Aris probably needs no introduction – unless you’ve been living under a rock.
This self-made, 24-year-old entrepreneur has become an internet sensation and his virality?
Yeah, it kind of exploded overnight.
Aris went from being relatively unknown online to going viral basically overnight. Now, he creates viral content for brands through his startup business, Storytime, partnering businesses with the right local influencers.
Plus, the dude is being paid anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 per video for his own brand deals. What?!
You know the drill by now: we’ve been flying our head of social, Austin Georgas, out to meet our top sellers on Whop and figure out exactly what it is that makes these Gen-Z hustlers so successful in their own right.
Hint: It’s not Daddy’s money.
Key takeaways
- Aris used his online virality to build a startup business that is changing influencer marketing as we know it
- Working with local influencers and businesses in NYC, Storytime has created a way for businesses to get better results from working with micro and nano creators – rather than those with massive followings
- Since the rise of his ‘rich kid’ skits, Aris is paid $15-25K per brand video under his online persona, The European Kid
Who is Aris Yeagar, a.k.a ‘The European Kid’?
You may not know him by name, but you likely know him by content.
Aris, a.k.a. The European Kid, went viral by creating skits that made fun of the uber-wealthy (and fooled a few New Yorkers in the process).
His most popular skit, with 70.5 million views on TikTok and 136 million views on Instagram Reels, shows Aris attempting to buy an entire wheel of Parmigiano cheese from a local NY deli.
(As a cheese lover, this, too, is my idea of wealth – but I digress.)
The skit shows Aris getting into a staged verbal disagreement with the owner, who appears dumbfounded. But people weren’t sure if it was staged, and the video caught on like wildfire.
“My most viral video is the Parmesan wheel, right?” Aris tells Austin.
“I went in there, I'm literally there to pitch them for Storytime, my business. It's like this Upper East Side, family-owned business – amazing sandwiches. I see the Parmesan wheel, and I'm like, I think it'd be really funny if I grab this and go online.”
With the owner’s approval, to a store full of shoppers none the wiser, Aris falls into his persona of The European Kid and does what he does best - puts on a show.
“I'm like, ‘You're telling me that I can't buy that?’ And I get someone on the phone, we film it in two minutes, boom, it's done.”
What was initially a trip to pitch a business partnership was Aris’ most successful, viral hit yet.
“I remember I was literally taking the subway home. I'm editing the video on the subway around everyone -”
“Like, that is not rich kid shit, bro,” interjects Austin.
“That was true shit right there,” Aris nods. “And I was like, I fucking hate this. Lemme just post this right now. And then I posted it and then the next day I woke up, it had 30 million views. I completely forgot about it.”
So, hang on, let’s rewind a second - is this kid actually rich? Man, is he even European?
For all we know, this dude could be playing us all. So, we got Austin to do some digging.
Is Aris really European?
Truth is, Aris is who he says he is, i.e. a European kid.
He grew up in Belgium with his twin brother and genuinely appreciates his humble upbringing.
“What was your earliest memory of living there? Did you have a good upbringing?” Austin asks.
“I had a really good upbringing just because I used to go to a public school until I was 12, and then I transferred,” says Aris.
“I had bad dyslexia. They were like, we want to send you to a school with more sports.
So I went to a very good school, the International School of Brussels, where I met many of the characters that I portray now,” he continues, referring to his rich-kid skits.
“It's notorious for being a very private school filled with rich kids. I did IB, which is the International Baccalaureate, a very rigorous program, but I'm very fortunate.”
It was during this time in high school that Aris started growing the confidence that would be crucial for him to reach such notoriety in the coming years.
“I used to be like 200 pounds, getting bullied every day in high school,” he starts, and it’s lowkey hard to believe looking at him now. Even Austin looks incredulous.
“I had to change my life. Started listening to David Goggins and getting really into meditation. Running in the morning every day, 15 kilometers.”
“Never spoke to a woman, but you're ready!” Austin quips. Damn.
“I was in a relationship right when I started The European Kid, and I'm grateful for it because it's easy to fall down a path of being influenced by all the attention you're getting.
The only lady right now, though, is my startup.”
Is he actually rich?
I mean, now? Yeah, you could say that. But you know what they say: fake it until you make it.
After finishing up at the International School of Brussels, Aris and his brother enrolled in college in the States.
During his studies, Aris tried his hand at many creative endeavors that didn’t quite stick, from travel videos to Spotify tracks.
It wasn’t until he stayed with a good friend that he really began to witness how the other half lived.
