In a bit of unhinged book news, an influencer has come under fire this week after attempting to trademark the slogan “Hot Girls Read.”
Allie Mitrovich, the content creator behind Allie Rose Co., took to the portal on June 3rd to plant her phrase flag. The 26 year old BFA holder and beach town transplant has been growing her quirky book merch business since 2020. To fair success, from the looks of her 60k+ followers.
But those same lurkers clapped back almost instantly after Mitrovich announced—in a since-deleted Instagram post—that she had effectively purchased a popular phrase.
Things got hinky when the creator took again to Instagram—in some more since-deleted posts—to chide others for using the slogan of no provenance. Some small business-owners perceived these messages as threats.
So who do we thank for “Hot Girls Read?” Some put the meme on Megan Thee Stallion, whose “Hot Girl Summer” from 2018 can be traced to campaigns like this one.
Others follow this movement—though perhaps that noun is generous—to assorted X comics, or Dua Lipa’s recent ascent as a literary influencer. But given the long twinned history of hotties and reading, even these theories are stretchy.
In an even-handed Substack weigh-in, the writer Emma Ilene made the case for author: unknown. “This situation beautifully highlights the greed problem online communities have been facing: stealing intellectual property for profit,” argued the blogger.
“Hot Girls Read” isn’t a thing people associate with one creator. It’s a community phrase. It’s a joke, a meme, a slogan that emerged organically from internet reading culture. It belongs to the same category as phrases like “book boyfriend,” “touch her and die,” or “enemies to lovers.” All of these terms, “hot girls read” included, were pieces of a collective language built by thousands of readers interacting in the bookish spaces.
Amen. It’s true that the slogan is impossible to originate using tried and true research methods. A glance at Etsy shows that there are more than 5000 offerings for “Hot Girls Read” merch.
But I guess all’s fair in the comments section. Having been roundly chastised, Mitrovich posted an apologetic reel this morning, in which she announced that she’d surrendered her trademark.
“I’m so sorry to every small business that I harmed in doing this,” she said, looking more than a little bewildered. “This was more a business strategy decision than a human being decision, and that was entirely wrong on my end.” She went on to assure her audience that profits from all remaining HGR merch will go to literary charities.
All in all, a funny glimpse at the power of the mob to both protect and serve our collective subconscious. And this case has curious ramifications. Since this scandal broke, intrpid BookTokers have began digging into other trademarks that have been filed for popular phrases.
According to People, any merchants riding proprietary on “book boyfriend” and “boy aquarium” should be shaking in their boots.
