Modelland TikTok Revival: Tyra Banks’s Book Returns Nov. 3
Photo: David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped).
The Modelland TikTok revival has turned a book that flopped in 2011 into a reissue. Tyra Banks announced on October 6, 2026 that Modelland, her young adult fantasy novel, is going back into print, with a re-release date of November 3 and preorders open.
Banks credits online fans, and in her own announcement she points straight at TikTok. This guide covers what Modelland is, how the Modelland TikTok revival unfolded, three TikTok videos from the wave and what is still unknown. Everything here is attributed to Banks’s own post or to named outlets.
What to know:
- The book: Modelland is a fantasy novel by Tyra Banks, first published April 26, 2011, per Yahoo’s explainer. It went out of print.
- The revival: clips of a promotional song from the book spread on X and then reached TikTok in mid-2026, per Yahoo.
- The re-release: after the Modelland TikTok buzz, Banks told Entertainment Weekly the official re-release is November 3, and her Substack post says preorders are open.
- The gap: no public figure shows how big the trend was on TikTok itself, so this article claims no view counts.
In this article
What Modelland Is
Modelland is, in Banks’s own words, “my bonkers fashion fantasy fiction”: a story set in “a secret place where only seven girls a year become supermodels.” Entertainment Weekly’s summary, syndicated by Yahoo, says it follows a teenager named Tookie De La Crème who is swept into “a magical world of fashion at a mountaintop modeling academy.”
The novel came out in 2011 from Del Rey Books and was meant to start a series, per Yahoo. No direct sequel was ever published. Banks says in her post, which she ties to the Modelland TikTok attention, that the book “went out of print” and that “for years, it was just… gone.”
How the Modelland TikTok Revival Happened
According to Yahoo’s June explainer, the revival began when clips of the book’s promotional song circulated on X in mid-2026. The song, “4 Chicks in Green,” was released in 2011 to promote the book. Yahoo reports that users then posted screenshots from the book and its unusual setting, character names and premise.
Yahoo adds that “the trend eventually spread beyond X and reached platforms such as TikTok,” where many videos featured people reacting to the song’s production. In other words, the Modelland TikTok revival was one wave of a wider online one, not a TikTok-only event.
Banks’s account of the Modelland TikTok moment is about TikTok specifically. She writes that she was getting messages telling her, “Girrrrrl. Your wackiest failure is all over THE TikTok,” and that her phone “was blowing up.” Later in her post, a line reads, “This isn’t just some lil TikTok chaos.”
Modelland TikTok Videos: Three Examples
These three Modelland TikTok videos were posted in June 2026, when the Modelland TikTok revival was at its height, and they show different sides of it. This site did not check any view counts for them.
A book review
@opothos reviews the novel and says the video “BARELY scratches the surface of this book,” listing sacrificial prophecies, women with roller skates for legs and cats with tetanus-laced claws.
@opothos Mind you, this BARELY scratches the surface of this book. There are sacrificial prophecies, women with roller skates for legs, cats with tetanus laced claws and so much more🫠 LOL Book Discussed: -Modelland by Tyra Banks #booktok #bookish #modelland #tyrabanks #bookreview
♬ original sound – Daniel
Credit: @opothos/TikTok.
The meme explained
@kelley.heyer’s video is captioned “wdym you don’t know about the four chicks in green,” a reference to the song’s best-known line. The on-screen text jokes that the sound had only 314 videos at the time, a reminder that the sound’s own TikTok count was small in that moment even as the book trended elsewhere.
@kelley.heyer wdym you don’t know about the four chicks in green #tyrabanks #smize #modelland
♬ original sound – Mocha Mami✨
Credit: @kelley.heyer/TikTok.
A cappella
@shyahmusic sings the song a cappella, captioned “Singing the national anthem of Modelland,” with a second person beside them.
@shyahmusic Singing the national anthem of Modelland #modelland #tyrabanks #fyp #acapella @Wesley Preis
♬ original sound – Shyah
Credit: @shyahmusic/TikTok.
What Tyra Banks Says
Banks’s Substack post, titled “Y’ALL RAISED MODELLAND FROM THE DEAD,” lists what she says fans did. In her words, people drove across state lines looking for copies, dressed up like the “Four Chicks in Green,” and hunted down old copies. She says copies went for “hundreds of dollars” on eBay, including one listed at $2,000. These are her claims and were not independently checked.
She also writes that DJs remixed the song, that a fan in Japan did a “full-on, dressed-up translation performance,” and that a theater troupe in New York turned Modelland into a musical at the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival.
Banks says she did not orchestrate the revival: “I didn’t orchestrate this madness.” She muses about a sequel and a movie, then says she called the editor she worked with 15 years ago, which led to the reprint.
The November 3 Re-Release
Banks told Entertainment Weekly the official re-release is on November 3, per the Yahoo-syndicated EW interview. In her Substack post she says Modelland is “officially available for preorder.”
The reissue is not a plain reprint. Banks writes that she was told she could not add any more pages, so she and the publisher squeezed the existing text to free up space. She then filled the freed pages with new material, including what she calls “new lore” and a new “Pros & Cons Salon” section that “wasn’t anywhere in the original MODELLAND.”
For other pop culture revivals on this site, see how Taylor Swift gamified a release on TikTok and the TikTok Halloween travel guide, which includes BookTok-inspired destinations.
What We Do Not Know
- TikTok’s share of the revival: Yahoo says the trend started on X and spread to TikTok. No source reviewed gives a count of Modelland TikTok videos or views.
- Sales: the sources reviewed give no sales figures for the original book or for preorders.
- Sequel or adaptation: Banks jokes about both in her post but announces neither.
- Where it will be sold: the sources reviewed for this article do not name retailers or formats beyond preorders.
Some details in this story, such as the eBay prices, the fan performances and the new pages, come from Banks’s own post. They are included as her account, not as verified facts.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Modelland TikTok revival?
The Modelland TikTok revival is the 2026 online resurgence of Tyra Banks’s 2011 novel Modelland. Per Yahoo, clips of its promotional song spread on X and then reached TikTok, and Banks says the attention led to a re-release.
When is the Modelland re-release?
Banks told Entertainment Weekly the official re-release is November 3, 2026. Her Substack post says preorders are open.
Who wrote Modelland?
Tyra Banks wrote it. It was first published April 26, 2011 by Del Rey Books, per Yahoo.
Did Tyra Banks start the Modelland trend?
She says no. In her post she writes that she did not orchestrate it and credits fans for raising the book “from the dead.”
Is the new edition different from the 2011 book?
According to Banks, yes. She says she added new material in pages freed by tightening the original text.
Sources: Tyra Banks on Substack, Entertainment Weekly via Yahoo and Yahoo.
