Chang Chih-chi: The 'Information Curator' Seeking Dialogue in a Polarized Age — from Simpleinfo to Shasha77, Seven Years of Daily Updates

30-second overview: Chang Chih-chi is one of Taiwan's most influential current-events YouTubers. His channel "Shasha77" is known for daily updates and an explainer style that presents multiple viewpoints. Starting from information design, he has tried to translate serious issues into something accessible to mass audiences, and in a polarized society he continues to seek space for dialogue. This article explores how he turned reforming society into a good business, and the journey of building trust and influence in a complex environment.

"For an 18-minute video, I recorded for an hour and a half, constantly feeling stuck."¹ This was 2018, when Chang Chih-chi had just transitioned from graphic designer to YouTuber. At the time, he was already a co-founder of the well-known design firm "Simpleinfo," yet he decided to launch an all-year, daily-updating current-events channel.

This decision looked almost crazy at the time, but it was backed by a rational "time machine theory": the current-events YouTuber is already a mature genre in Europe and the United States, and Taiwan will inevitably follow suit.¹ Seven years later, "Shasha77" has broken 1.65 million subscribers, accumulated over 1.67 billion views, with a total of over 7,650 videos — and Chang Chih-chi has evolved from a designer hiding behind explainers into a public figure who is "guaranteed to be recognized 3 to 10 times a day when going out."¹²

Early Life: The Unconventional Youth from a Scholar Family

Chang Chih-chi was born on June 1, 1991, in Hsinchu City. He grew up in an academically accomplished family — his paternal grandparents came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government in 1949, his father once taught at an American university, and both parents hold doctoral or double master's degrees, with many family members having high educational backgrounds. He ranked in the top tier in both elementary and junior high school, served as class president for three consecutive years at Hsinchu Senior High School, and was enthusiastic about clubs and class competitions — though this caused his grades to slump for most of high school (at one point ranking second from the bottom of his class). His family gave him tremendous freedom and tolerance; home life was simple (no television in the house), which meant he often couldn't keep up with popular trends, but also cultivated an open curiosity toward non-mainstream culture, anime, and the internet. After college he served in the Republic of China Air Force's Honor Guard as a first-class private (in a visual arts role, not a performance role), and after discharge launched his entrepreneurial journey.

In his senior year of high school, a conversation with his father became a turning point: "You like organizing events and making friends, but the talented people are all at top universities — you should work toward that." He began to study hard and ultimately gained admission to the National Cheng Kung University Department of Urban Planning. Another illuminating line from his father — "Do you want to make a living playing guitar in the future?" — also taught him to use "elimination" to navigate his life direction, finding what truly suited him by identifying what he disliked. This upbringing as the "unconventional one" in a scholar family laid the foundation for his later multidisciplinary perspective in design and social communication.³⁴⁵

Origins: When Urban Design Met the Wenlin Yuan Case

Chang Chih-chi's entrepreneurial motivation didn't come from a desire for fame — it came from a sense of "gap." Studying urban planning at National Cheng Kung University, he encountered the Wenlin Yuan urban renewal case on the eve of graduation: "I realized deeply that what I learned in textbooks had a huge gap with social reality."¹ At the time, his professors asked them to sketch out blueprints for a beautiful future, but cold data told him that the land should remain simple and unpretentious. "It was a painful process — I couldn't even convince myself, but I had to logically explain it to others."⁶

To bridge this information gap, he and co-founder Wang Cheng-hsiang established "Simpleinfo" and the social feedback brand "Tu-Wen Bu-Fu" ("Image Doesn't Match Text") in 2015. Their first "keyboard revolution" was launching a crowdfunding course "More Than Explainers" on Hahow, teaching the public how to visualize complex information.⁷ For him, information design is not just beautification — it is "a form of social communication infrastructure." The team went on to win multiple international design awards, including the German Red Dot Design Award, Golden Pin Design Award, iF Design Award, GOOD DESIGN AWARD, and German Design Award.⁸

Turning Point: The "Wikipedia of Self-Media" with Seven Years of Daily Updates

In 2018, encouraged by his friend ADi, Chang Chih-chi launched the "Shasha77" channel. To quickly accumulate trust and traffic, he set an extremely high-intensity "daily update" goal. This forced the team to establish a rigorous process like a factory: from topic selection, scripting, filming through post-production, each step had a dedicated person responsible.

