A Chinese influencer, Gu Xixi, has gone viral on the internet after she shared that she made a whopping 3.03 lakh yuan (around Rs 35 lakh) in a single day—all while in bed. Her income, mostly from her Douyin store, has been a subject of controversy on the internet, with many raising questions about the business model of influencer-led e-commerce.

A multi-crore success story

Between Feb 8 and Feb 16, Gu Xixi earned 1.039 crore yuan (approximately Rs 12 crore) in overall sales on just one platform, with an estimated commission of 27.9 lakh yuan (about Rs 3 crore). On another platform, she was able to make sales worth 89.4 lakh yuan in a single week.

In a recent live stream, Xixi called her income "hard-earned money," stating that criticism just makes her more successful. "The more you hate seeing me succeed and the more you criticise me, the more I earn," she stated.

As reported by the South China Morning Post, Xixi has specified that her desire is not to make a couple of hundred thousand yuan each month but to collect that in single-day revenues. "I did nothing all day today except spend the day sleeping in bed. I still recorded 11.6 lakh yuan in sales from my Douyin store and an estimated 3.03 lakh yuan as commission.". It is not about making hundreds of thousands of yuan a month; it is about making hundreds of thousands of yuan a day. Get it? " she said.

Gu Xixi also spoke about the criticism she gets often, stating why she never openly shares her sales data. "Whenever I post my sales performance, something goes wrong. It becomes front-page news, right? So influencers fake their poverty. We didn't steal, we didn't rob. All the profits we earn are hard-earned."

She also explained that her comment about "doing nothing" was said to infuriate her haters. "Do you think I can do nothing the whole day? I said it just to annoy those haters."

Born in 1998 in Nantong, Jiangsu province, Gu Xixi has found herself in the spotlight multiple times, not just for her earnings but also for past controversies. Her account has been suspended several times due to inappropriate content. Additionally, she said in a past livestream that she had spent two and a half years in prison for her involvement in a fight at the age of 15.

Even with her controversial image, Xixi still has a huge following, showing that in the influencer marketing space, even negative criticism can be turned into money.

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