Making money in your sleep takes a whole new meaning. Photo: Pixabay
Durban - Among those Millennials and Gen Zers who use their social media mastery to create wealth, Australian TikTok star Jakey Boehm should be commended for using the platform to make massive amounts of money.
The 28-year-old, who lives in the coastal city of Gold Coast, has amassed over 656 000 followers and 2.6 million likes through his unique streaming content.
Through his "interactive sleep" streams, Boehm simply lets his fans remotely control his sleep, or wake him up. According to reports by Insider, he made close to R600 000 in June.
The influencer’s bedroom is akin to a colourful torture chamber, with a kaleidoscope of flashing lights, lasers, music, a bubble machine and more.
All Boehm does is live stream from his room for seven hours a night; his fans, or even strangers, have the ability to control the elements in his room, essentially deciding whether he sleeps or not.
@jakeyboehm Join the live now and you can control my room! Play loud sounds, turn on loghts, videos , bubble machines & more!
♬ original sound - Jakey - Interactive Sleep 😴
Those watching pay for this truly peculiar form of entertainment through TikTok, though it seems the young man is not complaining due to the sheer amount of money he is making.
“Join the live! Control my room while I sleep! Play loud sounds, turn on the lights, videos, bubble machines and more,” he writes.
In one video, which he posted, he is loudly woken up by a wacky, waving, inflatable arm-flailing tube man, repeatedly screaming, you guessed it, “wacky, waving, inflatable arm-flailing tube man!”.
Another clip shows how he offered people the opportunity to give him an electric shock – for a fee, of course – while he tried to sleep.
“This is a shock bracelet and lets off a harmless shock to people who sleep in and can’t wake up. But, with a little bit of coding, I have managed to incorporate it into the sleep stream,” he told TikTok users.
In a post, Boehm thanked those who have supported him in his strange yet lucrative path, and said he had started a huge trend.
According to media reports, Boehm earned 34 000 Australian dollars (about R395 000) in May this year through the sale of the "gifts" that control his middle-of-the-night wake-up calls.
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