Influencer Hina Says They Started Posting BookTok Content After Seeing a Rise in 'Anti-Intellectualism' Online (Exclusive)

Meredith WilshereSun, June 28, 2026 at 7:59 PM UTC

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Hina in a book storeCredit: Courtesy of Hina -

Hina began creating TikTok content in 2021 to promote their music and later shifted to focus on books

They credit their success to evolving content, including their "Read like an Ivy League" series, inspired by intellectual trends

Hina feels a deep responsibility to their community as a POC, LGBTQ+ creator and values mutual growth with their audience

Hina's social media content has gone through many iterations over the last five years.

The creator, who goes by they/them pronouns, now has over 1.7 million followers on TikTok, and tells PEOPLE they first started their account in 2021 at their sister's suggestion while looking for ways to promote their music.

While testing different styles and figuring out the type of content that resonated with them most, they went viral.

HinaCredit: Courtesy of Hina

"At that time, there weren't a lot of lesbians that I saw on TikTok. I also noticed there was a hole in the market for lesbian fashion, lesbian interests and lesbian comedy," Hina shares. "I was like, 'Oh, let me really tap into this niche here.' Then I went from language learning content to lesbian stuff, and then now I do mostly books."

While they have tapped into several different niches over the years, the "common weaving through everything was that storytelling was always at the forefront of my content."

"I've always been a big reader, and where we're at now, I've grown up with the platform as I've matured and changed as a person; my platform has as well, which is a really cool thing about making content for a living," Hina shares.

"People will become interested in you, but there's such a high turnover rate with interest that you have to be always evolving to keep an audience and grow a new one," they add. "I've had the same number of followers on my page for years now, and people have come and gone. What has helped me is the constant evolution."

One way they've tried to keep their content fresh is by understanding trends and countertrends.

"Two years ago, I was sitting with myself, and I was in this mid-transition process with my content," they reflect. "I noticed that at that time, anti-intellectualism was really ramping up."

After so many years as a content creator, Hina has learned that for every trend, "there's an equally powerful swing in the other direction, the complete opposite direction."

"I'd sort of foreseen that intellectualism was going to be the new response to anti-intellectualism," Hina explains.

HinaCredit: Courtesy of Hina

So, the BookTok influencer decided to create a series called "Read like an Ivy League," where they take the Ivy League curriculum and share it with their audience, making it digestible for TikTok and people of all backgrounds.

Aside from just the Ivy League curriculum, they also share book recommendations from all corners of the literary world.

"I wanna make things that I'm proud of ultimately. I know that in my heart I'm earnest, and so whether or not people read my earnestness isn't really a consideration for me; I go into it sharing books I genuinely read because I like to read them," they explain. "If other people like what I read, then they like what I read, and then they can trust me based on the things that I already like to read."

They say that because reading is so time-consuming, it would be hard to sustain if they didn't love it.

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"It also would be really hard to talk about. When you're excited about things, and you're excited about talking about books, people sense that in you, and I think they trust you based on those things," Hina shares.

For Hina, creating content, reading and being a community facilitator are all in symbiosis with each other.

"I don't really see them as separate spheres. I see them as one thing that's feeding the ecosystem. The reading fuels the content. The content fuels the community. The community fuels the content, and then it's this perfect circle," they share. "For me, there's not really a need for balance. I think it's embedded into the DNA of the ecosystem."

Given that connection, Hina "100%" feels like they have a responsibility to their community.

"Any content creator that would argue otherwise, I think, shouldn't be a content creator. All of these books have been afforded to me because of my audience," they explain. "When you are a POC, LGBT, an immigrant, when you're all these things, people also look to you to be a voice because there is a spotlight on you. It's a different pressure that I think white creators don't really face."

HinaCredit: Courtesy of Hina

"If there's a world event going on, it's like, 'Can you talk about this?' They're not really pressuring other creators to talk about it. They're pressuring people like me to talk about it," they continue. "Because they trust not only the fact that I would, but also they look to me to do something about it, and they've platformed me."

They share that because their audience has platformed them, they feel it is their "responsibility to them to make them proud."

Hina notes that all of these considerations need to be taken into account when navigating where they want to go with their content, such as which brand deals they take and what to promote.

"No matter what, I've stuck by my principles, and I've done what I can to try to make my community proud. I owe them everything you see, everything that I am; they created me," Hina tells PEOPLE.

The most rewarding aspect, however, is that people "will occasionally come up to you, and they'll tell you about something that you've done that they're like, 'Wow ... I was really moved by this. I was really touched by this, and it made me feel X, Y, Z.' "

While they have made an impact on people's lives, it's been reciprocated.

"On the less obvious side, it's made me really comfortable with myself, and I'm really happy I started this career in my mid-20s instead of my early 20s because my sense of self was already pretty solid when I started the career, but obviously growing," Hina shares. "It's hard if you are a young person who starts doing content and your identity is wrapped around the content."

"What has been really rewarding for me is that no matter where I've shifted in the ways that I've shifted, I've felt like myself and I felt embraced by my community regardless of the version of myself that I've been," they add. "The content I make now is profoundly different from what I used to make, and people are still here and watching me; this is still my job. That's really rewarding, and it's given me a lot of confidence to be myself, and in a lot of ways, it's been mutual. A lot of people tell me, 'You helped me be myself.' I have the same thing back to them as I also feel like I've been able to be myself."

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”