When Emily Kirkpatrick , the digital editor of this magazine, first sent me photos of OnlyFans sensation Aris Navarro , I immediately knew we had three things in common: 1. We love our yiayias (the Greek word for grandma). 2. We both come from small villages. And 3. We’ve both got sex appeal. But it was Emily who had to point out that for the vast majority of the population these three qualities are not the norm, which is also why Navarro and his work are causing such a sensation across the internet.
The OnlyFans model was apprehensive at first to be interviewed given the nature of what he does, and how new it is (only one year old), but after sending him a photo of me and my beloved yiayia Persou, as well as a photo of myself naked and covered in all the food you would order at a Greek tavern, we immediately hit it off. We talked about Navarro’s inspiration, his success, the difficulty of making ends meet in the current Greek economy, and the love that only a yiayia can provide. With his eye for surprising juxtapositions and uplifting humble village life to the level of high art, it’s obvious why this young man is taking OnlyFans by storm. Between Athens and the small village of Mani, Navarro documents the nuanced life of “ ur fav village boy” in various states of undress.
ELLPETHA TSIVICOS: It’s funny, on my Instagram, the things that get the most views are pictures with my yiayia and sexy Cyprus pics.
ARIS NAVARRO: I’ve never in my life thought I would ever do an interview for these pictures, but I mean, here we are.
NAVARRO: Right now, I’m in Athens. It’s cool, but normally I’m from Mani. We are here in Athens because of medication and stuff, and hospitals because it’s way easier. In the village, you don’t really get all that.
TSIVICOS: Did you grow up with her close by?
NAVARRO: I grew up only with her. She’s like my mom.
TSIVICOS: Oh, wow. Does she know what you’re doing when you take these pictures?
NAVARRO: She does. She’s actually obsessed with the whole process. She asks me, “When are we going to take more pictures?” She’s really thrilled by the whole situation. And also that I’m having an interview right now, she’s in the living room. She’s like, “Is it happening? Is it happening?” I’m like, “In 30 minutes.” But yeah, she knows, and she really likes the process as well.
TSIVICOS: There’s nothing like a yiayia. They are unconditional love.
NAVARRO: It is amazing. What you said is true, the unconditional love. I feel like even dumb shit, like they would really, really love it just because it’s you, just because it’s me.
TSIVICOS: I think for an American audience, when they see this content, first of all, they are not familiar with village life. It’s dirty, and homey, and comfortable. You couldn’t recreate it if you tried.
TSIVICOS: What came first? The yiayia content or the OnlyFans content?
NAVARRO: Definitely the OnlyFans content. I just started posting pictures that had a little bit more storyline or a little bit more of a vibe, an aesthetic. A little bit more to them than just a body, I guess. I found the perfect middle for me to feel comfortable and post content to promote my work. But even then, even without the Yiayia content, I was very surprised because every single post was getting millions of views. I was so confused. I didn’t really have another choice back then. It’s either this or going back to work. And in my mind, I was like, “Okay, this is going to be maybe two, three years. I’m going to make some money.” And out of nowhere, it just exploded. Every single post started getting one, two, three million views, just me sitting on a couch in the village.
TSIVICOS: That’s exactly the exposure yiayias deserve. There’s something I find aesthetically perfect about the village. It’s like, I like nice things, I do fancy stuff, but then I also love going into the ambeli [grape field] and picking grapes with my family.
TSIVICOS: There are a lot of people that dream of getting out of the village.
TSIVICOS: They go to a village wedding and dress up to make it look like they’re not from a village.
NAVARRO: Oh, that’s the funniest thing when they try to overdress. It’s the trashiest, most kitsch thing ever. I just love it.
TSIVICOS: I love going to weddings in the village too. I’m like, sign me up. The outfits?
NAVARRO: I don’t know whose wedding it is, but I’m going.
TSIVICOS: You have everything from jeans and flip-flops to full gowns. You see 70-year-old women in backless mini dresses covered in sequins, and then men coming in camo pants. You are immortalizing village-core. Who takes the pictures?
