Ruby Granger Wiki

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  • Erimentha Parker's To Do List

    Chapter summaries, courtesy of @Satisfying Click and @Auga
    Overall summary (spoilers)
    Chapter 1
    Chapter 2
    Chapter 3
    Chapter 4
    Chapter 5
    Chapter 6
    Chapter 7
    Chapter 8
    Chapter 8b
    Chapter 9
    Chapter 11 (no chapter 10)
    Chapter 12
    Chapter 13
    Chapter 14
    Chapter 15
    Chapter 16
    Chapter 17
    Chapter 18
    Chapter 19
    Chapter 20
    Chapter 21
    Chapter 22 and Chapter 23
    Chapter 24 and Chapter 25
    Chapter 26 and Chapter 27
    Chapter 28
    Chapters 29-31
    Chapter 32
    Epilogue
    Bonus content - recap of Erimonster's house points

    Deleted house announcement video

    https://m.bilibili.com/video/BV1J4411L7XA?from=seopage

    What does Ruby’s dad do?

    He’s an options broker. He has several companies, at least one of which is registered in the British Virgin Islands (no pesky taxes!). They’re loaded, and the home they live in is part of a literal manor that’s been split in three.

    What’s the deal with Molly?

    Molly Jones is a small youtuber, who is in recovery from anorexia and used to make videos about her process of recovery, but has since branched out into other (mostly bookish) content and deleted her older videos. She became friends with Ruby’s university housemate Blakeney, and visited them in Exeter in June 2021. The three got on famously, sharing an interest in both tea AND books (!!!), but that seemed to come to an abrupt end when Molly unfollowed Ruby on Instagram after one of Ruby’s typical ED baiting posts of half a piece of dry toast as a meal, and posted on her stories about having seen something very triggering and how unfollowing toxic people was a power move and self-care. This was very clearly about Ruby. Molly has backpedaled since, and they’ve met (with Blakeney) in London since then, and Ruby is apparently writing letters to her, so we’re to presume they’re just as great friends as ever.

    Does Ruby really read as much as she claims?

    No. Ruby tends to read exclusively children's books, short stories, essays and poetry. The relatively short length of these types of literature mean that she reads dozens of individual books in the same time it might take someone else to read one full-length novel.

    Ruby's own "readathon" videos show that she often considers an entire collection of essays completely "read" if she's just read one individual essay or story. She also tends to compile several days' worth of footage and pass it off as being a single day, giving the appearance that she read more in one day than actually happened.

    She's also given ample appearance that she does not read many of the books she claims to, and often struggles to provide any more information than you'd find on a back cover blurb or Wikipedia synopsis.

    Ruby has also in the past openly admitted that she does not like to read subplots involving, for example, teen drama and romance. She admits that she will skim and skip large sections of books if they do not appeal to her.

    Ruby seems to get a lot done in her daily vlogs. How is that possible?

    It's not.

    Her "daily" vlogs are actually compiled from footage recorded across multiple days/weeks/months.

    Ruby has been caught far too many times to count lying about the timescales of her "daily" vlogs.

    Continuity errors are her greatest enemy, and Ruby has been caught out by the following in numerous videos:
    • Nail polish spontaneously changing multiple times throughout a single day.
    • On-screen clocks and watches contradicting Ruby's claimed time of day.
    • Outfits changing an average of 7 times a day.
    • On-screen planners showing several wildly differing dates throughout a single "day".
    Ruby knows people are aware of the above, and tends to now include lost of passive-aggressive comments when she changes her outfit for the 63rd time in an afternoon. "And OF COURSE, I change my outfits A LOT." It doesn't make it any more believable.

    Ruby also relies heavily on the old "tell, don't show" shortcut; she says she did something time-consuming, but it conveniently happened off-screen. (It never happened.)

    So don't feel bad about what you can get done in a day. Ruby isn't cramming 72 hours of productivity into a single day, she's just lying about it to try to get a hollow ego boost from people on the internet.

    What's the deal with Ruby and the Holocaust charity?

    (Strap yourself in, there's a lot to cover.)

    In January 2021 - not long after taking money from the NHS to promote basic hygiene and Covid safety on Instagram - Ruby (and Jack Edwards, possibly other influencers) posted on their Instagram to highlight the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day itself.

    People quickly started to ask questions, mainly "Why does this post have "AD" in it?" and "Were you paid for this post?" And, yes, unfortunately this wasn't done out of the goodness of her heart to raise awareness for a charity near and dear to Ruby. It was a paid ad, and she happily accepted money from a Holocaust charity to promote a cause she otherwise wouldn't have paid any mind to.

    She quickly received massive backlash.

    And then she apologised and gave the money back, right?

    Nope. She posted an extra comment not to admit fault or apologise, but to essentially say "I wasn't going to say anything because I don't want to make a big deal of all the charity work I totally, absolutely do when nobody's looking, honest, but the money I got paid for this post will be "reinvested" into Holocaust education and anti-bullying awareness." No need to thank her.

