Student Question
Master, I want to make money through self-media as a side hustle, but I never know what to write about. Do you need a massive following to monetize? What are the key things to watch out for?
Master Chi’s Response
Part One
Most people dream of becoming a top influencer — a massive following, more influence, easier money. What they don’t realize is that platforms are quietly working against those very people. They deliberately fragment the traffic.
From the platform’s perspective, they don’t want all the audience flow pooling into the hands of a tiny group of individuals. Otherwise — whose traffic is it, really? Are the platforms just doing free labor for these big accounts? That’s never going to happen.
So instead of grinding to build one account with millions of followers, build a cluster of smaller accounts instead.
Part Two
Repetition is the real home of viral content.
People agonize daily over what to write — but where does all this fresh material come from, and how do you produce it well, consistently?
Here’s the truth about how public-traffic platforms actually work today: the best approach is this.
Whatever niche you’re in — find the content that has already gone viral in that space. Recreate it. Repost it. Keep going until it stops performing.
The logic behind this comes down to how platform algorithms are built. Within any given window of time, the algorithm has its own preferences and biases. Which means most of the content that blows up on a platform during that period tends to look very similar.
Running self-media as a side hustle is really about locking onto that already-confirmed traffic and capturing your share of it.
When a content template starts working, break it down. Turn it into a repeatable process. Keep posting it. Don’t throw it out the moment something new comes along.