Is there any brave soul who can watch this and give the rest of us a run down of what she says?
I’ve had to turn it off within 30s of her talking coz I’m just dying of cringe
.
She just rambles for what feels like an hour about how JAN Z are ACKSHUALLY all snyowkflyakes and that's a good thing!
Snowflakes are only around for a short time and are precious and beautiful and impermanent, unlike Gen X or Millennials who have achieved immortality, I guess?
Snowflakes melt! But snowflakes are wonderful and ethereal and you just want to freeze them so that they will last forever, and Ruby januinely hasn't lost the thread and thought she was on a panel about staying 12 forever.
(After this, the doubled-up audio mostly drowns her out, so it's really tough to make out what she's saying.)
Being a snowflake means that people are open about their feelings and what bothers them! This is part of being the social media generation, because people are always VARRY HONNAST and VARRY KOIND on social media (JOHST LOIYKE RYOOBEE!) and the stereotype that social media only shows a curated, version of life is NYOT TRYOO at all and hasn't been for many years, and Ruby knows this because she is a YOOCHOOBA!
And TikTok is VARRY GUD because it's more informal and people are always more honest about everything there, too (JOHST LOIYKE RYOOBEE!). And trigger warnings are good, because they allow people to avoid triggering content and it's easy to add them (JOHST LOIKE RYOOBEE DOES!). NATURALLY we want to help people - we AWWHL WANT TYO HALP PEOPLE and we want to avoid hurting people (JOHST LOIKE RYOOBEE DOES!).
The first rebuttal/follow-up question asks Ruby if she thinks there's anything lost by sheltering Gen Z or them embracing this "snowflake" identity considering the notion that strength comes through struggle and adversity. Ruby rambles something simplistic and childish about how we shouldn't promote or enable suffering as suffering is bad (again, coming from Ruby, who has spent 7 years promoting toxic productivity and ED habits with zero trigger warnings or response to criticism...yikes).
And then the chair of the panel says, "Thankyou, Ruby, that's very...
good? 
" and struggles to say something nice, like a teacher trying to be incredibly polite to a student who answered a class question with unrelated incoherence, but at least they participated? And then he takes her mic away. (They only have two mics so the panel had to share, but it comes across as a very funny 'Mmkay, you have nothing of value to say, you won't be needing this...' moment.)
Khushal speaks next and the audio issues get worse, but he has much more interesting things to say - the panel are engaged, taking notes, the audience are listening intently, vs the blank stares and confusion Ruby got.
I skimmed ahead to the next time Ruby speaks - hilariously it comes just after Khushal is giving a damning speech on the dishonesty and lies prevalent on social media and people's willingness to absorb and believe the lies they see and accept them as truth and to conform to and imitate them.
Ruby is grinning and nodding along with recognition through the whole speech. "YAS! OIY LIE TYO PEOPLE AND GAT THAM TYO IMITATE MOIY FICTIONAL, DAMAGING HABITS AWL THE TOIYME! HAHA!" The audacity.
She's allowed to speak again and the panel goes from this when listening to Khushal charismatically say coherent and interesting things about social media consumption:
...to this when Ruby starts umming and ahhinhg and yammering about how the wahrhld is varry big and connackted:
The body language says it all. From rapt attention to utter disinterest almost immediately. After she's done rambling, Bobby Duffy (the chair) very pointedly mentions she's basically just covered stuff discussed in his and Linda's (also on the panel) book and the points are "more
fully reflected" in the book (he jokingly mentions that the book is for sale at the back). It reads very much as him noticing that Ruby tried to parrot their own material and butchered it. Busted.
She next speaks during the last Q&A section. Someone in the crowd asks about attitudes towards neurodiversity in the workplace and the generational divide in attitudes towards work and discussing mental health issues. They ask for workplace advice regarding this.
The panel let Ruby answer the question - someone with no empathy for others and zero real experience in the workplace. I couldn't tell what she was saying due the the volume of her voice and the audio issues, but I can't imagine it was anything worthwhile judging by everyone's body language and how quickly Linda takes the mic away to steer to conversation to something succinct and coherent.
After that, Ruby next talks during the final wrap-up comments and umms and ahhs her way through some gibberish about how social media existed in a vacuum it'd be really good. What does that even mean?!
The entire panel looks distinctly unimpressed, and (not for the first time while Ruby's speaking) Rabbi Janner-Klausner looks dismayed and turns away to give Khushnal another pointed look.
I really hope she didn't apply to KCL for her Masters because this should be the last nail in the coffin for those chances. Presumably they invited her to speak because she seemed impressive on paper and this is what they got, I doubt they'd want to make the same mistake again.
none of us celebrate christmas it was so weird
Love the title.
Always nice when expertise comes in handy outside of work!