    People quickly demanded details of her dubious explanation. Ruby claimed that she would be working on a grand project to build permanent Holocaust memorials in "underfunded state schools", and didn't want to announce this previously until it was all confirmed. But it was absolutely a real plan and definitely not just made up to avoid giving the money back.

    So how many of these school Holocaust memorials has she built so far?

    Zero. For a year after announcing the dubious project, Ruby deleted comments and blocked anyone who asked about it. On the rare occasion she responded, she excuses and delays but no actual updates on the memorial project. As late as November 2021, Ruby was assuring people that it was all deep in the works and we'd be hearing more mid-2022.

    So it's all looking good then?

    Well, not so fast... in January 2022, a few days before Holocaust Memorial Day 2022, Ruby posted a series of Instagram stories. She wanted to "clear up the confusion" regarding her charity swindle.

    She claimed that, despite having the bestest of best intentions, at some unspecified time after accepting the money, she "retrospectively realised" that she shouldn’t be telling the charity how to spend their money and decided to scrap the project, allegedly return the money and start her own memorial project funded with her own money after she graduates. But she assured everyone that the money "OF COURSE" had now been returned.

    She provided no further details or proof that any money was returned or that there was every any project in development.

    There was no information as to how much work had been completed on this project that she'd claimed to have been hard at work on for a year.

    There was no details as to how much of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's time, money, labour and resources were wasted on this vanity project.

    There was no explanation as to why she didn't just return the money in the first place and fund it with her own money.

    Phew. But at least that's it for the Holocaust controversies, right?

    Umm...no.

    So, shortly after the above claim that she gave 2021's HMD money back, Ruby celebrated HMD 2022 by putting up an Instagram post advertising her new project: A Holocaust memorial page on, of all places, Notion.

    It was, Ruby claimed, intended to be a learning resource for people to educated themselves about the Holocaust and share their own stories regarding the subject.

    To share your stories, you merely had to sign up to Notion. Or, as an alternate avenue, you could email Ruby and she'd add it to the Notion page for you, although there was every possibility that she'd apply her English "skills" to it beforehand and rewrite it before uploading it.

    Ruby neglected to point out that she'd been sponsored by Notion and paid to advertise their service in the past, so the whole endeavour felt like a Notion sign-up drive disguised as a charity endeavour.

    The Notion page itself was a collection of plagiarised content from other, more reputable sources. Ruby has reworded and rewritten them, and in the process had added several errors and historical inaccuracies.

    Ruby had also uploaded a video of herself performing a..."dramatic" reading of the story of Franziska Mikus.

    Franziska's is a harrowing story of unimaginable horrors suffered at the hands of the Nazis. But Ruby performed this reading with the skill and delivery of a high school drama prima donna; it was filled with over-the-top "acting" that was all brow-furrowing and head-bobbing with her fake Emma Watson accent cranked to the max, and she took an absurdly long dramatic pause between every sentence.

    It also featured loud and distracting background noise as her family slammed doors around the house. Despite this, Ruby did not record a second take.

    The video was unintentionally hilarious and was not a proper way to appropriately acknowledge the person's traumatic and important life story in any way.

    So she apologised and removed the page, right?

    Nope. Her Instagram post was swarmed with negative comments. Ruby ignored them all and swiftly moved on to her next charity scam, waiting only a day to post an ad for On the Edge (a conservation charity) which raised similar questions about her being paid for charity ads.

    Without acknowledging the backlash, she quietly replaced the "dramatic reading" video with a narration-free video of her handwritten version of the story.

    That sounds better. It was better, wasn't it?

    I mean, only in the way that stepping in a bear trap is better than getting hit by a train.

    Ruby's handwritten version of the story was full of punctuation errors which made the depiction of this heart-wrenching story almost as cringeworthy and laughable as her audition tape-style reading.

    After people raised questions about whether these Holocaust videos were monotised, Ruby at first played dumb, saying she had no clue what videos they were talking about and that she would never profit from the Holocaust, despite already having done that before.

    After Tattle users pointed out that the side channel she uploaded them on was too small to monetised, Ruby coincidentally leapt to offer the exact same explanation. She also added that the 2021 HMD charity money was returned "last year", contradicting her January 2022 claim that she'd just returned it and half her stories about her still having the money and using it to fund memorials as late as the end of November 2021.

    Without fully addressing the 2022 Holocaust controversy or apologising at all, she quietly deleted the Notion page in February 2022.

    So that's it for the controversies?

    Oh my, no. There's still a tonne of problematic patterns and history where Ruby’s concerned.

    Controversies

    Food/ED Content

    From late 2020 throughout 2021, coinciding with her decision to move back home and study remotely for the rest of the academic year, Ruby displayed dramatic, worrying weight loss in her content.

    People raised concerns for her health, and also raised issue with Ruby’s increase in problematic content.

    Ruby's content became full of irrelevant footage of very tiny meal portions consisting of bizarre "food" combinations (like frozen peas in porridge or porridge with carrot shavings) bodychecking montages and displayed many red flag ED traits.

    Her daily vlogs featured no substantial meals and only tiny servings of porridge or toast paired with an obsessive overreliance on exercise and replacing meals with water. Her study recommendation videos encouraged drinking excessive amounts of water and eating small snacks, but never recommended substantial, nutritious food.

