The thing is, getting that knowledge of just how privileged you are comes from growing up and mixing with lots of different types of people, and Ruby hasn’t really done that. I think it’s expecting a lot to expect a relatively sheltered 20 year old to understand just what privilege means, and honestly, if you compare her to some of the other studytubers she does at least seem to recognise that she is wealthy and no everyone can live like she does. She has acknowledged some of her privileges in her videos and at least she doesn’t get defensive about it like some others (*cough Jack and Jade cough*).
One thing the pandemic has shown me is just how little some people know of less privileged lives. I’ve seen it a lot at work, with our awfully middle-class senior managers sat in Zoom meetings in what’s clearly a dedicated home office, talking about how nice it is that they live in an area where they can get out for long walks in the country or a good stroll round the garden. They genuinely think that everyone lives like that and really, really can’t understand why some of our staff are struggling and are struggling more as the pandemic goes on. The lower paid staff in rented accommodation with no access to the outdoors, the staff who can’t afford to shell out for lots of home office equipment and even if they did, they’d have nowhere to put it. The single mums (and dads!) trying to teach at home and still work a full day, the people in bedsits and bedrooms in town centres worrying about money. They just don’t get that whilst we’re in the same storm, we’ve all got very different boats. Knowing that grown adults don’t get this makes me less irritated with young people like Ruby when they don’t understand. At least they still have a few years to learn!
), I counted how many gifts she got: including the contents of her stocking, and all the consumables (because they are all branded and therefore expensive), she received 38 presents. Two more than Dudley Dursley got for his 11th birthday, and 30 more than I got haha.