His friend was boarding at the esteemed Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston at his parent's expense, and being surrounded by this wealth status opened Aris to something he found pretty funny: rich people's problems.
One night, he imitated another friend who had been begging their father for $10,000, and his roommate secretly filmed it for a laugh.
Aris posted the skit the next day, which racked up more than 10 million views.
Comments were racking up, with people commenting on their disgust and disbelief.
From there, The European Kid was born.
The power of personal branding
If anyone knows the power of building a personal brand, it’s Aris. I mean, sh*t, dude has a self-portrait given to him by an Austrian painter hanging above his own bed.
“This painter just reached out to me from Austria. He was like, ‘Yo, I really want to paint you’, and I sent him a photo…”
“Dude, it is fire,” Austin laughs, “But having it in your room above your bed is too much!”
Maybe it isn’t, though. Maybe that’s the kind of confidence and self-backing we could all use a little of.
Plus, we kind of exposed him on that one. Our bad.
All jokes aside, though, building a personal brand is the only way to stand out online these days – and Aris was able to combine two things he loved to create his.
We told you he’d always had a passion for content creation and comedy skits, but another passion had been growing inside Aris since his high school days: entrepreneurialism.
“Honestly, yeah, I make very good money from being a creator, but I think honestly the success of The European Kid has been because I've not made it my full-time,” he tells Austin.
Instead, he used the virality and notoriety gained from The European Kid to bolster his own startup business.
Launching a startup at 24 years old
Aris realized that he could take his skills for creating viral content and pair it with his love for marketing, pairing influencers with local brands and businesses to give their social media marketing an edge that other agencies simply weren’t offering.
“I got very into influencer marketing software,” Aris begins, “and when I was finishing college, I always had this idea for an app that I wanted to create in the creator space.”
Yeah, this guy has brains.
“Not to sound entitled, but I was thinking, isn't it crazy that I go out and want to grab a cup of coffee, and I'm still paying for it?”
Obviously, Aris isn’t expecting something for nothing. But he kind of has a point – what if influencers could exchange promotions for products in real stores, and not just online?
“There are so many influencers! And there are so many times where I wish I could say, ‘Hey, I'm down to pose a story in exchange for this product,’ and that was really kind of the philosophy behind Storytime.”
What is Storytime, and how does it work?
First off, epic name. Because really, what are influencers and content creators, if not storytellers?
And that was the whole idea behind Storytime.
Well, that, and it also solved a problem Aris had been facing himself – there wasn’t an app or platform that currently existed to pair local businesses with local influencers in exchange for monetization or free products.
So, he built one.
“This was a problem that you had yourself because you became an influencer. There must be thousands of other people who wanted to do the same thing?” asks Austin.
“Exactly,” says Aris. “That was the idea that I had out of college, and honestly, I just wanted more experience in influencer marketing software.”
But how was he going to get from creating viral skits to building the app he was dreaming of?
Honestly, it took a bit of grit and perseverance.
“I think I had around half a million on TikTok and 200K on Instagram. My parents said, ‘You need to go get a job,” Aris laughs.
Unlike many creators, he didn’t see himself creating content full-time. He had a bigger vision.
“It wasn't like I wanted to take being an influencer full time. I wanted to build something in this space because I just saw so much potential.”
Aris got a job at an influencer marketing company and, during his interviews, met his now best friend and co-founder. Talk about the right place and right time. Or maybe it’s called destiny.
And while his parents didn’t give him any handouts, despite what the haters might say, they gave Aris something way more valuable: support.
“As soon as I entered my nine-to-five, my mom was relieved. But then I was two months in and saying, ‘Okay, I think I'm going to quit this job and start my startup’”, he laughs.
Aris admits most parents would be apprehensive about founding a startup without security. But he had thought long and hard about his idea and was certain it could work.
“I explained it to her. I spent time understanding the problem I wanted to solve, and I told her I had a lot of confidence in getting into this market. They support me. They're incredibly supportive.”
An app to connect influencers with brands
“So, this is the app,” Aris says, scrolling through the home feed with Austin.
Popular names, from Joe and the Juice to Oakberry Acai, pop up, with clearly stated incentives for creators that can be claimed with a simple press of a button.
“If I were to DM Joe and the Juice – and I literally tested this – it would take around a week until I got some kind of gift card to post in exchange for simple things like a sandwich and juice.”
“All these spots,” Aris gestures to the phone screen, “you can instantly kind of collaborate with.”
Man is absolutely cooking, and he’s only 24. So, wait, how does Storytime ensure that brands and influencers are being rewarded fairly, and how do they vet their applicants?
