She definitely seems to be stepping away from YouTube at the moment as she hasn't uploaded a video for 2 weeks despite being back at home for the half term and she just seems quieter than usual. I mean I don't know what happened at Oxford during Hilary Term but IMO something has happened for her to stop uploading and I don't think it was just down to a lack of motivation.
Ruby Granger #45 "Um" -- Ruby Granger, 2023
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Ruby tends to go AWOL when she doesn’t want to share things, and she doesn’t share things when there’s a risk that she might not do particularly well. She never really talked about or shared her Oxford application because she didn’t want to have to share not getting in. She tends not to talk about anything where she isn’t guaranteed success, which is to her detriment and to the detriment of her channel because most people would have sympathy and be interested in struggles.
She‘s so stuck in this desire to be a ‘child genius‘ with endless, effortless academic success that it‘s really stunted her growth into adulthood. She‘s obsessed with wanting truly impossible things - to never grow up, to be a real-life Matilda - that she can‘t see all of the things that she does have that make her so incredibly fortunate, and that actually give her a chance to live a life that is inaccessible to most people. I‘m not suggesting that privileged people don’t have struggles but even the way she deals with those annoys me - she‘s in a position to bypass waiting lists and get the best support but she avoids doing that to live in her fantasy world. It’s sad.
I'm pretty sure they end not talking to each other after Exeter year one, she's like the others, she grew up and probably couldn't keep it with Ruby at this point.
I'm always surprised in the choices Ruby has made with her social media content, or lack thereof. For someone who loves to study and read, so, so much, I find it strange that she never joined up with actual online group readathons and only did her own, reading mostly children's books; never got on the annotating bandwagon, which is so big among the cottagecore bookish community; in spite of having tons of money, never did much in the way of interesting book hauls; chose to create her own weird planner, but never got into actual journaling and collecting of stickers, ephemera and proper scrapbooking. These are all popular themes on YouTube, TikTok and Insta, with large followings of mostly girls in their late teens and early 20's. I assume she has no artistic qualities for such hobbies, because now she is late to the game and seems to have no real interests of any kind. I always find snooping around her Pinterest to be very interesting. Right now she is posting more fashion, which she still hasn't grasped, and has created a new board called 'Beautiful Melancholy", which is basically a bunch of pictures of sulking teenagers. Really strange and depressing. Is this her new vibe? It certainly fits all her latest vlogs. I've also noticed her Pinterest boards and in her life, everyone is usually blonde, blue or hazel eyed, and fair complexion. Considering the variety of people in the world and of the students at Oxford, is she a racist? I have never seen her with any friends of colour or various ethnic backgrounds. She seems to only even attempt to friend people of a very western persuasion. I'm sure you get my meaning.
I think completely stepping away may not be an option that can be done just in the spur of the moment. Since she has management and regularly posts sponsored content I can imagine that she is bound by contracts for a certain amount of time until the contract either runs out or is terminated.
I imagine (personal opinion!) she's just really overwhelmed right now by the demands of her Masters degree and that Yt content will start back up once the program is finished.
I dont think individuals have a responsibility diversify their personal pinterest. Racism is a bold accusation based on her pinterest
She did do that nature journal last year. Did she sell copies of that, or was it just her poetry? She also sold copies of her poetry, and her limited print run did sell out irrc.
She clearly has a few things she enjoys doing: nature rambles, writing poetry, I thought she might become a birdwatcher at one point, but the anorak aesthetic isnt quite what shes going for. She enjoyed making that nature journal. I imagine, if she gave it a go, she would enjoy flower pressing.
None of these, really, are career skills. Any poet/writer who does not have familial wealth to skate along on forever has a day job. I have met one real life, properly published poet in my time, and he works for the Telegraph as a literary journalist.
I've mentioned her here before, but the Lady in the Library is an excellent example of a youtuber in the literary academic space who is not shy about talking about failures. She's very refreshing compared to Ruby, without being overly... Dramatic like Unjaded Jade.
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She also clearly has some historical interest. If she put a bit more effort in, she could create some interesting women's history pieces.
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To add to this: her shoes are very chunky as well as being in a child like style. Makes her feet look a lot larger than they are, which adds to that juvenile look.
She’s given it a go though, she clearly enjoys it much more than the poor flowers do
also semi-ot but since we’ve talked about Roobee’s lip-smacking - I recorded and edited my first podcast today and to my horror, I apparently make a similar noise when I start a sentence
luckily, they show up as tiny little blips on the track so I was able to edit them out without too much effort.Please don’t do what so many people do nowadays and edit out all of the gaps between sentences. Ruby does it sometimes and it’s one of those things that drives me insane and it genuinely makes me incredibly anxious whenever I hear it.also semi-ot but since we’ve talked about Roobee’s lip-smacking - I recorded and edited my first podcast today and to my horror, I apparently make a similar noise when I start a sentence
omg definitely not! I shortened some unnaturally long pauses between words (where I was thinking) but I know what you mean and I can’t stand it either!
