Yeah, in those days being a maid in a country house would've been one of the best jobs you could get as a woman, even though it was still pretty horrible from a modern perspective. You'd get free food (usually whatever was left) and board (tiny room in a cold basement), and would get the chance to make a lot of connections, I'm sure. Plus, if the family liked you and you weren't a bad servant, they might even keep you on for multiple years! I think Ruby should've touched on the homesickness aspect and the loneliness of it, though - as a scullery-maid it was basically in your job description to be quiet and solitary, and most servants would've been miles away from their homes and families for extended periods of time. It was really demanding and tiring, and your luck would depend on the family you worked for in most cases. God forbid you get a horrible family who mistreat their servants...
Ruby Granger #5 Counting Her Ad Money With Closed, Grateful Eyes
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Filthy nails, filthy house, broken furniture, and wearing tattered tights when she clearly can afford to buy new ones. Ruby needs to quit the look books and clean her hands! Quit the 15 hours study sessions and clean her house! I wouldn’t be able to stand living in a dirty cluttered house. Right now she’s proof that money can’t buy class... or hygiene apparently.
I think this is part of the issue, that Ruby’s analysis is so basic that it’s meaningless. There was a hierarchy in household staff and what a servant was called, and what they actually did, would vary massively between households. A scullery maid in a large country house would have a very different (and probably more defined) job than a scullery maid in a more middle-class household or a smaller house. Ruby doesn’t point out these subtleties and doesn’t even start to address how the role and status of servants changed massively across the era.
When I was doing my A-Levels I did some voluntary work with a museum’s education team. It was a Victorian museum (sort-of) and there was a classroom where the kids would get to pretend they were at school, and write with an ink pen and so on. Then we’d do an activity with two trunks, one with the clothes and possessions of a rich child and one with the clothes and possessions of a poor child, and the some of kids would dress up and we’d all have a grand time pointing get out the differences. Ruby’s videos remind me of that level of analysis, but these kids were seven and eight ...
When I saw Ruby preparing the tea tray I was half expecting a clip of her bringing it to the "lady of the house", aka her mum propped up in bed, in a role reversal on the previous Victorian video 
I don’t think an old house is really a reason for such mess. My family and I live in a very old terraced house and whilst I do agree that they are dusty and they are prone to holes and the sort, dusting, vacuuming, moping, polishing and using some cleaning hacks makes the house spotless. Furthermore, there are loads of videos online showing how to clean and repair old homes for very little.
For someone with as much money as Ruby, who not only comes from a rich family that afforded private school for two children, but has a steady flow of income from being a landlord, YouTuber and through her a student loan (she mentioned it in the video where she announced that she is switching her degree/explaining the process) having a house in such state is completely inexcusable imo. Especially with her whole productivity brand.
I’m just thinking how cold those tiles must be in the kitchen - and Ruby is wearing just tights that look to be no thicker than 30 denier, so, how are her feet not freezing? It’s like 0 degrees centigrade in the UK at the moment. 
She's method actingI’m just thinking how cold those tiles must be in the kitchen - and Ruby is wearing just tights that look to be no thicker than 30 denier, so, how are her feet not freezing? It’s like 0 degrees centigrade in the UK at the moment.
With how out of date all her videos are, for all we know it may have been filmed in augustI’m just thinking how cold those tiles must be in the kitchen - and Ruby is wearing just tights that look to be no thicker than 30 denier, so, how are her feet not freezing? It’s like 0 degrees centigrade in the UK at the moment.
Probably the heat from the aga keeping the floor warmI’m just thinking how cold those tiles must be in the kitchen - and Ruby is wearing just tights that look to be no thicker than 30 denier, so, how are her feet not freezing? It’s like 0 degrees centigrade in the UK at the moment.