    After months of being politely asked not to keep posting content like this, and of being reminded that it is dangerously irresponsible to encourage such unhealthy eating habits to a young, impressionable audience, a lot of whom may be struggling with eating disorders, Ruby ignored it all and kept doing it.

    Eventually, in July 2021, the backlash got to the point where Ruby could not ignore it and addressed it in Instagram comments with a hand-waving dismissal to say there was nothing to see, her weight loss wasn't an issue and she wouldn't speak of it further. She increased her habit of reuploading month-old footage and photos as new to gaslight people, obfuscate her weight loss and make it seem like she was looking much healthier.

    She continues to post triggering food content, shoehorn footage of absurdly, dangerously small and bland food portions. Occasionally she will acknowledge criticism like it's the first time she's ever been made aware of it.

    On the most recent occasion, she was asked to stop posting irresponsible food content in all of her videos, including those unrelated to food. She wilfully ignored the criticism and claimed she hadn't uploaded a food video in a very long time, but would delete her old Victorian food videos, intentionally missing the point. She didn't address it further and still features problematic food content constantly.

    On many occasions, Ruby has accidentally left visible browser tabs open in footage of her laptop during videos which showed that she had been watching video content focused on and encouraging ED habits and binge eating, and appears to have a fascination with "thinspo" content. Ruby has blurred these sections of her videos without any comment when she has been asked about them.

    Anti-Bullying Content

    Ruby has, for many years, had a fascination with the topic of bullying. She has uploaded many videos for 'Anti-Bullying Week' each year. It's a worthy and important cause, but Ruby's interest in it is questionable, to say the least.

    Her own stories of bullying have been inconsistent and almost entirely unbelievable. Early on, she claimed that she had never been bullied herself, but had an interest in the topic.

    Around 2016/2017, she read a lot of middle-grade books about bullying while writing her own middle-grade book about bullying: 'Erimentha Parker's To-Do List'. This book, ironically, gained criticism from many who read it due to the protagonist (a thinly-veiled, barely-fictionalised version of Ruby) coming across far less likeable and more of a bully than the actual bullies in the book.

    Coincidentally, upon publishing her book, Ruby "remembered" that she herself had been bullied at school. Her stories have been suspiciously vague and wildly inconsistent. The period in which she was apparently bullied has varied from Year 7 to Year 11, depending on what day she talks about the subject. The most extreme example of "bullying" that she could recall was being told that her sweater didn't look great, or that people didn't want to be friends with her.

    For Anti-Bullying Week 2021, Ruby uploaded a video which detailed her tips for dealing with bullies.

    The video featured more of her inconsistent, incredibly vague and washy bullying experiences. Her discussion of the topic gave the distinct impression that she could not see the distinction between valid criticism and bullying. Her advice included recommending that children who are being bullied strongly reconsider before informing appropriate adults, and to instead practice stoicism, like Ruby says she did, and just let the bullying wash over you and not bother you.

    Naturally, this video (which Ruby pledged all the ad revenue from to Unicef) was instantly subjected to massive criticism from people who rightfully pointed out that the suggestions given were dangerous, irresponsible showed no perspective or forethought and was offensive and harmful advice to give to people in much worse situations than Ruby's (likely fabricated) experiences, or who may not be able to simply take control of their own thoughts.

    Ruby deleted the video amidst the backlash. She has yet to provide any proof that any ad revenue from this or other anti-bullying videos with similar charity pledges, was donated. She had blocked and deleted comments from people who have mentioned this.

    Veganism

    Ruby claims to be a dedicated vegan, and for most of her influencer career, proudly identified as vegan in her Instagram bio, has a separate vegan Instagram account and would mention being vegan often in videos.

    On many occasions, Ruby has shown herself eating non-vegan foods and supporting non-vegan companies. These include buying and eating foods and products containing honey, or ordering and eating the veggie burger at Five Guys, even though they openly display that their buns are made with dairy.

    She has also endorsed and advertised...

    PETA

    In December 2021, Ruby posted an Instagram post advertising a PETA campaign to stop cruel research experiments on mice at Bath and Bristol Universities.

    Ruby received instant criticism for endorsing and signal-boosting PETA, who as an organisation have a vast reputation for being the fucking worst, engaging in mass animal slaughter and casually spreading hate towards almost every marginalised section of humanity they can.

    Ruby's defence was...not great. She admitted to being aware of PETA's reputation, but claimed that she had to promote PETA's petition as they were the only ones talking about this issue.

    Ruby did not mention why she, with her hundreds of thousands of followers, couldn't raise awareness or start a petition herself.

    She claimed that despite their problematic history, they do a lot of good and despite signing their petitions, she "never donated to PETA, encouraged others to donate or actively promoted it as an organisation."

    This was quickly proven to be a lie. Ruby had previously accepted PETA-branded merchandise, like T-shirts and phone cases, and wore and used these often despite being aware of PETA's overwhelmingly problematic reputation. She used a PETA-branded phone case and showed it often in her content, knowingly advertising the brand.

