Alix Earle is a 25-year-old “Gen Z influencer” and reality star. Or rather, “star.” For the life of me, I have no idea how she became famous in the first place, but now she has a Netflix show, Earle Meets World. Fun fact about the show and about Alix’s family: her stepmother is Ashley Dupre, aka the prostitute who accidentally brought down her john, then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Isn’t that insane? Ashley is in the Netflix show as well. To promote the show, Alix recently sat for a Q&A session with Interview Magazine and long story short, Alix admitted that she’s “never read a book.” Gen Z really isn’t beating the illiterate allegations.
Alix Earle claims she’s never read a book. The influencer, 25, made the startling confession in a rapidfire Q&A with Interview magazine’s editor-in-chief, Mel Ottenberg, that was posted on Instagram Monday.
When Ottenberg asked, “What’s the last book you’ve read?” Earle replied, “I’ve never read a book.”
“Like, maybe Dr. Seuss,” she added, referring to the classic children’s books written by Theodor Seuss Geisel.
Not surprisingly, Earle was roasted in the comments for her confession.
“PSA during this literacy crisis: READING MAKES YOU HOT AND COOL,” one commenter wrote.
“She’s never read a book? why are we listening to idiocy 😒 the world is beyond messed up,” another comment stated.
Some critics were incredulous at Earle’s claim.
“NEVER READ A BOOK!!!! Alix, what the hell??? Were you homeschooled? Did you not have to read to Kill a Mockingbird in 9th grade?? WHAT,” one user asked.
During the Q&A with Ottenberg, the “Earle Meets World” star also weighed in on the viral debate on whether or not bringing an iced coffee to a job interview is unprofessional.
“I don’t really see a problem with that,” she said as she sipped on an iced beverage. “I guess that’s a Gen Z problem.”
There’s been a lot of talk this year about the literacy crisis, and how young people – Alix’s age and younger – are basically completely unprepared for life, for the work place and for higher education. There are teens heading into college who can barely read at a first-grade level. There are people entering the workforce with zero critical thinking skills or media literacy. There are 20-somethings who have never picked up a book. Again, this woman is an influencer. Maybe try to actually be a role model or something and pick up a book? Like, at this point, I don’t even care about the quality of the literature – go ahead and read your cheesy romance novels, at least you’re reading!! At least you’re absorbing the written word somehow!
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
It’s called youth and pretty privilege these are the people who make me laugh when they ‘write’ a book. When it’s really all done by ghost writers. Based on their interviews. Then they slap their name on it.
Certain books are required reading in middle school and high school. So I don’t know how she NEVER read a book. Cliff’s Notes? I first noticed that we had a problem with this generation when I saw a YouTube video in which young people were totally unable to read cursive handwriting. Tech devices have really messed us up.
That was my thought- all the English classes had required summer reading lists, not just the AP classes. She seems to think this is a flex, but it really just makes me feel sorry for her.
Not defending her at all, but she may well have never read a book in middle or high school: increasingly, middle and high school teachers are no longer requiring full books!
I’m a college professor and by the time they get to college, students get overwhelmed if they get a 3 page reading – and I’m not even talking about academic articles.
I have to assign a fraction of the reading I assigned when I started being a professor 20 years ago. And nowadays they just copy it into AI and get a summary instead. (And I teach at well regarded university that is hard to get into!)
So I fully believe she has never read a book since childhood.
That said, I wish that actually meant something – like, if you don’t have reading skills, and more importantly if you just don’t have the basic curiosity to learn more about the world beyond yourself, a curiosity reading both develops and helps satiate – then why do people care about what you have to say?
But since the ability to evaluate sources is also a lost art nowadays, it seems any pretty person with a platform can just spout opinions and people will believe them…
(OK, getting off my soapbox to go yell at kids to get off my lawn now 😉 )
If she’d read a book she’d know it’s not the flex she thinks it is.
Apparently, she’s not a political influencer. They’re doing a lot of damage. So far, this one is only damaging herself.
I had (HAD) been an avid reader until the kids came along. And I have picked it back up. I can definitely tell a difference in my vocabulary and sentence structure. And @Teddy, I see no lies spoken regarding your statement.
No shame in listening to audio books. In the car, doing chores, whenever. Sometimes I’m so engaged I find excuses to do work around the house just to put on my headphones. I know some people feel like that’s not actually reading, but then I write a review of each one (on audible or Goodreads) that makes me critically think about what I just “read.” Listening to memoirs in the author’s voice is the best!
