ad revenue from just four videos. The most watched one, with over 50 million views, was posted four years ago but continues earning, per the clip.
“There is absolutely no side hustle that has more potential than this one,” insists the first Jay, who warns that people should only attempt this lit life hack in winter.
Of course, critics were quick to throw cold water on the incendiary side hustle. “You’re lucky if you get 1 view I’ve tried it for 8 months didn’t get a single view,” claimed one disillusioned viewer.
Others claimed that the only way to make money off this scheme is to have an already-viral fireplace video. “Im 100% sure they will click on the first one and not scroll down to search for a 100 views one,” snarked one naysayer.
“They will click on the first one that shows up, which will already have millions of views,” said another.
However, that’s not the only caveat. Prospective earners also need to amass 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours before they can start making money on YouTube.
Potential hurdles notwithstanding, desperate people are scrambling to find side hustles in light of the current inflation crisis, which saw consumer prices jump by a wallet-sapping 8.2% year-over-year last month.
Last week, a TikTokker went viral after detailing how people can make $6,000 in one trip to Costco — by buying and reselling a certain board game.