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Hot Girls Read — And Nobody Owns That

Hot Girls Read — And Nobody Owns That

Nguyet Minh Coleman

When a phrase becomes a movement, who gets to own it?

If you've spent any time in BookTok or Bookstagram over the past few years, you've seen "Hot Girls Read" everywhere — on tote bags, stickers, sweatshirts, and phone cases. It's a rallying cry for a generation of readers who refuse to be embarrassed about their love of books (especially the spicy ones). It's community. It's identity. It's a vibe.

So when news broke that someone had filed — and successfully trademarked — "Hot Girls Read," the bookish internet had thoughts.

What actually happened?

Trademark filings on popular phrases aren't new, but they're particularly fraught when the phrase in question belongs to a cultural moment rather than a single creator. A trademark grants exclusive commercial rights to a name or phrase — meaning anyone else selling products with those words could face legal challenges. For small shops like ours, that's not a hypothetical threat. It's an existential one.

The trademark on "Hot Girls Read" is now active. The backlash from the reading community was swift and vocal. Readers, creators, and small business owners pushed back hard, arguing that "Hot Girls Read" is a grassroots expression of reader identity — not a brand invented by any one person.

Why this matters for small bookish businesses

We're a small shop. We make things for readers because we are readers. The products we create — totes, bookmarks, sleeves, stickers — are love letters to the community we're part of. When phrases that define that community get locked behind a trademark, it chills creativity and squeezes out the small makers who helped build the culture in the first place.

It's a reminder to all of us in the bookish small business space to stay informed, support each other, and push back when corporate interests try to commodify what belongs to everyone.

Celebrate your reader identity — on your own terms

Whether or not you call yourself a "hot girl reader," the spirit is the same: reading is cool, books are for everyone, and nobody gets to gatekeep that.

Here are a few of our favorite pieces for wearing your reader identity proudly:

Read loudly. Read proudly. Nobody owns that.

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