This team-based operation gave the channel remarkable consistency, but also brought commercial challenges. Because current-events topics frequently touch on sensitive issues, the channel was often flagged by YouTube as "yellow-tagged" (ineligible for ad revenue sharing). In 2020, over 55 percent of the channel's videos were yellow-tagged.¹ To survive, Chang Chih-chi established a commercial model primarily based on "spoken-word sponsorships," running a sponsoring membership as a "safety belt" to ensure the channel could continue even when hit by algorithmic penalties.

Beyond current events, Chang Chih-chi also actively invested in building the new media ecosystem. He co-founded the Taiwan New Media Video Creators Association with Adi (serving as the current 3rd-session president) and co-launched FEAT.CON Taiwan Video Creators Annual Convention; in 2021 he co-founded Heqi Capital with others to participate in investing in film and entertainment projects. He served as Taiwan's official commentator for the Pokémon Trading Card Game and participated in major civic advocacy campaigns including #TaiwanCanHelp and #StayHomeWithMe; he published personal books "Welcome to Shasha77" (2020) and "Citizens Can Be Very Busy" (2021), and in 2022 relaunched the podcast "Shasha77," which at one point topped the Apple Podcast charts.⁹

Beyond current events, Chang Chih-chi has also extended into children's education, establishing the self-owned brand "Mangopup," developing literacy education picture books designed for children ages 3–6.¹⁰ He has tried to help parents and children build shared cultural memories through locally developed educational materials, and translate complex financial literacy and social concepts for the next generation. He has also recently launched double civic etiquette picture books, treasure hunt activity books, and train-riding commitment book sets, continually expanding his influence.¹¹¹²

Controversy: The "Neutrality" Dilemma in a Polarized Age

Chang Chih-chi once stated that the channel's core values are "authenticity, diversity, voice,"¹ trying to present different viewpoints in each video. However, this "presenting multiple viewpoints" approach in politically highly divided Taiwan is often interpreted as "false neutrality" or "patting both sides on the head."

In July 2025, legislator Wang Hung-wei accused Chang Chih-chi of "being sustained by government contracts," sparking widespread online debate.¹³ According to statistics, Simpleinfo accepted approximately 34 government contracts from 2016 to 2024, totaling about 37 million NT, with Taipei City Government contracts being the most numerous.¹³¹⁴ Chang Chih-chi responded that for a 50-person company, seven years of personnel costs alone reached 200 to 300 million NT, making contract income only a tiny fraction, and that the cooperation covered county and city governments of all party affiliations.¹³

The subsequent "Grand Recall Explainer" incident pushed the controversy to its peak. Some viewers felt the video's content was biased, causing a snowball unsubscription and traffic drop. Chang Chih-chi admitted on Threads that he had considered stopping updates and lamented: "In a cooperative society where trust is the foundation — 'not placing easy trust in others' is something that sounds reasonable when stated, but is very counterintuitive to actually implement."¹⁵

Significance: The "Charismatic Spark" AI Cannot Take Away

Facing the waves of AI and short-video impact, Chang Chih-chi has demonstrated the resilience of "simple long-termism." He believes that while AI excels at synthesizing information, it lacks the "charismatic spark" that moves people. "Many of the most important inspirations in my life have often come from passages that AI would delete — a little note, a very trivial little story."¹

For Chang Chih-chi, entrepreneurship and running the channel is a process of continuous trial and error. He describes his lifestyle as simple — on his phone's ordering system he stores only fixed menu items, channeling all energy into "repeatedly doing boring but correct things."¹ In a world where polarization is hard to reverse, he does not pursue universal recognition, but tries to find in Taiwanese society that group of people who "don't like having excited discussions about things," continuing a long-distance run about understanding.

Further Reading

• Adi (zh only: 阿滴): Co-founder of the Taiwan New Media Video Creators Association; both are "neighborhood captain generation" knowledge YouTubers
• Ba-jiong (zh only: 八炯): Another self-media strategy, with current-events commentary as the main focus, but taking the "mocking united front propaganda" route
• Taiwan Democratic Transition (zh only: 台灣民主轉型): The evolution of Taiwan's public discussion that underlies Chang Chih-chi's "presenting multiple viewpoints" curatorial style

References