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If you’ve been anywhere near the bookish corner of the internet this week, you already know. And if you haven’t, let me catch you up, because this one has me genuinely irritated.
A small business called Allie Rose Co. announced on June 3rd that they had secured a trademark on the phrase “Hot Girls Read.” The application — filed back in August 2024 — covers bookmarks, stickers, book covers, notebook covers, and adhesive notepads. When the trademark went through and was announced publicly, the follow-up message to other businesses was clear: if you’re selling products with “Hot Girls Read” on them, those listings need to come down. justiaSubstack
Let that sink in.
People have been putting that phrase on tote bags, mugs, bookmarks, and T-shirts for years. And now one company wants to tell everyone else they’ve been doing it wrong?
Where Did “Hot Girls Read” Even Come From?
This is the part that matters most and I don’t want to gloss over it.
“Hot Girls Read” doesn’t exist without Megan Thee Stallion, who coined “hot girl summer” in 2019 — a phrase that started on the cover of her mixtape Fever, went viral on Twitter before the song even dropped, and eventually became a Billboard Hot 100 single. When asked what it meant, she said: “Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth.” Substack
The Black bookish community took that energy and ran with it — because of course they did. Hot girls read. That’s not a product. That’s a vibe, a celebration, a piece of culture that belongs to a community. It wasn’t invented in someone’s Canva account while designing bookmark mockups.
The phrase sits in the same category as “book boyfriend,” “touch her and die,” or “enemies to lovers” — language that belongs to a community, not a single creator. Marie Claire
The Timeline Gets Messy
The trademark application claimed first use of the phrase dating back to January 2021. Here’s the problem: that claim contradicts an Instagram caption from the same owner stating she’s been part of the book community for “3ish years” — which would put her arrival around 2023. You cannot claim you coined something in 2021 and also be new to the community in 2023. The math is not mathing. SubstackMarie Claire
What It Means for Small Creators
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, that’s not a hypothetical threat — it’s an existential one. The Bean Workshop
Many people have also pointed out that Allie Rose Co. started out selling merchandise with copyrighted phrases and terms themselves — and that the owner filed the trademark quietly in 2024, possibly to prevent people from fighting back before it was approved. Whether intentional or not, that’s a move that hurts the exact community she’s supposedly part of. AOL
The good news: trademark attorneys commenting publicly have noted that anyone using the phrase before the August 2024 filing date can continue using it. And if prior use before the claimed January 2021 date can be demonstrated, the registration itself could be challenged and cancelled. Substack
This Isn’t New — And That’s the Problem
Many bookstagrammers and other influencers have noted that something like this has happened before — the comparison to “Cockygate” comes up immediately. That was when indie author Faleena Hopkins tried to trademark the word “Cocky” for romance novels, sparking an industry-wide revolt that eventually got the trademark challenged. AOL
The pattern is exhausting. A phrase comes out of Black culture, spreads through community, gets embraced broadly — and then somewhere along the way, someone files paperwork and tries to put a fence around it. We’ve seen it with “on fleek.” We watched Megan Thee Stallion spend two years fighting to trademark her own phrase because brands had already swooped in and started using it freely in their marketing.
Black women build the culture. And then someone else tries to own it.
What You Can Do
If you’re a small creator or shop owner who had “Hot Girls Read” products up before August 2024, you have rights. Talk to an IP attorney if you receive any cease-and-desist communications. Document your prior use with screenshots and upload dates.
And as a consumer? Vote with your wallet and your attention. Support the small bookish creators who have been part of this community since before it was profitable to trademark it.
Hot girls read. Always have. Nobody gets to put their name on that.