NAVARRO: Me. I put a tripod and then I have to press a button and it has a timer. I just sit there and take pictures for one, two hours. And then at the end, it’s going to take another four hours for me to go through all of them and decide which one has the best angle, best lighting, et cetera.
TSIVICOS: Wow. I can’t believe these are self-timer pics. So, you run over and get into these positions in 10 seconds?
NAVARRO: Yep. First, I focus on one perspective. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to milk this angle. I’m going to take 100 pictures from this angle.” When I’m done, I’m like, “Okay, now let’s try a different angle.” And then I also take complimentary pictures, detailed shots, like my flip-flops or just the environment, to make sure that it’s not just me. The world that I’m in gets represented and shown, the entire atmosphere. But it takes a long time to do all of that. And the fact that I have to do it every week, it’s actually very draining sometimes, but it’s worth it.
TSIVICOS: The composition—I don’t know how much you edit them, but the color and the light, everything is really aesthetically aligned and looks like the work of famous photographers.
NAVARRO: That’s insane to say. Thank you so much and bless you.
TSIVICOS: It’s one of those things that I see in art and I observe. If you try to make something that everyone will like, most of the time, no one cares. I think that’s part of what’s so appealing about your work is you’re like, “This is just me.”
NAVARRO: There’s definitely a difference when creating for the masses and creating just using yourself, and what you know, and not really trying to pretend. Which is also something that I have been struggling with for a long time. It’s a business. At the end of the day, you are going to create something hoping people are going to like it and pay for it. If it was for me, for my personal taste, I would never post shirtless. That’s the truth, honestly. I don’t really like doing it. I mean, I don’t mind doing it, but if it’s just for my artistic eye or vision, I don’t necessarily want to post shirtless in every picture. But I know that this is how social media works and it’s a great way to hook people with a first picture, hoping they will stay to get to see the whole story if they keep swiping.
TSIVICOS: You figured out how to play the game in your own language, basically. And I don’t mean Greek. I also found it interesting that photo I shared with you where it’s me covered in all the food—
NAVARRO: I love it. It’s an iconic picture.
TSIVICOS: Recently, I showed those photos to a Greek friend and he went crazy. He’s like, “This is the best thing I’ve ever seen. You really have to share these.” And so, I started to share them and everyone was like, “Oh, ha-ha, this is AI.” And that was really interesting because I was like, “Wow, could this even be appreciated anymore when people’s first impulse is that that was made by AI?” Do you encounter that ever?
NAVARRO: All the fucking time. It’s so fucking annoying to me. But at the end of the day, I take advantage of that as well. There are people that don’t think I even exist. There are people that think that the places I shoot don’t exist, and that’s totally fine. When I started, it used to bother me. But when you get into the whole social media game mentality, you realize that this is actually not necessarily a bad thing, the fact that they think that. Because for my situation, it creates traction. When they don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, or what my sexuality is or whatever, that mystery is just reach for me. They can keep guessing.
TSIVICOS: A confused audience is an active audience.
NAVARRO: Definitely. I also went to Brazil in February. It was my first trip ever that I actually bought myself, and I went there and stayed for Carnival. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to post a little bit about this trip.” And I also did stay in a favela, because that’s where my friends were living, which was also a very interesting environment, just like a village. When these pictures were published, they were like, “The village boy is now in Brazil in a favela. Okay. Yeah, this is definitely AI.”
TSIVICOS: I guess people should also probably know that the economy in Greece is really rough. So, the fact that you’re able to survive using the aesthetics of Greece and these very familiar images and spaces is really incredible. I think a lot of people are confused about what Greece is really like. They just see pictures of the islands.
TSIVICOS: Ultimately, the economy is just totally unsustainable in Greece and people are suffering, really suffering. It’s like the food is cheap. So that’s fun when you’re on vacation, but actually people can’t pay their bills.
