- Charlie Light finds side hustle culture endlessly meme-able.
- The irony is that he's turned his own side hustle of parodying side hustles into a business.
- Light consults for brands that want to use humor in their marketing.
Stop me if you've heard this one: someone turns their quirky side hustle into a full-fledged career.
Now, this part you probably haven't heard: a 31-year-old social media personality turned his side hustle of poking fun at side hustle culture into a lucrative full-time hustle.
Charlie Light happily recalls the day he launched an X account under the name John W. Rich (Wealthy). At the time, Light had no aspirations other than simply amusing himself and other social media users.
When the account, solely dedicated to mocking wealthy business people, unexpectedly took off, though, he launched a similar profile called Chase Passive Income that focused on mocking side hustle culture and online gurus who promote get-rich-quick schemes.
The jokes hit hard enough that they made Light's services in demand among clients looking to inject a bit of fun into their marketing.
The business of parody
The irony of building a side hustle into a full-time job mocking side hustles isn't lost on Light. He says he never saw himself as a comedian, though he is a lifelong fan of sketch comedy platform CollegeHumor, a brand known for jokes similar to what Light does with his satirical posts.
His popular parody accounts helped Light find success as a ghost writer for corporate clients, which has paid well. People in the business community who had seen his posts reached out for his help using humor to expand their reach.
"Brands will hire me to either help them write jokes or write funny content," he told Business Insider. "Some individuals will hire me, like CEOs or founders. I primarily just work with clients that I can just do humor or memes for."
These days, Light primarily sees himself as a content consultant, which he says describes most of what he does on a daily basis. He says more prominent companies are starting to factor in memes and humor to their marketing strategies and budgets. He cited betting markets Kalshi as an example of a company he's worked with recently.
While Light may spend most of his time as a content consultant for a wide range of companies, his parody accounts still generate revenue on their own, primarily through sponsored posts. While business sometimes varies from month to month, Light broke down how much he typically takes home from his work.
"The primary income is the clients paying $3,000-$4,000 a month to have me either run their account or help them run it. And then I typically make around $3,000 just doing sponsored posts on my parody account." Light shared a recent bank statement as verification of the income his businesses brought in during October.
Light added that his profits can fluctuate, and he sometimes has advertising deals worth up to $10,000 a month for his parody accounts.
In April, he shared some insights on his personal X account on building a parody-driven brand, noting that Chase Passive Income had reached 30,000 followers in just three and a half months.
"Establish a few 'inside jokes' right away," he advised. "These should be jokes that are unique to your brand; if you post the exact same memes as every other big meme account, you have no unique voice and your following isn't worth much."
While many of his posts are intended to mock real people, Light revealed that many of his targets, particularly for Chase Passive Income, are people he used to follow. One example is online investing guru Grant Cardone, whom Light admitted that the Chase Passive Income caricature is partially based on.
"I studied Cardone's stuff for a long time, was a big fan of his, and I think there's some good stuff to learn, but then also, there's a lot of stuff to make fun of," Light said.
He added that he never intends for his posts to be mean-spirited, though he considers billionaires to be more worthy targets than others.
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