Influencer Jamie Zhu speaks out about life as a star: 'One million followers and broke'

A popular Aussie influencer has spoken out about the difficult reality of trying to make a living off social media - saying that countless followers didn't always equate to money.

Sydney-based TikTokker Jamie Zhu, 28, revealed that in 2017 when he had an enormous one million Facebook followers, he was completely 'broke'.

'One million followers and broke, it doesn’t always add up, he explained.

'I went to the petrol station after the gym to buy a protein shake and my card declined,' he said in a video recently uploaded to his YouTube channel.

'I was broke as.'

Sydney-based TikTokker Jamie Zhu, 28, revealed that in 2017 when he had an enormous one million Facebook followers, he was completely 'broke'

Zhu was dining with his friend and fellow TikTokker Rustam Raziev, 30, in Melbourne where he too revealed life as a social media star isn't as glamorous as it seems.

Mr Raziev said despite having seven million TikTok followers, he still had to maintain his day job in strata consulting for a real estate company.

'I wish I could do (social media) full time but I'm working towards it,' he said.

Zhu said it was 'crazy' that people could have millions of followers but 'the income isn't enough to sustain you'.

He first rose to fame in 2014 where he started uploading videos onto YouTube.

Facebook then allowed video content in 2016 and Zhu immediately jumped onto the platform to share his clips.

He said in the two years he was sharing videos just to YouTube he gained 9,000 subscribers but 'didn't make a cent'.

Within his first year on Facebook he amassed one million followers but he still struggled to make any money.

Zhu recently shared a video of him dining with his friend and fellow TikTokker Rustam Raziev. Mr Raziev said despite having six million TikTok followers, he still had to keep his day job

'I was completely broke, I was on Centrelink, I was delivering pizzas for a living, and working in childcare,' Zhu told Daily Mail Australia.

'In mid-2017 I took the plunge and decided to quit my two jobs and do social media full time.'

He managed to live off small brand deals of around $200 each, but it wasn't until around 2018 when Facebook started to put ads into videos that his career really took off.

As time went on, so did the success of his videos with Zhu making just under $500,000 in 2020.

'Something people have to understand is that it's not always an upward curve,' he said, adding that last year his income was half of what it was the year before.

The vlogger said there was often a false illusion around influencers and that although they appeared to be rich and successful, it wasn't always the case - including himself.

The 28-year-old rose to fame in 2014 and now has millions of followers on social media

Zhu has a large Asian following and in 2018 he did meet and greets in some Asian countries such as the Philippines.

'One the day of the meet and greet I was super broke,' he said.

'I had to pretend to my friend Charlie Taylor - who doesn't even know this - that I had lost my bank card so he could lend me some money.

'Here I was as this guy doing meet and greets but I had $0 in my bank account.'

RELATED ARTICLES

• Previous
• 1
• Next

• EXCLUSIVE: Young Aussie who complained about having to wake... Aussies mock 'over-complicated' trolley escalators at...

Share this article

He added that it was common for many people with big followings to be working a standard job on the side.

'Social media can be so fake, everyone's trying to hide in their cave pretending they are making millions when they're not,' he said.

Zhu said he was lucky that when he started making online content he was one of the first in Australia at the time to do it.

His advice for younger generations wanting to make a career off social media is to 'do it for the right reasons'.

'If they do it because they want to be famous, it's not a good enough reason,' he said.

Zhu now boasts two million TikTok followers, 5.6 million Facebook followers and just under a million Instagram followers

The 28-year-old admitted he struggled with the fame in his early years, and became obsessed with people recognising him in public and taking photos of him.

'There's this illusion that if you have some sort of following that you have to act this sort of way. When I first started getting recognised it changed how I saw myself,' he said.

Zhu said his goal was always to have a positive message, admitting some of his earlier content of him carrying out silly pranks was 'questionable'.

He now has his own office and has hired four staff.

He said the 'best thing' he's ever done with his newfound fame was gift his mother a $120,000 renovation of her Sydney apartment.

Last May he shared an emotional video of his mother walking into her apartment for the first time, completely unaware it had been revamped in just 17 days.

He said his mother had battled health problems since he was two-years-old after she developed Crohn's disease, and has raised him on her own when his father moved back to China.

The 28-year-old now boasts two million TikTok followers, 5.6 million Facebook followers and just under a million Instagram followers.

He was ranked as the fifth most popular TikTokker in Victoria under the age of 30 this year. 

