A Rich European Kid Launches a Fancy Sauna Hat Brand

For the past three years, Aris Yeager has made a living pretending to be someone he’s not. On Instagram and TikTok, the Greek 26-year-old goes by The European Kid, where he posts skits as his character “Louis”, a French trust fund baby with a terrible temper.

Since uploading his first clip in 2022, he has built an audience north of three million followers by posting videos of himself trolling Montauk bar owners (“you are not Pascha!”) and trying to buy a $2,000 wheel of parmesan cheese. In 2024, the New York Times reported that he charges brands as much as $30,000 to collaborate on a skit.

After scrolling enough videos of Yeager name dropping Ferraris, picking fights with maître d’s and stealing caviar, you could be forgiven for thinking that he is insufferable — but Yeager insists this is just a small part of who he is. “I’m not that much of an asshole,” he tells Thingtesting. “Content breaks up my day in a fun way. I don’t spend more than two minutes on a skit.”

Which is to say, Yeager has time for other projects. Although his posting is what built both his fame and fortune, more recently he has been focused on his business endeavours. Two years ago, he launched Storytime to connect restaurants, cafe and other local businesses with influencers they could collaborate with. And today, he’s launching Bjorli, a fancy sauna hat brand.

The European Kid Standard

Yeager says he got into saunas a few years ago, but didn’t like the cheap wool hats he’d tried to keep his head cool. It also doesn’t hurt that saunaing has become somewhat of a modern status symbol, making it a natural fit for his alter-ego to peddle. “If I do sauna without [a hat], I get a migraine,” he says. “But the [product] standard should be the Louis standard.”

Bjorli’s sauna hats are made from alpaca wool sourced from Pacomarca, a sustainable alpaca farm in the Peruvian Andes, and will be launched in limited drops at $200 a piece from the beginning of September. But while Yeager tells the classic story of a founder creating a product to solve a problem they themselves have experienced, closer inspection of the brand’s messaging blurs the line between Yeager and his alter ego.

One skit sends the character Louis on a seven-hour drive deep into the Andes to find “the finest fibre the gods have ever made, to make the sauna hats that my European head deserves”, a send-up of an actual trip Yeager took in May of this year to meet with suppliers. Even the price point demonstrates how important proximity to Louis’ world is anticipated to be to the brand’s success. Sauna hats in the US retail for as little as $30, but Yeager is likely correct in his observation that these products won’t cut it for someone who is as interested in form as they are function. “Everyone who follows my content is very affluent,” he points out.

Yeager also sees the audience that he has built with Louis as an asset that allows him to run a lean operation and skip paid customer acquisition entirely. Yeager is even using it to map future potential brand launches against. A separate olive oil brand is one contender, and Yeager, who is Greek, estimates he’s already racked up over 100 million views posting about the stuff.

The End of Louis?

So whose brand is it, Yeager’s — or Louis’?

Bjorli is currently a team of three including Yeager, and it has not worked with any external PR or marketing agencies for its launch, instead relying on Yeager’s following. Speaking to Thingtesting, a Bjorli team member asked to remain in the background (“you should focus on Aris”) while Yeager pushes back at the suggestion. “It’s not just my brand,” he says. “I know I can leverage my following to get those first customers… but I don’t see it as dependent on me for it to prosper. If a brand is only dependent on one person, that’s not sustainable.”

It’s also not clear how much longer the Louis character will even be around for. “I wouldn’t want to be doing screaming, rage-bait videos in my 30s,” he says. “I don’t think it’s appropriate. I’m not going to continue doing the rich kid character for many more years.”

Yeager is not the only content creator who has had to grapple with what a career in the business of audience building looks like as you get older, and the charm risks wearing off. In 2024, jewelry brand Poubel was launched by Gstaad Guy, another influencer who parodies the ultra rich and who Yeager cites as an inspiration. The same year, cooking influencer Will Hughes (@whatwillycook) launched Pleasant Homeware, a crockery brand. Earlier this year, Jessie Inchauspé — aka the Glucose Goddess — launched her second product, a protein powder. Chamberlain Coffee is Emma Chamberlain’s instant coffee brand, Feastables is MrBeast’s snack company, TikTok chef Thomas Straker has All Things Butter among his business ventures, and Forvr Mood is a fragrance brand from beauty influencer Jackie Aina.

The examples above suggest there’s no urgency to disentangle Bjorli’s creations from its creator. Poubel is now stocked in Selfridges stores in the UK, All Things Butter is available in many UK supermarkets, and Feastables is a fixture at Walmarts across the US. A persona doesn’t stop a brand from being taken seriously — so long as the product is good.

“I want to promote things I actually believe in,” Yeager says. “It’s obviously a random, niche product. But it’s a version of myself, and I want to build more things like that. As much as it’s great to do the acting and the skits, sometimes I also want to show there’s a more serious side to it.”