See also acting like being unable to do basic maths is a cute personality trait rather than an embarrassing life-skill failure.
right it’s women like her that reinforce misogyny that women are there to look pretty and be quiet.
My stepdaughter’s friend does this, and it’s INFURIATING. She also can’t read an analog clock, and stubbornly insists that “a quarter after 8” means 8:25.
Edit: My stepdaughter would like me to correct the record and say that this girl is NOT her friend, but a teacher-assigned study partner who got overly attached. I regret the error.
OMG, I’m laughing at your record-correcting! I can somehow “see” your stepdaughter, hands on hips, like, “WHAT DID YOU TELL THEM?!?!!?”
This whole exchange just made me laugh Miranda! 😀 I feel for your stepdaughter.
And yes, previous generations were mortified to have to admit that they could neither read nor write, later ones that they even had relatives without those skills, and here we have people thinking that it is cool to boast about not having read a book, and as Diana and others have said, not being able to do basic Maths.
Reminds me of an incredibly vacuous, overprivileged girl from my high school (daughter of a diplomat) who used to tell teachers to their faces that she did NOT need to read or do assignments or pass exams because she “had a job waiting for her”. I despair.
So she doesn’t know the difference between a base-10 and base-60 system? That might be confusing for people who don’t know why there are 60-secs in a minute, 60-mins in an hour when fractions of seconds in timed sports events are expressed as n/100th or n/1000th. It’s also confusing to people who question the glib switch between n/60ths and base-10 divisions when measuring smaller bits of time, or who can’t readily distinguish between a colon and a decimal.
Sounds like we can blame it on the Babylonians, the people responsible for the Tower of Babel story? Jk. They probably inherited it from the Sumerians. Anyhow, I can see why some people might be mystified by analog clock faces that barely show numbers, let alone 1/60 marks. I was kinda surprised myself the other day when trying to figure out how/when my iPhone stopwatch started displaying a circular sweep hand when I’d started out recording on a decimal display. Never realized there are 2 different modes on the stopwatch function 🤷♀️
@Alice – Pretty much that! Poor thing is sick with strep throat and can barely speak, but she couldn’t let that slide. 😂🤣
BUT………….I bet she can spot AI generated products with ease.
@Miranda LOL at your correction!!
I can obviously read an analog clock, but here is where I’ll admit that our timekeeping system at work confuses me – we used one system for years where it was broken down into .25 – so if I wanted to take an hour and a half of leave, I’d submit a request for 1.5 hours. Now the new system is broken down into fifteen minute increments and it’s throwing me off lol. 1.3 hours instead of 1.5.
But I dont think thats the problem this study partner has haha.
@Miranda – Every morning walking the pups my husband and I make each other laugh with weird/funny stories we’ve seen online. Today, your step-daughter’s retraction demand made the cut. She’s the hero we needed today.
These are the things that make we want to move to the woods and live the rest of my life as an eccentric swamp witch. I actually feel despair when I see this stuff.
Same regarding despair, and same bundling off to the woods with my herb garden.
Throw a penny in your caldron and make a wish for Gen Z because the kids are definitely not ok.
TBF, what does Gen Z have to be okay about? Climate change? AI taking their jobs? Encroaching global fascism? All of these are great reasons to lose yourself in a book, that’s for sure, but man do I feel for these kids. WTF have we done to their world?
I agree, Mightymolly.
Add to your list the armed invader drills they had to do regularly at school. And the fact that Trump has been the singular political figure for most of their lives.
My Gen Z kiddo had a writing club with her friends in high school, and they are voracious readers, particularly of fantasy — understandably as reality is crappy for them.
@MightyMolly- Nothing. They have nothing to look forward to. I said below that there are many reasons why I don’t have kids and the future looking beyond bleak is at the top of the list.
I too am an eccentric swamp witch, on the inside. I despair at people not reading and being proud of it. What does this person do when they’re sad, or bored? Reading fiction is so important in developing empathy, what about that?
Sadly, young people may look up to her …..she has a platform and she really is eschewing vapid values and habits….