    Ruby did not respond to or acknowledge this. She also conveniently ignored it when people pointed out to her that Exeter University - Ruby's own uni - also practices 'severe distress' animal research.

    Undeclared Ads

    Ruby has a storied history of either avoiding to declare her professional ties, conflicts of interest and gifted products when advertising products and services, or trying her best to hide it when she does declare it, making the "ad" text as tiny as possible and positioning it where it's easily missed.

    These include, but are not limited to:

    Notion
    Ruby was sponsored and paid to advertise the service in past videos. She continues to advertise it constantly (including as part of Holocaust charity content) without declaring this previous paid sponsorship.

    Miss Patina
    A fast fashion brand which specialises in Victorian-style faux-vintage clothes, Miss Patina have been sending Ruby free clothes for years. She often advertises their products in videos and 'outfit of the day' posts, neglecting to mention that they were gifted. She has often sold these gifted products on Depop for close to retail price, further profiting from the arrangement.

    In 2022, she announced a partnership with Miss Patina, wherein she was handed a paid modelling photoshoot and had a dress named after her (well, the "Granger" name she co-opted from Harry Potter, anyway), further cementing the conflict of interest. Despite this, she continues to post frequent undeclared ads for the brand.

    Bird & Blend
    Ruby features this tea brand in almost all of her videos and content, usually multiple times per video. She almost never mentions that they are gifted teas given to her for free. She also neglects to mention her long history of working with and advertising the brand, or that they have invited her to promotional events at their store. She has nothing but positive things to say about the brand and every single flavour of their tea, even those she seems visibly repulsed by on camera. In October 2022, Ruby announced that B&B would be releasing a tea that she'd designed, further cementing her conflict of interest with advertising the brand, yet still continued including undeclared ads for the brand in videos.

    Tea Pigs
    Another tea company which sends Ruby frequent gifted products, which she doesn't declare when including endorsements for their products in her videos.

    Perkier Bars/Misfit Bars/Random Snack Bars
    Ruby often shoehorns a snack bar from various brands into unrelated videos apropos of nothing. They're often brands nobody has ever heard of. Ruby claims they're her favourite, regardless of the brand. She does not mention that she has been gifted boxes of them in the past.

    Remedy Kombucha
    Kombucha company Remedy often gift Ruby with drink products, which she prominently features in videos with no disclaimer or declaration.

    Allplants
    Ruby unboxed a package from Allplants, a vegan meal service, which was filled with enough food to feed a family for months. She gushed about how amazing it all was, despite having not actually tried any of it. She thanked Allplants but did not clearly declare in any way that this was a gifted product/ad.

    Sixteenth Talent
    Ruby has often recommended, reviewed and advertised the books and merchandise of other influencers represented by Sixteenth - the same management agency as her. Her Christmas gift guides featured Jack Edwards' Jade Bowler's and Vee Kativhu's books. At no point did she declare her friendship with or management ties to any of them.

    She wrote a glowing review for Vee's book Empowered despite having clearly not read the book, having been gifted the book for free and been invited to a lavish book launch event party. She also shoehorned Vee's book in multiple videos. She claimed to have learned many Notion techniques from it as an excuse to talk about it in a Notion-related video, even though she had shown herself using those same techniques and tips in videos a year before the book was even written. At no point in the review or any videos did she declare her ties and conflicts of interest.

    This is a two-way situation, and Ruby's talent reps have been caught jumping into the comments section of Ruby's problematic posts to pose as strangers/fans and spam the comments with positivity to bury any legitimate criticism, making no mention of their business ties to Ruby and not responding when called out for it.

    Fable
    Ruby was gifted brooches from here before. She went on to advertise them in many later videos and gift guides without declaring that they were gifted.

    In August 2022, Ruby responded to a comment raising questions about her launching a partnership with Note & Wish - another store which have gifted her many items in the past, and for whom she's provided lots of glowing recommendations without declaring the gifted products or her relationship with the brand.

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    It was an obvious lie, and the defensiveness and denial in her comment proved especially hilarious, since Ruby immediately continued to feature undeclared ads for gifted products in her content.

    Giveaway Scams

    Ruby often runs giveaways on her Instagram for Pumpkin Productivity products. To enter, you generally need to comment and tag a friend into her posts, so Ruby can brag to her management that she got X number of views and engagement for PP marketing content.

    The unfortunate part for entrants is that Ruby never actually sends the prizes out.

    Every giveaway is run the same way. Comment. Tag your friends. The kicker: Winners will be contacted directly.

    Why? People entered the contest in a public comment forum, so there's no privacy concerns by announcing a winner publicly, and it's not like it's a high-value prize that they'd want to keep secret. It's cool for them, it's cool for other people to see someone actually won, and it's great publicity to have people posting about how they got your product.

    But Ruby hates charity. Can't stand it. She loves accepting money, can't bear to part with it.

    So winners are contacted directly so that Ruby never has to actually send anything and nobody can call her out because all entrants will just assume someone else won and was contacted directly.