that's the major issue i have with her videos - if she's really interested in that time period than I don't think it's weird to make educational type videos and use some cosplaying footage as B roll but she seems to literally do no real research on anythingI feel if she wants to make these sorts of educational videos they would work better as general discussion/lecture type things - like for instance she could role-play as a teacher teaching about a time period. That way she could be far more flexible - e.g. addressing the length of the period and the ways in which wages would change, the different roles servants would have rather than just the one. She could also provide more information about how servants were mistreated + the actual hardships they would face - it's impossible for her to properly display those things in this type of video, because it would get very dark very fast and she has a young audience to think about. I agree that this feels more like an opportunity for her to act than to educate. If she were 'teaching' the material, you wouldn't get all the issues with her obviously living in luxury pretending to be a servant, she could just deliver the information. It wouldn't be anywhere near asaesthetic
The state of their home is also a sign of privilege. If Ruby was working class and lived in a council home people would constantly comment on how untidy her home was, but the second you’re upper class you get a free pass
The hot chocolate made with water brings back memories of school camps where we only could make Milo (I live in Australia) with hot water and it was the most disappointing thing I had ever had. Imagine being a kid who dislikes camping and being told you could have Milo as a treat that night and then being given watery brown disappointment.
Pretty sure Swiss Miss has dehydrated milk powder in it, but Ruby uses just straight up cocoa powder with waterMe, an American who always drinks my Swiss Miss with water:
Well now we know why Erimentha waters down hot chocolate with cold water lolPretty sure Swiss Miss has dehydrated milk powder in it, but Ruby uses just straight up cocoa powder with water
I love Jack Edward’s book videos. They’re incredibly informative and you can tell he spends so much time researching and putting together
She really is the epitome of middle class scruffy... Just evidence from her childhood photos she’s shown confirms this; where her Mum would put her and Martha in mismatched clothes, stripy Boden tights / long socks with dresses and different colour odd shoes. Middle class scruff is a look, un brushed hair, dirty teeth, covered in dog fur (which Ruby is). Usually it would be because parents would prioritise school fees but we all know Ruby and her family are not hard up.
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Yes agreed! I absolutely have my issues with Jack Edwards (similar levels of unaware privilege), but when it comes to books I’m entirely unsurprised he got a first in English - and from Durham, one of the best English courses in the UK. He reads a far more diverse set of literature, and talks about what he’s read in a far more interesting and analytical way. I also feel like he isn’t aiming for the same audience as Ruby - his videos feel like they’re targeted at people around his age/uni students at least, so when he discusses books he isn’t hamstrung into needing to simplify for 13 year olds, which I think Ruby is.
30 seconds or so into the scullery maid routine and these are my initial thoughts..;
- Why is she wearing a collar with a jumper that DOESN’T need a collar?
- Reference to the video not wanting to be seen as “romanticising” the hard work the maids did. Been reading here Roobee, huh?
- Overall smug attitude and smile/laughing when talking about the hard work they did. Because we all know deep down she thinks she would be above that if she lived in this time period
- States it didn’t seem appropriate to do the upper class routine and not a maid one. No ROOBEE, you’re doing it because it’s an easy way to make a quick buck and doesn’t require a lot of effort. You can’t even run your own book club properly and instead have admins to run it properly.
- HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE AN EDUCATIONAL VIDEO ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING WITH THE AD MONEY FROM HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY?! (I still can’t let this go...)
- Why is she wearing a collar with a jumper that DOESN’T need a collar?
- Reference to the video not wanting to be seen as “romanticising” the hard work the maids did. Been reading here Roobee, huh?
- Overall smug attitude and smile/laughing when talking about the hard work they did. Because we all know deep down she thinks she would be above that if she lived in this time period
- States it didn’t seem appropriate to do the upper class routine and not a maid one. No ROOBEE, you’re doing it because it’s an easy way to make a quick buck and doesn’t require a lot of effort. You can’t even run your own book club properly and instead have admins to run it properly.
- HOW ABOUT YOU MAKE AN EDUCATIONAL VIDEO ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING WITH THE AD MONEY FROM HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY?! (I still can’t let this go...)
I was bothered so much by this too. The jumper neck was visible above the collar and it did not match the collar line (not sure if that makes sense lol). It looked so weird and random.
Ruby gave off a lot of hints to her shabbiness in this video imo. The collar, the hole in the sock, the unironed apron (it looked as if it had been balled up at the bottom of a drawer for the past 5 years), the broken furniture, the dirty sink, mopping the floor in tights...
I agree.
Also, interested in your opinion of Jack. I’ve gotta be honest I don’t find him particularly problematic but maybe that’s just because I’m judging him on a scale of Ruby/Jade.
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