'I wanted to be an Instagram star... but I ended up a financial wreck': Woman, 26, reveals how her debts spiraled as she paid for luxury holidays, the best clothes and amazing restaurants on her quest to be a social media star 

A woman who tried to make her life Instagram worthy went flat-broke in the process. 

Lissette Calveiro, who is now 26-years-old, moved to New York for an internship in 2013 and said she felt she was living the 'Sex and the City' dream.

The only problem was she was going broke trying to keep up appearances on social media with brunches, new outfits, and jet setting, all to impress her followers.

Her internship only provided a travel stipend, so she worked a part time retail job to supplement her income that went entirely to her quest for photo lifestyle perfection.

Lissette Calveiro, 26, says she went broke trying to live the perfect Instagram lie after going into debt with fancy vacations, like this one in the Virgin Islands, and splashing out cash on top notch, ever changing wardrobes

'I wanted to tell my story about this young millennial living in New York,' Calveiro said to the New York Post.

Afterher New York City internship, she moved home to her parents place in Miami where she was working in public relations. After, she accepted a job and returned to the Big Apple for another PR gig that allowed her to keep chasing the Sex in the City Instagram-dream. 

She currently has more than 12,000 followers on Instagram.

'I was shopping... for clothes to take "the perfect gram."'

She says that despite moving back to Miami and getting a full-time job as a publicist Calveiro was $10,000 in debt trying to keep up on Instagram.

'I was living above my means,' she said.

Her expenditures trying to cultivate the perfect looking life were enormous, with $200 monthly shopping sprees so she'd never show the same outfit, and a monthly splurge on a designer item like a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse or an accessory from Kate Spade.

On top of that, she had to show she traveled. 

She says her biggest travel expense was a $700 round-trip ticket to Austin, Texas, for a Sia concert in 2016.

Calveiro felt the pressure to travel somewhere every month like Las Vegas, the Bahamas and Los Angeles in her social media quest to appear the jet-setter.  

'Snapchat had these [geo-] filters [like digital passport stamps] and I wanted to collect at least 12,' Calveiro said.    

While she did some travel for work, Calveiro said, 'If you break it down, a lot of the travel I was doing in 2016 was strictly for Instagram.' 

According to Fashionista, you would need to spend about $31,400 a year to 'to maintain the standards of physical beauty represented daily in our Instagram feeds.'

'I was living a lie,' Calveiro said. 'Debt was looming over my head.'

Despite living with her parents in Miami, she still wasn't able to keep the farce going financially. 

Picture perfect everything: She splashed out cash she didn't have on top notch brunches to impress her followers

She got the much needed wake-up call at the end of 2016 when she landed a PR job in Manhattan.   

'I knew that moving to New York, I had to get my act together or I wasn't going to survive,' she said.

She buckled down with her finances, and made drastic changes to her lifestyle.  

Calveiro said she went into 'mini-isolation from the world,' and slowed her Instagramming.  

'A lot of it was recycled content,' Calveiro said of her posts.

Instead of having an apartment on her own, she first moved in with a roommate to Inwood at the northern most tip of Manhattan, spending just $700 a month.

She also started cooking and gave herself a weekly budget of $35 for groceries.

Picture perfect everything: She splashed out cash she didn't have on top notch brunches to impress her followers

After fourteen months she was able to pay off her debt. She worked with a financial coach and used an app called Digit, which funnels money from your paycheck to your savings after rent and living expenses.

While she still has the desire to look like she has a fresh wardrobe, she says she now does Rent The Runway with their monthly membership at $130, so she can sport something different for social media.

She also says she moved to SoHo, but has two roommates and is paying $1,300 a month.  

'Nobody talks about [his or her] finances on Instagram,' she said. 'It worries me how much I see girls care about image.'

'I had a lot of opportunities to save,' she said. 'I could've invested that money in something.'

She says now she tries to be more real about her life and where she is financially. 

RELATED ARTICLES

• Previous
• 1
• Next

• EXCLUSIVE: Young Aussie who complained about having to wake... Aussies mock 'over-complicated' trolley escalators at...

Share this article

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pa3IpbCmmZmhe6S7ja6iaKaVrMBwrdGtoJyklWJ%2BcYWYbGtwbV9%2Bu6e41J6lnJ2iYpeiucieZJOgpWLAsbHApKpmpJmbsm6%2F05qpZoeemnqutculoKimXZu8rbjOsJyrq12Xv7C3xGefraWc