    Ruby attempted to deflect from this after people started wising up to the scam and made sure to mention in videos that she was going to the post office to "post some giveaway parcels". Only no parcels were seen at any point.

    Pumpkin Productivity

    Pumpkin Productivity is Ruby's stationery webstore.

    Depending on how much controversy the business is generating at the time, Ruby will either massively inflate the success of the business and her role in is, or wash her hands of it and downplay the size of it to avoid responsibility.

    So, depending on the day, she is either the founder and it's a hugely successful business run by her, or a very tiny side hustle that other people handle the logistics of, so blame them, not her!

    In reality, Ruby does not own or run the business. It is owned and maintained by her management company, Sixteenth. They handle the logistics, they source the manufacturers and suppliers, they handle customer service, and so on.

    To cut costs, they use the cheapest, least-equipped option wherever possible, resulting in limited product ranges (Pumpkin Productivity is a stationery company that cannot offer pens or pencils for sale), poor quality materials, defective stock batches, major logistical problems and practically non-existent customer service. They also own and run Jack Edwards' business, Jack in the Box, hence the similar range of products made from similarly poor-quality materials.

    Ruby is mostly a glorified brand spokesperson, marketing assistant and product consultant for the company. She claims to design every product from the ground up and puts months of hard work into them, but there's very little evidence to support this and every new product is almost identical to the last.

    Each item is, according to Ruby, built to suit all her needs, so that she needs no other planners, notebooks and schedules. Naturally, she needs countless other planners, notebooks and schedules and the stationery the Pumpkin Productivity sells does not suit her needs.

    Ruby has shown plenty of flickthroughs and unboxings of PP's products, but has never made a video detailing her involvement in product design, the company, and so on, further reinforcing that she has very little involvement.

    Delivery Problems

    Ruby/her management release very few new products a year through Pumpkin Productivity and have months to prepare for each product launch.

    Even so, each product is released far too late to suit their purpose. Yearly planners are released mid-to-late December. Annual planners are released late July/early August. This last-minute release means there's very little time to actually get planners to people in time to start using them, especially with Christmas postal delays.

    Naturally, PP never change this, despite major delivery problems every year.

    Planner Defects

    Every product release comes with the fun mystery element of not knowing quite what will be wrong with your item, but you can be damn sure something will be!

    Reported wide-scale defects include:
    • Planners having months arranged out of order.
    • Planners missing entire months.
    • Planners falling apart almost instantly.
    • Planners arriving damaged and appearing to have been packaged and sent out in that condition.
    Whenever people encounter these issues and mention them in Ruby's comments, the response is always the same: Some variation of "That's very unusual, I don't know why that would happen. I will look into this."

    Even though it's not especially unusual when it happens with every product release to numerous people.

    Pricing

    Despite the poor quality and service of the products offered to her fanbase of regular students, Ruby/her management charge an extortionate premium for each product.

    A small strip of crumbled ribbon to use as a bookmark? £6.
    A short, flimsy notebook? £9.
    A planner equal to or less than the quality of something you'd get for free at Freshers' Fair? £16.

    Postage is extra, and according to Ruby, free domestic shipping simply isn't possible, even though most businesses, however small, offer a free domestic postage option.

    Despite the poor quality, service and ridiculously high prices, PP has managed to sell out of their planner products within a few days every year, up until 2021...

    The Great Planner Disaster of 2021

    With the release of Pumpkin Productivity's 2022 annual planner, Ruby assumed they'd quickly sell out and was openly wondering on Instagram if they'd ordered enough from the supplier to meet demand.

    Sure, nobody was stupid enough to buy the £9 Notebook they'd released, or the ribbons, but planners were always successful, right?

    Not this time. The sales of the planners were especially slow at release compared to previous planners, and that was before things started going completely off the rails.

    People who ordered on day of release began to wonder why they'd not had any shipping notification in days.

    Christmas was fast approaching, holiday postal delays were here and many people had ordered from overseas at PP's inflated delivery prices, and would naturally be waiting longer for delivery, so the sooner they shipped, the better.

    They queried with Pumpkin Productivity's customer service team. Nothing.

    They queried with Ruby in her comments sections. Ignored.

    Days went by and Ruby's Instagram comments filled with complaints and people chasing their MIA orders.

    Sporadic reports of people actually getting a response from PP's customer service team actually replying popped up here and there, but when they did, it was just vague assurances that they would ship soon. Maybe this week. Possibly next. Definitely before Christmas.

    A couple of people reported that they'd received shipping notices after complaining and threatening to speak to their credit card company to initiate chargebacks, but despite paying for tracked shipping, no tracking details were provided, making it impossible to see if PP had actually shipped anything.

    The overwhelming majority of people were still getting radio silence from PP CS - no dispatch emails, no replies to queries, refund requests.

    Meanwhile, Ruby was ignoring it all. And she was still advertising the planners wherever she could. On Pumpkin Productivity's Instagram. On her personal Insta. In videos. In her Christmas gift guide video. All with no warning that the warehouse wasn't shipping anything and that customers likely weren't going to receive anything before Christmas, if at all.

