Ruby Granger #22 I can’t relate to Sun Tzu, and neither should you.

[EmmaWsucks]

Ali Abdaal makes up for having semi-useful content by being unbearably smug and arrogant though They’re all trash pretty much.

What person in the public eye isn't smug/arrogant?
You have to be smug and arrogant to pursue a public-facing career in the first place...name one YouTuber who is kind and humble

 

[Griftwood]

What person in the public eye isn't smug/arrogant?
You have to be smug and arrogant to pursue a public-facing career in the first place...name one YouTuber who is kind and humble

There are degrees of smug, and he’s up there. You have a point, but you haven’t been here very long and you’re choosing super weird hills to die on so far.

 

[EmmaWsucks]

There are degrees of smug, and he’s up there. You have a point, but you haven’t been here very long and you’re choosing super weird hills to die on so far.

I have been lurking here for a long time but I was too lazy to make an account until now.
Wdym weird hills?

 

[EmmaWsucks]

There are degrees of smug, and he’s up there. You have a point, but you haven’t been here very long and you’re choosing super weird hills to die on so far.

All the studytubers are smug/arrogant af
Anyone more humble won't start a youtube vlog to give advise to others

 

[3calico3]

What do you think will happen after university to the Blakeney/Ruby partnership? On the one hand, Ruby will no longer have any use for Blakeney, after she has used all her critical reading notes. On the other hand, she has nobody else in her life.

Personally, I think it will not end well. I just hope Blakeney has the sense not to get into a rowing boat with her in open water...View attachment 990656

I think once Ruby is done with Exeter, we'll never hear of Blakeney again apart from a passing "I wrote a letter to Blakeney" once a year in a random vlog.

 

[CatCafe234]

I think once Ruby is done with Exeter, we'll never hear of Blakeney again apart from a passing "I wrote a letter to Blakeney" once a year in a random vlog.

Ruby writes an awful lot of letters but never shows herself receiving any …

 

[3calico3]

Ruby writes an awful lot of letters but never shows herself receiving any …

That is very true, and a bit sad if that's the case. No one wants to be the friend who puts in way more effort than they get back.

 

[opal73]

I expect Ruby and Blakeney will probably go their separate ways after university. I think 90% of their relationship is actually transactional for Ruby. She's found someone that's willing to put up with being on camera occasionally so Ruby can prove to the world that she has at least one uni friend
and she's someone Ruby can copy off of so she doesn't have to fully put in the work, do the readings, and form her own thoughts. She also seems to have of a few friends of her own that Ruby can pretend are also hers when it's convenient.

I can't think of anyone she's still friends with from school or that she spends time with when she's home with her parents.
There's Felicity and Verity, the twins of her parents' friend who are a few years younger than her that she's been on camping trips with. There's Molly Mortimer, whose parents are close with the Boneses since they were very little. I don't really count her though. Then there's her younger cousins who she pretends are her friends. Then there's her studytuber "friends" but they also don't count as friends I don't think, seeing as it's mainly their management that pushes them to interact and Ruby and Jade have so little in common anymore.

It's sad how little genuine friendship she has in her life. She just seeks out a lot of empty praise. She doesn't have to be a social butterfly like Martha, but maybe if she was most honest about who she is and wasn't so focused on crafting a persona of herself she would be closer with people.

 

[braginskayas]

There are few certainties in life, but one thing you can be sure of is that Ruby Granger will always be twirling in fields.

Every time Ruby posts random footage of herself frolicking in the fields I think of that infamous Theresa May "wheat fields" quote.

 

[xoxoxo13]

What does Blakeney gain from her friendship with Ruby?

 

[GrayNovember]

What does Blakeney gain from her friendship with Ruby?

I wonder the same thing! Maybe she has a plan to use Ruby (and to a lesser extent, Molly) as a springboard for building her own YouTube channel?

 

[CatCafe234]

What does Blakeney gain from her friendship with Ruby?

Publicity - promotion for her own book? Also maybe cheaper rent, who knows? Maybe she likes pretty much living alone at uni? I’ve said it before but I think there are some similarities between the two of them and I suspect that living together enables some of the behaviours. Birds of a feather and all that …

 

[EmmaWsucks]

I wonder the same thing! Maybe she has a plan to use Ruby (and to a lesser extent, Molly) as a springboard for building her own YouTube channel?

Maybe Blakeney is just really agreeable and tolerates Ruby for the lols ... maybe ruby provides blakeny entertainment?
But tbf Blakeny and Robee seem quite similar...they're both white posh girls with possible EDs who like hanging out with people similar to them ... so birds of a feather stick together? and blakeny is too agreeable to ditch roobee

 

[GoinDowntown]

What does Blakeney gain from her friendship with Ruby?