Don’t worry, that’s been thought about too.
Simplifying the world of influencer marketing
“Obviously, you have to be accepted to access this,” Aris explains.
Once influencers are accepted, though, it’s as easy as swiping through Tinder for a match.
“You would come in here, then you see, for example, a campaign from Oak Berry. It shows the campaign requirements, which might just be tagging the business on Instagram. Then you see a gift amount of around $30 – but his offer changes for everyone.”
Aris and his team spent a lot of time figuring out the right formula for accepting and rewarding creators.
“The vetting process,” Austin asks, “was that one of the most important things for you guys right out the gate?”
“Absolutely. Yeah, and it's definitely the hardest by far. The trust you need to get for them to give you access to all of their data is huge, so we really take that as a big responsibility.”
So, how does Storytime decide how much to reward their creators? Well, it’s not just based on numbers.
It’s more based on local reach – something else that’s often overlooked in the world of influencer marketing.
Focus on local reach and micro-influencers
“Remuneration is actually based on how much reach you have in New York,” Aris explains.
“It's so crucial to be targeting local audience reach. We go for nano and micro [influencers] because I saw the huge importance of having basically ‘non-influencers’ posting about a spot.”
Think about it. While somebody may have 100K+ followers, what’s the point in promoting a local business if those followers reside in another state – or country, even?
“My whole philosophy behind where influencer marketing is going is that we're redefining influencer.
The people with a hundred thousand followers might be great for brands that are international, but when you look at brands like Gather, a great little cafe in the lower East Side, that's only one location in New York. The ideal person to go and post about it is a local influencer in the Lower East Side.”
This approach makes total sense for creators, businesses, and mostly? Consumers.
Yes, we all crave social proof, but the more we’re bombarded with sponsored posts and brand deals, the more we look for authentic recommendations, not just those bought out by big bucks.
And being the business-minded man he is, Aris knows that Storytime offers a solution to wasted money on influencer marketing.
“There's actually a huge market for the restaurants and companies that have gone into brand deals before with someone with millions of followers,” he tells Austin.
“They posted, spent thousands of dollars, and got nothing from it. We’re bringing back that trust. We're going to vet everyone for you.”
At present, Storytime has 90 businesses signed up to their platform. But their hope? Thousands. And they’ve got the skills, resources, and tech to do it.
“It's basically a very simple subscription. This can scale to our current infrastructure. We could be doing hundreds of thousands of these campaigns.”
And Aris himself? He still makes his own content and strikes his own brand deals, working with watch resellers in Dubai, private jet charters, and luxury brands like Chimi and Jacob & Co.
And being paid 15 to 25K per video, he could solely rely on that. But as we explained, Aris’ vision is way bigger than creating viral skits.
He wants to change the world of influencer marketing as we know it, and honestly, who better?
“I could be doing a lot more,” he says, referring to his own brand deals. “There’s more money in this. It’s easy to be influenced by that money and think like, ‘Oh, I'm making great money from that.’
But our goal with Storytime is a real business.”
Building real relationships with local business owners
To prove that point, Aris takes Austin on a series of client meetings, from Honeybrains to Angelina Italian Bakery, where they sit down with the owner, Tony Park.
From how he and Aris interact, it’s clear that this guy is building solid, genuine relationships with business owners who trust him more than the average influencer.
“Over here, we have Tony Park. I've spoken to probably hundreds of founders in the city, and he is one of the coolest because his story is amazing,” Aris tells the camera.
“I was born and raised in Italy,” Tony shares.
“Went to cooking school and came abroad. Had a restaurant, made a lot of money in the nineties, and then I went to real estate. Then I went to a payment tech, and now I'm back.”
“Wow. Why did you decide to come back to food?” asks Austin.
“It's just this drug. It's like a passion,” Tony says, and even I can see it radiating off him.
“The second I walked in here, I could tell there was passion. Man, this place is unbelievable. I want to eat everything!”
And honestly? Same. Add Angelina Italian Bakery to the list, guys.
Take your influencer marketing to the next level with Whop
Aris’ journey from viral skits to building Storytime is a masterclass in using personal branding and influencer marketing.
Speaking of which, if you’re hoping to start your content creation journey, grow your personal brand, and start working with brands and businesses? You can learn everything you need on Whop.
Not only has Storytime launched its own Whop community, but our platform is filled with creators like Aris offering courses, communities, group training, personal coaching, and so much more.
If you’re ready to join the ranks of top-earning creators and skip past unnecessary learning curves, check out Whop.