    After two weeks and no confirmed planners shipped and received, every post Ruby made on any platform was flooded with queries and complaints. Ruby chose this time to put up an Instagram post offering a whopping £3 off shipping. But only off international shipping. And only for new orders. And only orders over £30.

    Naturally, this was a shit deal regardless, but it was an especially noteworthy kick in the teeth for customers who'd bought planners on launch day, waited two weeks, still had nothing ship and were now being told that newer customers would get a slightly better deal. Of course, Ruby made no mention to these new customers that they'd likely receive nothing either.

    Ruby sent planners to all her friends and influencer pals so that she could repost pictures of them opening and showing off their planners to give the illusion that people were actually receiving them. She ran giveaways and actually sent the prizes this time just to have reports of people receiving planners.

    After overwhelming comments and complaints everywhere she went, Ruby finally broke the silence with excuses:

    "There was a problem in the warehouse." "There were staff shortages in the warehouse." "All orders were shipped weeks ago." "This affected very few people."

    There were no real apologies. No make-right gestures. No explanations for how/why a problem in the warehouse would affect Ruby's ability to not ignore all comments on the issue or why PP CS never responded.

    At this time, most people still hadn't received any shipping notices, aside from those who threatened credit card chargebacks and magically got their planners dispatched. Ruby went back into hiding again over the Christmas period.

    When she couldn't hide anymore and had to poke her head out to post some paid ads, Ruby started replying (weeks late) to all comments on her recent posts. On December 31st. Over a month after people had ordered the planners.

    She announced that she had "taken over" Pumpkin Productivity's customer service duties to get everything fixed, though since she's forever been vague and cagey about the extent of her involvement in the business, this didn't mean much.

    All planners had now been shipped, she claimed. The overwhelming majority of customers all got their orders very quickly, she lied. No postage refunds were offered. No partial refunds. Ruby's grand gesture was to offer people a PDF version of the planner for free. Y'know, something that would cost her nothing.

    People eventually received their planners and reported the usual mix of defects. Damaged stock. Planner layouts in weird orders. Ruby again notice that this was "unusual".

    Ruby is still struggling to sell that initial batch of planners, even three months later, after a £6 discount.

    Penpal Application Form

    In November 2021, Ruby posted an Instagram story encouraging her Instagram followers to pass along the address and details of their friends who might be having a bad day, so that she could surprise them with a letter to cheer them up.

    Ruby evidently did not either consider or care about the safeguarding and privacy concerns of encouraging fans (especially younger fans) to offer up personal details of other people without their consent or knowledge.

    Ruby also either did not seem to realise that if you're having a bad day, receiving a letter days or weeks later does little to cheer you up on the day in question, or this was a flimsy reason to get personal details of unsuspecting people.

    In December 2021, Ruby took her fan penpal idea up a notch and mentioned that she was working on a way for people to "opt in" to potentially get a letter and maybe some Christmas gifts from her as a Christmas surprise.

    Rather than set up a PO box, or arrange to include a letter or gift in random Pumpkin Productivity orders, or any number of better option, Ruby posted a Google Form for fans to fill out with their personal details in hopes of "winning" a personalised letter and/or Christmas gifts.

    The major caveat was that you had to be a Pumpkin Productivity customer, and Ruby would apparently grab your address details from your order if you included your order number on the form.

    The age range options included on this form allowed for applicants under 12, despite this being far too young to legally be a Pumpkin Productivity customer or be consenting to adults from the internet writing them letters.

    The question fields were oddly specific.

    "Do you like tea (I hope the answer is yes haha!)" - Yes/No (how???)/ Impartial (you obviously haven't tried the right kind 🙈)
    "Do you like old-fashioned things (Victorian, Edwardian, 1920s)?"
    "Do you celebrate Christmas?"

    The nature of the form raised instant questions and complaints about whether holding a prize draw open only to PP customers breached UK gambling/contest laws and Ruby showed zero regard for GPDR regulations or safeguarding concerns when making it.

    The nature of the questions also made it seem like Ruby has specifically made it to find young fans who shared all of Ruby's interests for her to become penpals with. When asked how she chose "winners", Ruby responded, "I just choose people randomly mainly," essentially admitting that it wasn't entirely impartial regardless of all the other major safeguarding issues.

    Following the complaints, Ruby did not acknowledge or respond publically, but quietly changed the form to remove the under-16 age ranges and add a vague disclaimer: "do not complete this form if you do not wish for your data to be stored for letter-writing purposes. You must be 16+ to fill out this form :)"

    When later discussing one of the winners she had selected in one of her video, Ruby remarked that the person picked was incredibly similar to Ruby, reinforcing the notion that Ruby has simply handpicked young penpals who were most like herself.

    Dishonest Sponsored/Paid Content

    Ruby has a proven tendency to accept paid sponsorships from any business and be far from honest about her opinions/usage of their product or service.

    She always highly praises the advertised product/service, going far above and beyond the required, objective ad copy provided to her, despite rarely, if ever, using them herself.

    Common things said by Ruby in sponsored content: "I love this SO, SO much", "I've ALWAYS used this" or "I've been using this for YEARS now".