I wasn't basing it just on her Pinterest account! I am talking in general. Have we ever seen her hanging out or making friends, interviewing anyone of another ethnic background? Because I don't recall ever seeing it. I mean, I have always lived in the countryside of the US. From first grade on I always have had friends and neighbours who were Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, the Caribbean, Kenyan, etc.. This was the norm. It still is. Now married and in another town our own neighbourhood and friends are always diverse. Is it not so in the UK? I am genuinely interested.
We’re not as diverse as a country. I remember reading that about 89% of the UK population are white. That was 5+ years ago but gives you a sense of demographics.
Ruby is also from a very white area and went to a small private school so you can assume largely white too, based on where she lives. So I don’t think it’s odd or strange that she doesn’t have a diverse friend group. She also doesn’t have that many friends anyway so it’s not that surprising.
I went to a wedding last year not far from where Ruby is from. The guests were 99% white and it wasn’t a small guest list. It’s just the nature of where the groom and bride are from.
You could say that she should try to diversify her friend group but I would argue that doing that intentionally- seeking out diverse friends because they’re not white- is even worse. See unjaded Jade who seems to revel in her “exotic” friends…
To put the weird diversity of the UK in perspective: I went to a large secondary school in a small town in the UK, and of 1600 pupils, you could have probably got all the non-white ones in a single classroom of 30. The UK tends to have some places that are very very diverse, and the rest is like whitesville. So much so that non-white people here tend to overestimate how diverse the UK is (which is not very).
You're not wrong in her uni content being very non-diverse tho. UK unis have a lot more diversity (met my first Jewish person at Uni, made friends with non-white people for the first time) than your standard town.
Thank you. Yes, I agree, I certainly don't want her to make it a hobby or an aesthetic. I have never been to the UK and really just have no idea what it would be like in the average town or school. I just know the universities are very diverse, especially places like Oxford and Cambridge, but here that is definitely a norm. The US is known as the "melting pot" and it is just normal to have, in many places, a lot of diversity, so you simply grow up with that and we always have friends from a wide variety of ethnic background, faiths, etc.. It is no big deal, so I found it odd that she never mixed or befriended anyone from a different background than her. And sad, too, to be honest. You are right, it isn't like she has a massive circle of friends, but mine isn't huge, yet still, way more diverse than hers.
Is this video new? How did she get to meet Daniel Handler?
I also think that Ruby tends to seek out friends who are reaaallly similar. She's never gone out of her comfort zone when it comes to befriending new people. They're all middle-class, white, bookish, female, similar age, etc. So while I don't think Ruby is overtly prejudiced, I do think she's biased towards a very similar demographic. The fact that her environment (home, school and uni) has always been very white and moneyed makes it easier for her to remain in those friendship groups. Obviously, universities are diverse places, but Exeter and Oxford are two of the least diverse (I think)*
*correct me if that's wrong, but Exeter and Oxford always had the reputation of being less diverse.
I wonder if this is the reason she went back to Oxford for one night.
I just reread this and saw how you met your first Jewish person at Uni. This really puts things in perspective for me.
When I was in Elementary, Middle and High School I had friends, from Grade 1, who were Jewish, Italian, Irish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Indian, Japanese, Cuban, Guatemalan, and from various African countries. We lived in the country. Cities are even more diverse. This was and is the norm.
In the neighbourhood my husband and I live in now we have 2 families from Greece, 2 from mainland China, 1 from Taiwan, Lithuania, 2 Jewish families, one couple with English and Norwegian background, 3 with Irish background, 2 from India, and ourselves. We did have a lovely black family but sadly they ended up divorcing and both left the town, though he occasionally comes back to visit with everyone and seems lonely. I'm French Canadian, Scandinavian and Iroquois, my husband is Irish and English. We are all one happy family. This is why I found it strange that she never had friends of other ethnic groups or people of colour, or indigenous friends. I can't even imagine it that way. Interesting. Thank you all for enlightening me on the situation in the UK.
To add a different perspective, I grew up in suburbs that were 95% white, so it was not exactly a diverse area. I had one Jewish friend and a couple of friends of different ethnicities in school, but the widespread diversity you describe was not the norm there since most of the people I knew were white and I was just friends with the people who I had classes/clubs with, so I do think that it depends on where you are in the US as well.
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