OMG, I just realized she’s from where I grew up in NJ. I figured it out bc I knew Ashley Dupre, her stepmom, was from Monmouth county/Wall. She went to Red Bank Catholic High School (RBC). Trust me, they required students to read books. It’s $$$, but that does not mean she actually read them…
I’m sure she means she’s never read a book she wasn’t forced to. But I’ve always been confused by people who’ve done well in school while lacking critical thinking skills. I think some people have the capacity to retain only the information necessary to reach a goal and nothing more.
So, that’s why she looks dead behind the eyes.
Yikes. Imagine not ever reading Judy Bloom or Beverly Cleary or Toni Morrison and James Baldwin? That’s unfortunate.
It’s scary. You find yourself in reading. You find the world through reading. You discover truths and facts through reading.
LOL how did Gen X go from reading VC Andrews in fifth grade to producing children who don’t know how to turn pages in a book? Is it BECAUSE we read Flowers in the Attic when we were 11? or that (in the US) there’s no more “read x amount of books and get a free personal pan pizza?”
The fact that I read Flowers in the Attic at age 11 is probably one of a few reasons why I don’t have kids lol. Those books were so amazing and very “age inappropriate” according to my mom. I’m pretty sure she let me read them because as a avid book reader, she was just happy to see me reading anything.
Influencers do not speak for entire generations. My son and his friends are Gen Z. They read. They create music and art. They have jobs. Oh, but they are not on social media, except to promote their band. Maybe that’s the connection. Influencers don’t have as much influence as some people think. They are just loud. What’s on social media, or the internet as a whole, does not shape the entirety of real life. It’s good to remember that. It’s also good to remember that the demographic categories we use as shorthand to discuss actual human beings are based in marketing. They don’t express the whole of an age cohort. And they certainly don’t define individuals. This inane woman does not speak for my son or my students (university level).
True. I was making a sarcastic joke. My Gen Z son is literate with a college degree for an occupation that requires reading and critical thinking. But I’m allowed to make a joke. Perhaps it is my trauma from reading the whole Dollanganger series when I was way too young.
Thank you for this viewpoint @Charlotte, I refuse to believe this woman is the norm
Of course, you are not wrong but every single generation goes through this at some point. It’s just the natural initiation into adulthood as older generations try desperately to figure out why the youngest generation is the way they are.
I was born in ’78 and I well remember movies like Slackers and Reality Bites depicting Gen X as a bunch of lazy, disaffected, disillusioned cynics who had no interest in working a 9-5 job. Millennials were accused of prioritizing avocado toast and Starbucks over saving money. Well before that there was the “Me Generation” that was raised on Reagan, obsessed with making money and materialistic goods–and themselves.
At any point in history, the youngest generations gets accused of being lazy, self-absorbed, stupid, materialistic etc etc.
It’s just what we do as a society but for some reason, people always get butthurt over it.
Flowers in the Attic made us perverts, not dullards!
Millennial here who also read Flowers in the Attic at 11—and WISH that book came with any sort of info in the front cover with content warnings. Not the best way to first learn about sex, with rape and incest. Scarred for life.
I was in my 40s before I realized our whole generation had read those books. I spent decades thinking my friend group had gotten away with something by sneaking “adult novels” into our rooms. Yeah they were always written for tweens/teens to think they were getting away with something. 🤣
Never underestimate the power of a personal pan pizza.
(Thanks for that memory lol)
Ollie’s Mom, “I’m old, so I’ll be gone soon enough.” Please don’t say that. Women are told their “expiration date” is 40. It used to be 30 (for Hugh Hefner it was 27). But that’s all bullshit propaganda. However old you are, it’s alright and you still have a lot to live, enjoy and contribute. Don’t sell yourself short. The only person who should speak your words is the Orange Dictator (80 years old), whom, I grant, may live forever. In that case, a death from old age would be a gift to the world.
She doesn’t read books? I would recommend to her this song by the late (and brilliant) Kristy MacColl.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=szqKLEV9h7A&list=RDszqKLEV9h7A&start_radio=1&pp=ygUma2lyc3R5IG1hY2NvbGwgd2hhdCBkbyBwcmV0dHkgZ2lybHMgZG-gBwE%3D&ra=m
Does not reading books age you because looks like she’s 35?
I love my books but finding time to read is harder than it was 20 years ago, before social media, smart phones, and all the other distractions we have nowadays.
Nothing beats a good book though.