    LG Gram Laptop

    Perhaps the most prominent example. Ruby has engaged in an ad campaign/sponsorship for LG which ran throughout 2021 and featured sporadic Instagram posts and stories. The ads focused around the LG Gram laptop.

    Ruby sang the praises and virtues of the LG Gram laptop, encouraging fans to buy one and offering up discount codes.

    After the initial ad post went up, Ruby instantly reverted to using her MacBook in the very next Instagram post and the LG Gram did not appear again until the next paid LG ad.

    Many commenters pointed out the dishonest nature of Ruby's praise and endorsement considering she never actually used the LG Gram unless being paid to. Ruby did not respond to these comments.

    In the most recent Instagram ad for the LG Gram, posted on December 9th 2021, Ruby looks pained and miserable throughout, and looks at the laptop with clear disdain even as she recommended that people buy one. Similarly critical comments followed. Again, Ruby did not respond.

    Karma

    Karma is a browser plugin which Ruby has featured in paid, sponsored ad segments in several videos. It's a plugin which offers up publicly-available discount codes for you to use when browsing online retail sites.

    It's a US-based business and the retailers that it supports are predominantly US stores, which makes Ruby advertising it despite the bulk of her fans being in the UK/Europe an odd decision.

    Whenever Ruby features Karma, she claims that she "always" uses it and has been using it for years, but Karma is never mentioned or spoken about by her outside of sponsored, paid content.

    Ruby wildly exaggerates the benefits and uses of Karma, claiming that it "ensures that you always get the best price when shopping online". This just isn't true. Karma does not ensure that you always get the best price when shopping online. Karma just ensures that you might get a publicly-available discount code for one of the select few stores that it supports.

    Her claims that Karma always provides the best deals online were instantly disproven; the orders she showed herself placing in her sponsored videos were substantially more expensive even after the applied discounts than a like-for-like order of the same items at several other common online retailers.

    Perlego

    Perlego is an online subscription-based library service for primarily nonfiction books and academic textbooks.

    Ruby was sponsored by Perlego on several occasions in YouTube and Instagram content.

    Again, she claimed to "always" use the service and claimed to have been using it for 18 months (at the time of her last sponsored video). This was only technically true; Ruby started making content 18 months prior to this claim, but aside from one instance (see below) she has never showed or mentioning it outside paid content, despite her study content heavily focusing on annotation of digital textbooks.

    As well as claiming to use it "so, so much", Ruby enthusiastically said that Perlego is a great alternative to other, similar digital annotation options, like Kindle, and is one of her "go-to tools". As well as never using Perlego outside paid content, Ruby has often shown herself paying money to buy digital copies of books on other platforms which were free with her Perlego subscription, revealing that she'd rather pay money than use Perlego herself.

    Following discussion about Ruby's dishonest coverage of Perlego, Ruby coincidentally featured a few seconds of footage of her using the service in her next unsponsored video. It gave the impression that the footage was intentionally featured to allay suspicions and criticism that she never actually used the service outside of paid ads.

    Ruby has not mentioned or shown Perlego in her videos since unless paid to.

    Cricut

    Ruby was sponsored by Cricut and paid to feature their Cricut paper cutting machine in her content.

    She remarked in the video that she'd been using it for a very long time and that "this cutting machine is so intuitive and easy to use!"

    In the same video, Ruby accidentally featured footage of her laptop showing that she had a YouTube instructional video open to show how to use the basic features of the Cricut, revealing that Ruby had no idea how to use it, clearly hadn't used it before and that she found the machine anything but intuitive.

    Charity Interests

    Ruby has displayed a predictable pattern of behaviour surrounding charities.

    She only expresses major interest in charities if there is a paid sponsorship or some kind of brand deal involved.

    Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

    Ruby accepted money to make sponsored ads for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, prompting mass criticism.

    Ruby claims to have returned the money to HMDT after a year of lying in an attempt to keep the money, but has yet to show any proof of this.

    (See HMD section above.)

    NHS

    Ruby accepted money to make sponsored ads about Covid hygiene safety for the NHS.

    This was during the early months of the pandemic when the underfunding of the system and the unfair pay of nurses and frontline healthcare workers was a major topic of discussion.

    Ruby did not respond to criticism for this and has yet to donate the money to the Healthcare Worker's Foundation or similar charity supporting frontline workers.

    Unicef

    Ruby ran content in partnership with Unicef for an 'Anti-Bullying Week' video, which was quickly deleted following major criticism (see 'Anti-Bullying' section).

    In the video, she advertised 'World Children's Day' at the request of Unicef. Her discussion in this section was filled with errors and showed that she had no interest in or awareness of the cause and had not done any research whatsoever.

    She erroneously proclaimed that 'World Children's Day' is on November 18th. It actually happens on November 20th every year.

    Ruby also noted her interest in Unicef's 'Changing Childhood Project' and bizarrely mentioned how everyone's aware of climate change and we're all "rallying for it", rather than against it.

    Despite taking a clearly lazy and disinterested approach to this supposedly professional advertisement for a good cause, Ruby pledged that all all revenue for the video would be donated directly to Unicef and encouraged viewers to watch multiple times and sit through all the ads to drive up the donation amount.