She probably get a lot of free stuff. Ruby gets gifted a lot of things she doesn't need, (I remember a whole freezer full of prepped meals?) and maybe tickets to things Ruby would'd go to, perks like that?

 

[Ilaariaa]

It's sad how little genuine friendship she has in her life. She just seeks out a lot of empty praise. She doesn't have to be a social butterfly like Martha, but maybe if she was most honest about who she is and wasn't so focused on crafting a persona of herself she would be closer with people.

I think this is precisely what is wrong with Ruby.
A lot of things about her that we've criticized her for would be fine if they weren't simply elements of the persona she's desperately trying to keep up and that she refuses to step out of. Having long, unkempt hair is fine, it's not like she's harming anyone with it. So is heavily depending on your parents and going home so often.
But the issue here is that it's likely Ruby has never even considered the alternative, because she's terrified of it. It's not like she has tried other hairstyles and decided that this is the one she likes best. She's worn it this way all her life and she's terrified of trying something new, because it would mean accepting change, growing up and stepping out of the 1940's schoolgirl persona she's molded her identity after. And that is how she is with everything in her life.
Now, of course, people don't like to hang out with someone who is constantly in cosplay. It gets tiring really fast to deal with a 21 year old who acts and looks and lives like a 12 year old, especially when it's painfully obvious she's putting on an act and she won't compromise or try to understand anything that doesn't 100% gel with her persona.
Ruby thinks anyone who doesn't like her or thinks she's weird is just jealous or a bully, in reality they are just unwilling to play along with her fantasy. You can't expect everyone to love you or like you no matter what as if they're your parents or sister. Social relationships require mutual interest, and you can't force someone to be interested in you without trying to mold yourself to them a little bit.

 

[buflesse]

I know Holly Gabrielle is annoying but I watched her latest story where she looks at new vegan products with her mum and she just comes across as really 'normal' compared to Ruby, she doesn't pretend she's always shopped there because it's her very favourite brand, she's literally like, hey I was sent some food, check it out.

 

[marypoppinsyall]

Why is she so obsessed with Matilda?? I swear anytime there is a picture or poster thing about it she does this pose lol

it’s about childhood, she probably sees herself as a cross between Matilda and miss honey and us lot as miss trunchbull being horrible bullies

Slightly off topic but I’m fairly sure she did that as a power pose in an old morning routine video or vlog (if I can find it I will link)

 

[Daredevil]

 

[TheLadyTea]

I wonder the same thing! Maybe she has a plan to use Ruby (and to a lesser extent, Molly) as a springboard for building her own YouTube channel?

In Ruby's vlogs, Blakeney doesn't appear at all invested in being on camera. So, I'm not sure she would want start her own channel. If she were going to do that, I feel like she would be actively trying to endear herself to Ruby's audience.

 

[gossip_guy]

In Ruby's vlogs, Blakeney doesn't appear at all invested in being on camera. So, I'm not sure she would want start her own channel. If she were going to do that, I feel like she would be actively trying to endear herself to Ruby's audience.

Yeah, Blakeney has no social media presence, has no YouTube channel and seems low-key annoyed when Ruby shoves the camera in her face these days. I don't think becoming an influencer is on her agenda.

Her book was non-profit with all proceeds going to charity, and she didn't publicly advertise it in any major way, so I can't for a second see her friendship with Ruby being based on furthering her writing career. She never goes with Ruby on gifted event trips, and 95% of the gifted stuff Ruby gets doesn't seem like it'd be any use to Blakeney (Miss Patina hand-me-downs don't seem like her style).

I feel like anyone in her life would quickly come to realise that Ruby is a narcissist who doesn't want anyone else to be the centre of attention and befriending her to share the spotlight and further your own career will have incredibly limited success. (See: Molly, whose association with Ruby has served no major, long-term benefit and presumably only damaged her reputation amongst the fanbase she already built.) Even for the videos Blakeney seemed happy to be in, Ruby whittled her presence and anything she had to say away to nothing, because Ruby's gotta be the star.

Which I think highlights one of the many major problems that Ruby will never address: The only time she comes off as remotely relatable on-camera when she's sharing the screen with other people, like Blakeney or her sister, because she visibly reins in her smarter-than-thou robotic renaissance faire reject routine and acts like a vaguely normal human being.

That's a sign that Ruby's probably much less of an unbearable, twirling fuckwit around other people in reality. So Blakeney probably just genuinely liked spending time with her at first and did so less and less the more obsessive and annoying Ruby gets, so now she's just likely biding her time until graduation, takes Ruby's presence in small doses and keeps to herself as much as she can.

Ruby's loaded, so she's probably very reliable with things like rent and bills, and Blakeney, who seems infinitely more independent and outgoing, gets a house to herself for the vast majority of the year and only has to pay half the rent for it.