How TikTok creator Aaron Parnas found success on Substack

Aaron Parnas is an independent journalist and attorney who built a following on TikTok by providing a Gen Z perspective on the news. After winning Substack’s TikTok Liberation Prize, Aaron went live with Substack CEO Chris Best to talk about bringing his community to the app, why Substack is different from the other guys, and how to build a multiplatform content strategy. Here are a few highlights from their conversation.

On the decision to start a Substack

Aaron Parnas: I always wanted to do a text-based newsletter-type thing, and I’ve tried out other platforms like Medium and Mailchimp and all this other stuff, but nothing was intuitive enough for me to do the work that I wanted to do.

Substack was a mix between an email newsletter and a social media platform, so it offered the best of both worlds. And it also now offers all these video capabilities, whether it’s the long-form videos that I put out daily, or I can repost my short-form content in the Notes feature.

It has Notes, which is like Twitter or Bluesky; it has the videos, which are like YouTube or TikTok; and then it has the tech space, which none of the other platforms really have. So it’s kind of the best of all three worlds. And I’ve been loving it.

Chris Best: Yeah, we sometimes say that other platforms are built around some media format, and Substack is built around you. It’s a place where people can subscribe to you and get everything you make, whether they like long live videos, or short-form video, or quick text-based things, or long text-based things. You can publish any kind of thing that you want.

On concerns over other platforms

Aaron: A lot of people are looking for a platform that isn’t owned by a billionaire or a foreign adversary, right? Like [one] that can’t necessarily be manipulated. And Substack really is that. I have full editorial control—you don’t control what I put out. There’s no censorship. The algorithm doesn’t push my content down if it doesn’t like it for whatever reason.

And what I like about [Substack] is that it’s not a partisan platform. You have Republicans, you have Democrats, you have Independents, you have everyone on this platform, all pushing out content, and it’s working.

And that’s what social media should be, in my opinion.

Chris: It’s really good to hear you say that, because it’s something we’ve worked pretty hard to do. We have a strong commitment to freedom of the press.

This is all we do. We don’t have entanglements, political commitments, agendas, beyond making this tool work for people. So I’m glad that that comes through, because it’s something that we put quite a bit of effort into.

On bringing a community to Substack

Aaron: I feel like we’ve been able to build a community here on Substack of people who may not have their own newsletters, but they’re excited to read mine and others on here. We’re talking in the threads, we’re communicating every day. They’re communicating with one another as well. It’s not just me communicating with folks, it’s the people who read my stuff communicating with one another too. So it’s been really cool. It’s been a great experience.

And I’m excited to see where the platform goes between now and the end of the year, like the growth over the next year, because I think there are some really cool things that could be added and could be changed and can make it even better. So I’m excited.

Chris: That’s great. Well, now you’re a creative advisor to Substack after winning this prize, so you can tell us al