Influencer with 9m followers has never read a book — you’re a snob if you judge her

Alix made a divisive statement on Instagram (Picture: Getty) Nearly nine million followers watch 25-year-old influencer Alix Earle’s TikTok videos each week. The blonde bombshell made a name for herself by posting ‘get ready with me’ videos, and now has her own Netflix reality show, Earle Meets World. Still, she stunned the internet when she made a simple confession in an Instagram Q&A. ‘I’ve never read a book,’ she says, makeup done and fiddling with a straw. The reaction was immediate. ‘The reading answer is so embarrassing,’ one wrote. ‘Not having read a book since elementary school is not ditsy and cute, it’s embarrassing asf,’ added another. ‘PSA during this literacy crisis: Reading makes you hot and cool,’ someone else said. Despite not being bookish, Alix’s estimated net-worth sits at around £15million ($20million). So, is it really that big a deal that she doesn’t read? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Do we need to slate someone for not reading books? For Dr Alison Taft, course director for English and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University, slating the influencer for not reading is perhaps going too far. ‘There’s always seems to be a reason to trash a woman on the internet,’ she tells Metro. Ask Metro Use AI to go deeper into the stories you care about – powered by Metro and trusted publications. ‘We are all snobs, in some respect, we might judge people who don’t read or people who don’t read the same stories as us.’ Alison, who teaches a module called Adaptation, which is all about the different ways we consume stories, recalls going to a literary panel at the time Fifty Shades of Grey was released, and critics were saying you shouldn’t read it, but it was flying off the shelves. ‘If she was saying “I’m not interested in the stories”, I’d be like oh my god, how can you not know the magical world of Harry Potter I read to my children, how can you not travel to these places. ‘But, I suspect she is travelling to these places, just not through reading.’ The professor adds that we consume stories every day, and that doesn’t need to be through a book. Whether it’s reading a Page Six news article or watching a Netflix series, or listening to a podcast. ‘With Shakespeare it was always a performance art,’ Alison adds. ‘The novel is only a fraction of time in storytelling. I don’t have a big problem with people not reading stories. As long as we’re consuming stories, which is how we learn about the world. ‘Does reading them make a difference to watching them or listening to them? ‘What about the audio book, where does that fall — is it reading or listening?’ People might be overreacting to Alix Earle’s confession (Picture: Christopher Polk/Deadline via Getty Images) We’re in a literary crisis Approximately 6.6million adults aged 16 to 65 in England have ‘very poor’ literacy skills. The Literacy Trust told Metro the amount of children and young people who enjoy reading hit a 20-year low in 2025, with just 32.7% of young people wanting to pick up a book. In fact, more than 750,000 UK schoolchildren do not have a single book of their own. ‘I’m worried we’re all at risk of being turned into these non-thinking, non-feeling people, so the ability to imagine and the book opening the door to this ability to empathise, is important,’ Alison adds. ‘There’s the idea literature is more hallowed and I think that’s because we’re taught to read, it’s a skill, we’re not really taught to listen or watch. People think it’s clever and learned.’ Books are actually being consumed in record numbers For those concerned that the younger generations aren’t reading, Alix isn’t representative of her peers. In fact, reading hasn’t definitely become cool. Publishing reached its highest ever revenue in 2025, with sales of fiction books increasing by 8%, according to the Publishers Association. Celebrity book clubs like Dua Lipa’s Service 95, which has 779,000 Instagram followers, and Reese Witherspoon’s Reese’s Book Club, which has 2.3million followers, have chic-ified reading. Not to mention, the #BookTok community on TikTok has 86.3million posts and counting. Creators like the ‘internet’s resident librarian’ Jack Edwards recommends and reviews books, with a whopping 55.6million likes on his page. ‘The art of reading is a very radical act because to read means we have to imagine,’ Alison adds. ‘We’re not being spoon fed. In an age when tech is doing so much of what it means to be human, I don’t believe reading should be forgotten.’ The professor adds that it also hones critical thinking skills and allows us to understand different perspectives. The viral social media trend of being ‘disgustingly educated’ which took off at the beginning of the year focuses on reading to cultivate deep intellectual curiosity and refine your view of the political and world landscape. ‘The radicalness of it has brought it back into fashion,’ Alison explains. ‘It’s definitely being reclaimed among young people looking to hone their critical thinking and have an appreciation of language. It will never go out of fashion, even though there are all these competing demands.’ So, if it’s a single influencer who has never read a book, is it really that detrimental to everyone else? Alison says: ‘Not everybody reads, not everybody gets involved in politics – we could be these perfect versions of ourselves, but we aren’t. ‘It’s not a path I’d chose for myself, but I wouldn’t judge her.’ Do you have a story you’d like to share? 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