Marina Orlova is a Russian-born artist and philologist, best known as the creator of the YouTube series HotForWords. She studied art at Stupin Art School, graduating at 17, and earned two degrees in philology (Russian language and world literature) from Arzamas Pedagogical School.
After moving to the United States in 2002, she launched HotForWords in 2008. The channel explored the origins of words and phrases in a fun, educational style, reaching over 500 million total views and 2 million monthly views. She was recognized by The New Yorker as the “world’s most successful philologist” and “world’s sexiest philologist,” named No. 1 Sexiest Geek by Wired.com, and cited by Cosmopolitan as a top 3 YouTube channel.
Orlova published a book HotForWords, HarperCollins and appeared 12 times on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, on The Early Morning Show, and on Last Call with Carson Daly. She was featured by G4 TV, The New York Times, ABC News, Moscow Times, Bloomberg, Complex, and Der Spiegel. She later transitioned from YouTube to focus on painting, performance, and video art, exploring memory, language, and culture.
Her painting Birthing a Bomb was awarded 1st Prize at the London Art Biennale in 2023
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