NAVARRO: No. There’s no way you can pay your rent here. Electricity, water, all of that combined with your minimum wage job—because there is no other job you’re probably going to get here. It’s just not really possible to live a nice or a comfortable life.
TSIVICOS: Or a sustainable life, an easy life. The minimum wage in Greece now is what a month?
NAVARRO: $750, $800, I would say. And it’s very hard to find a normal apartment in Athens for less than 500 bucks a month. How the hell are you supposed to live by yourself and pay all that? It’s just impossible.
TSIVICOS: It’s an important thing to talk about with Greece because it’s not all blue seas.
TSIVICOS: What’s the demographic of your audience?
NAVARRO: I would say it’s definitely the US, top country, top area.
NAVARRO: No, thankfully, because they would eat me up.
TSIVICOS: I was going to say, because village culture, everyone would be like, “ Είδες τι κάμνει ο Άρης; [Did you see what Aris is doing]?” So you actually get a level of anonymity. I think that’s the scariest thing about being Greek, the gossip.
NAVARRO: Definitely. Don’t get me wrong, I have been stopped on the streets here as well, which was definitely a shock. It scared me. When I flew to Brazil, that was also a slap in the face because I got stopped there. I was like, “What the fuck is happening?” I got stopped by this group of guys, and they were like, “Oh my god, you’re Aris Navarro.” And then they pointed to show me their shorts and shoes, because when I started, I was always posting in my army shorts and Converse shoes. Suddenly, it was five guys wearing army shorts and Converse shoes like, “This is because of you.” And I’m like, “The fuck.”
TSIVICOS: That’s amazing. Okay. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about?
NAVARRO: I’d like to clarify my aesthetic, or just explain it to somebody that is not from Greece. I think the keyword would probably be unpolished. Especially as someone that grew up in environments that are unpolished and imperfect, like ugly houses or messy chaotic houses that are not designed to be beautiful, and how you can learn to make the best out of them. This is actually where the main inspiration comes from. Let’s say, for example, you don’t have a table in your living room, which used to be the case for a long time. “Oh, you want to play a board game, where are we going to play?” And then you find yourself playing the board game on top of a washing machine. It’s romanticizing the struggle, even if the internet thinks of this phrase as something bad. It is something bad, but if you’re actually the one struggling, I feel like you have every right to romanticize your situation because it’s the only way you can actually learn to be happy and unbothered in your current state.
TSIVICOS: Yeah. To live in it. That’s really beautiful, and it’s true. It’s function. My grandmother’s house is 300 years old, and it’s like a cave. It was not built to be beautiful. It was built to provide shelter for them and for all of their belongings that they needed to survive. I think in the United States, obviously, there’s such a variety of life. But I think people don’t realize that in a lot of places, life is about function and not about choice.
NAVARRO: Exactly. Especially in rural Greece, all of these things are still very much relevant. We’re not so developed, at least where I’m from in Mani. It’s still very, very, very traditional in many ways, not just the way of living. The mentality, everything.
TSIVICOS: In my village, they all know who I am. If I walk down the street, it’s like, “Oh, there’s Ellpetha. Why isn’t she married?”
NAVARRO: That’s the only downside of village life. Nobody minds their business.
TSIVICOS: They absolutely do not. People are going to say things. I loved what you said, though, about your work. I’m glad you said it, the unpolished function and how to make beauty. The way that you’re able to be inside of that and outside of it, that you can step out and go, “Wait, this is beautiful.” We’re village-core.
NAVARRO: Just from the food picture and the rest with your yiayia that you sent, I already know we vibe for sure.
TSIVICOS: I have all these new edits of it I want to post, but I’m also freaked out about it because I’m naked. And it’s like Greek people are so…
NAVARRO: I know, they hate it, but it’s okay. They’re going to have to learn to deal with it.
NAVARRO: That is one thing that’s a little bit comforting at the end of the day. It’s like, no, it’s AI. I never did that.
Source: Fashion
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