Aaron Parnas never set out to be a viral content creator who shares political news, but that’s exactly what happened, and quickly. The lawyer turned viral journalist began sharing news on his social media pages back in early 2022 when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made him realize there was a gap between mainstream coverage and what his own family in Ukraine was experiencing on the ground. What began as just posting real-time updates on social media has now turned into a daily gig that has captivated millions and millions of followers.
Parnas, who has more than 5 million followers on TikTok and 3 million on Instagram, chatted exclusively with The Blast to share some insight into how he got started, what his future plans are, and how the new intro that fans love got started.
Aaron Parnas Didn’t Exactly Set Out To Go Viral While Delivering The News On Social Media
Parnas wasn’t planning on putting his all into a career delivering the news on social media, but it just fell into place for him once he began sharing news about what was really happening in Ukraine in February 2022.
“I had family in Ukraine and I just felt like their story wasn’t fully being told. I felt as if, based on what I was hearing on the ground from my family and what I was seeing on TV, there was a bit of a disconnect in terms of the coverage of my family’s stories,” Parnas told The Blast. “And so I just figured why not whip out my phone, start making content talking about what my family was experiencing on the ground. And within a week, I had a million followers interested in Ukraine and the rest is kind of history.”
From that first video, Parnas couldn’t have predicted that his popularity online would soar, but it did. He told The Blast, “I never thought that this was even an option to do for a job or whatever. So, never in a million years.”
Aaron Parnas Is Millions Of People’s Go-To For Political News
Once he realized this was his calling, he began putting his all into telling the news as it is in real-time. As for how he chooses what news to cover each day, he said it’s all about the stories that he “understands personally.”
“I don’t consider myself an investigative journalist by any means. I just don’t have the capacity to do that,” he said. “If I have the ability to do some more research and have the time, I’ll write an investigative piece every now and then, but really if I can understand the story quickly, I’ll do it.”
In the political news climate we’re living in currently, there has been no lack of daily stories for Parnas to report on. Some of the news has him up late at night and some of it has just been wild and almost unbelievable.
“The oddest hours [I’m reporting] is in the middle of the night. Like when the Pope died, I covered it,” he said. “The most captivating and the most impactful story that I’ve done and continue to do is my coverage of the Epstein files and working with dozens of survivors on a daily basis pretty much to tell their story, get their information out to the public, reviewing hundreds of thousands of files myself. It’s been a journey, to say the least.”
Aaron Parnas Recently Had The Best Breaking News Report
Known for his political news coverage, a few months ago Parnas had some great news to share with his followers — he welcomed his first child.
Becoming a dad hasn’t changed the pace in which he delivers the news, and in fact, being a father may be helping him to get more content out.
“It’s funny because there are more hours in the day with sleeping less with the baby,” he said. “I am awake more, so I have more time to do more content. I will say though, that it’s made me more of a efficient person. I’ve had to figure out how to juggle feeding a newborn, recording content, pumping things out. It just makes you work faster.”
Followers were more than excited to hear such great news from Parnas.
“Finally Aaron is breaking news WITH A SMILE,” one person wrote in the comments of his video announcing his daughter’s arrival. Another person said, “BEST BREAKING NEWS EVER!!!!!!” Another person shared, “Congratulations. This is the most important and breaking news you have reported yet!”
Going From ‘Breaking News’ To ‘Wait Til You Hear This Sh-t’
A natural progression from starting videos with “breaking news” or “we have big news” to “wait til you hear this sh-t” had Parnas’ followers laughing and enjoying the switch up.
“We went from ‘Breaking News’ to ‘Wait till you hear this sh-t,'” one person wrote in the comment section of a recent video. Another said, “I prefer ‘wait til you hear this sh-t’ over ‘breaking news.’ so much more appropriate rn.”
When asked how that got started, Parnas shared the humor behind it.
“I think the key to being successful on social media is being adaptable and changing things up as you progress in your career,” he said. “So that was just a way of adapting to kind of where my audience was. That’s number one. Number two, really, I just woke up one day and was talking to a friend of mine and he was like, why don’t you just try this, and take a crazy story that’s in the news and go for it and see what happens. People loved it. It was pretty funny.”
Future Plans, Advice For Others Thinking Of Reporting The News, And What Aaron Parnas Wants People To Know
While Parnas is known for reporting mostly political news, he does plan to expand his coverage to different areas, including sports.
“With the World Cup coming to America, I want to do more stuff around that this summer. I am going to be doing a lot of stuff regarding the Olympics come 2028, so definitely kind of expanding my coverage and changing up the way I do things is definitely on the agenda,” he told The Blast. “I don’t see myself doing this forever, and I think there will come a time where, for example, it’s my time to go and I’ll recognize that. So for as long as my audience will have me, I’ll be there.”
One of his goals is to change the way reporting the news is done and make it more of “social media first journalism” rather than the traditional ways.
One thing Parnas wishes people knew or understood about what he’s doing is that he’s not spending his day just “aggregating other people’s content.”
“I think that’s a really big misconception and it may be different for other people, but being that I am a lawyer, I spend my day really digging into the firsthand source,” he told The Blast. “I don’t wait for the New York Times to read a court order to then report on it. I get court orders in my email inbox.”
As for advice for the next generation of reporters on social media, Parnas advises to “do it.” He said that the biggest hurdle for many is the fear of embarrassment or not having an editor or a team.
“I don’t think what I’m doing is that hard. I think it just takes a lot of time and a lot of work and just a lot of self deprecation in a way,” he said. “You have to be okay with being a little embarrassed and that’s okay.”