    Ruby has not shown any proof that she has donated any of this money to date. Whenever asked about how much money fans helped donate through the video, Ruby has deleted comments and blocked the users who posted them.

    Ditch the Label

    Ruby pledged that all money from her November 21st 2021 'Assumptions About Me' video uploaded during 'Anti-Bullying Week' would be donated to 'Ditch the Label' - an anti-bullying/mental health support charity for young people.

    She again encouraged viewers to watch multiple times and sit through all the ads to drive up the donation amount.

    Ruby has also pledged that 100% of profits from her Pumpkin Productivity 'Kindness' badge would be donated to charity.

    Ruby has not shown any proof that she has donated any of this money to date. Whenever asked about how much money fans helped donate through the video, Ruby has deleted comments and blocked the users who posted them.

    On the Edge Conservation

    On January 26th 2022, one day after receiving massive backlash for posting an ill-advised Holocaust Memorial Day post, Ruby posted an Instagram ad for On the Edge - a conservation charity.

    This post included a disclaimed saying "[all funds invested back to OTE]". The message implied that Ruby had accepted money and had (or would) donate their own money back to them to "reinvest it", much like she claimed she did with the HMD money.

    Naturally, massive criticism ensued in her comments, especially since she had yet to acknowledge the latest HMD controversy one post prior.

    Her comments were then flooded with comments from Instagram users trying to drown out the criticism with generic praise and compliments for Ruby. Many of these Instagram users were revealed to work for Sixteenth, Ruby's management company, and were posing as fans to try to dilute the critical comments on the post.

    Ruby responded to a few comments requesting proof that she had redonated the money. She claimed that she was unable to post proof as she "never actually saw the money from this campaign" and simply didn't accept the money they were offering.

    Ruby posted a video shortly after which also featured ads for OTE. In it, she defensively claimed that there'd been some confusion as to how sponsored ads work. "Legally I have to list this video as an AD because I've been talking with them about the campaign," she said, "and so according to the ASA, I have to declare it an ad."

    The ASA guidelines do not say this at all. ASA guidelines require a content creator to declare it as an ad if they're both getting paid and the sponsor partner has some level of control or approval over the content. Ruby claimed that she wasn't paid, and if that were true, she would not have been required to declare it as an ad.

    This dubious, inaccurate excuse, coupled with her initial wording of the money being "invested back" to the charity (which suggested she must've accepted the money to be able to invest it back) gave the overwhelming impression that Ruby accepted the money and aimed to keep it, much as she tried to with the HMD money.

    Ruby changed the disclaimed in the Instagram post to '[unpaid ad]' and did not respond to anyone who pointed out the inaccuracies of her ASA claim.

    Ruby's only other charity involvement aside from those involving brand deals and sponsorships is entirely limited to reposting Instagram stories shared by other people.

    Instagram stories expire and disappear from a person's Instagram feed permanently after 24 hours, drastically limiting the reach and effectiveness of using this for charity awareness.

    Ruby typically does this on Sunday afternoons/evenings to fill a lull in content on her Instagram feed.

    Ruby has also received criticism for choosing to repost stories for causes which she fails to support in everyday life.

    She has shared Insta stories advocating for higher taxation of the wealthy, despite her wealthy father using tax loopholes and offshore tax havens to avoid paying tax. She has also shared stories stressing the importance of Covid safety precautions despite regularly choosing not to follow them herself.

    Independent/Small Retailers

    Ruby often virtue-signals that she "always" supports small businesses and independent retailers.

    Unfortunately this is almost never the case.

    On the rare occasions that Ruby does visit independent retailers, Ruby predictably goes out of her way to avoid mentioning the name of their business in her posts. They are generally referred to as "an antique shop", "a second-hand bookshop", etc.

    So, while she could help an independent business that could greatly benefit from the help by advertising them for free to her hundreds of thousands of followers, she intentionally works hard to avoid doing so.

    Waterstones

    While Ruby actively avoids naming or advertising any small business on her channel unless they gift her something or pay her, there are businesses which Ruby falls over herself rushing to advertise for free.

    Waterstones (the biggest high street book retailer in the UK) is the most notable of these businesses.

    Ruby makes sure to prominently feature Waterstones in almost every single vlog or Instagram post that she can. In these instances, Ruby tends to get full, clear shots of the Waterstones sign while also having on-screen text to remind viewers that she visited Waterstones, and also mentioning the Waterstones name in narration for good measure.

    Even in vlogs where Ruby doesn't actually enter Waterstones, she has in the past simply featured footage of herself walking to the nearest Waterstones, filming the external store sign, then continuing down the street.

    Ruby is not, and has never been sponsored by Waterstones, but her shameless and blatant shoehorning of free advertising into almost all her content seems like desperate sponsor-chasing.

    Her shameless efforts to get Waterstones to sponsor her have only increased since Jack Edwards (who shares the same management team/stationery store manufacturers and suppliers as Ruby) landed a deal through their shared management to have a small amount of his academic planners features in select Waterstones stores.