Never reading a book isn’t something to look up to or brag about. I’m sickened that this was put in an article and she is being given a platform.
She probably thinks it’s cute and girly not to have ever read a book. I remember Victoria Beckham made the same claim, but then walked it back. She’s also claiming that the privileged few gorgeous young women who can’t/won’t read a book (this reminds me that the Wales can’t or won’t read either) will succeed over less gorgeous, older, brainy women. And in this climate she’s probably right. So I guess it is a flex for the fortunate few. I’d also guess that Trump and his whole brood can’t/don’t read. The little people in the background probably do.
Agreed, but it will only serve her for a couple years. If she is over 18 then her appeal to much of her audience is already dwindling rapidly. Looking cute isn’t a long-term plan, folks.
I think she’s lying for clicks. You don’t get through college without reading something.
Ew, is she a part of this Christo-fascist movement to keep women uneducated and out of the work force or something?
Why on Earth would you admit this publicly? Can we please bring back shame?
“Prostitute” ain’t it, Kaiser.
What age is gen z? I dont feel that I know that many of them. I know a lot more Gen alpha (my kids’ generation) and reading seems to be hit or miss. There are some kids who were reading Throne of Glass in second or third grade (Me: “Ivy, has your mom read those books?” “nope!”) lol. I was mostly impressed that she made it through the whole series. And then there are others who act like reading is the devil’s work.
My boys are in between so I try not to overly push it. I have definitely noticed though that there is a split between kids who don’t think reading is cool and so don’t bother and kids who love to read – and I think that split was always there. I think the big difference now is with smartphones and the like, its easy for the nonreaders to get by because they can just look up summaries of classroom reading or whatever, so you can get through school without every reading an entire book.
1197-2012
WOW that’s a big gap!!!
(lmao I know you meant 1997 but its still cracking me up.)
So my son was 2012 so he’s right on the cusp between Z and Alpha but he considers himself alpha I think.
Hahahah I didn’t even notice. But you know, a lot of people couldn’t read in 1197 so it tracks 🙂
I’m sick of stupid people with power and influence.
I’m going to go with the generous assumption that this was just hyperbole. I mean, it can’t possibly be true, right?
I am always amazed when I see the stats about people not reading a single book in a year. I cannot understand it. Books bring me so much joy and I learn so much from them.
I guess she’s out here proving the stats. How sad though. Why would you not read? Unless she’s dyslexic and has a hard time? But there are audiobooks!
I can be generous and suggest that maybe she reads e-books and not physical books?
But she can’t even name one that she’s read. You know?
Can’t believe I went to check this, but I did. She graduated from University of Miami, how did she not read a book the entire time?
that I can actually see depending on her major. I was a political science major so we read a lot of books (some novels and some political nonfictions, we never used textbooks that I can recall) and I took a few lit seminars that obviously required reading. My brother was a math/chem major and I don’t think he ever had one required book over four years.
Imagine proudly announcing you’ve never read a book, yikes!!!
Pretty pathetic, huh? You’d think she’d be embarrassed, but no …
What bothers me more is that she’s proud she doesn’t read. Also, I recall the Orange Dictator said he loved uneducated people (because they all voted for him). Being uninformed is ignorant (not stupid) and I believe the ignorant are more susceptible to lies from nefarious people ( see said Orange Dictator). So it’s not too late for her or anyone else to start reading. Please do, Alix.
*I’m slowly putting my head in my hands, sobbing how did we get here*
I’m old, so I’ll be gone soon enough but I worry for the future.
I love, love, love to read. She’s missing out. This isn’t the flex she thinks it is.
GI heard this somewhere and will pass it on: a woman needs good parents from birth to 18. She needs good looks from 18 to 35. She needs a good personality from 35 to 50. After 50, she needs money. So maybe Alix will start reading at 35?
The fact that this is an influencer is bleak. I’m glad others shared their experiences with young people who actually read to give me a little hope.
Ollie’s Mom, “I’m old, so I’ll be gone soon enough.” Please don’t say that. Women are told their “expiration date” is 40. It used to be 30 (for Hugh Hefner it was 27). But that’s all bullshit propaganda. However old you are, it’s alright and you still have a lot to live, enjoy and contribute. Don’t sell yourself short. The only person who should speak your words is the Orange Dictator (80 years old), whom, I grant, may live forever. In that case, a death from old age would be a gift to the world.