Look, even Wikipedia admits it!
Passive income is a type of unearned income that is acquired with little to no labor to earn or maintain.
“I work very hard as a landlord”
“I am a leech on society”
It’s funny in general that whenever you say landlords are useless someone always says ”but they do X and Y, it’s not just collecting the money every month”, but every finance bro pro tips for life article always has ”Invest in property, it’s a good way to have passive income!” in it.
They hold both these contradictory ideas in their heads simultaneously without any kind of introspection or synthesis.