It's patronising to say people only buy or believe things due to influencers, argues Ruby Granger 

I'm actually really impressed that she didn't even pitch this on her own channel. A very sweet lady and a class act.

I’m exploding with pride seeing Ruby speak!

Proud of our Ruby - Ruby Granger channel fans unite!

I am proud of Ruby, you can tell that she was nervous but the only time I had to give a speech in front of an audience in school, I nearly fainted so that's that.

This is brilliant, Ruby! 👏👏👏 Your confidence flourished after a few minutes, and you truly made and established your argument. Well done commenting and questioning why we are focusing on the influencing of influencers, rather than institutions etc. Bloomin awesome! Have a magical day Ruby! And FYI Oxford...you choose an incredible person to be a student, Ruby is a student who demonstrates what Oxford is made to foster!

When David Beckham had his silly haircut back in the mid 90's, half the kids at primary school insisted to their parents that they wanted the same haircut. Influential figures are emulated by their fans. That's the power of endorsement and advertising.

Ruby hit the nail on the head. What an extraordinarily important point to raise!

I'm so proud of you Ruby ❤❤❤❤❤❤ There are no words to explain my joy for you.

I really love and look up to this lady. I’ve been watching her for a fee years and growing alongside her. She is an inspiration and force of motion for other you g women like myself and a reminder of how necessary and precious education is.

I just subscribed to OxfordUnion because of Ruby's attainment of a place in their house, proving Ruby right.

Shocked that she mentioned Eugenia Cooney this is so true, well done Ruby ! I love the fact that you are exposing facts here 🎉

So proud of her! I've been watching Ruby's channela nd constantly being motivated by her and comforted by her through many year!

So well done Ruby!!! Rooting for you!!

so proud of you Ruby❤

I am so proud of you, Ruby. I watched you for about 6 years already on your RU-vid channel. Great work!

I am so immensely proud of you Ruby. Beaming with joy!

This woman is someone to watch. She will make glorious, healthy, compassionate waves.

I feel her shyness and fear...she says "umm" a lot.

Great refletion about power. Congratulations, Ruby!

So, 9 and a half minutes are not enough to talk about this issue. In addition it's hard to judge this argument withou hearinh the previous one. However, I think there is one point missing here, and it is the algorithm. It's important because: 1, influencers are not as genuine as they used to be. Many of them openly talk about feeling forced to put out content they don't really like just to please an algorithm they do not fully understand. So we do have patrons today, but they're invisible and therfore impossible to negotiate with. 2, there is way too much content on social media to be managed. So people are not being influenced by a simple influence, but by one that is never ending and usually is a far more complex movement. 3, the algorithm abuses our psychological weaknesses. It manipulates us to a point we do lose our ability to even recognize influences

Good to see the adoring sycophantic fan club are having such a great time.

If the earth needed to be evacuated due to impending doom like an asteroid, influencers should be left behind.

I’m so so proud of Ruby, I’ve grown up with her by watching her videos and she has been a huge inspiration to me! I’m so happy to see her achieving her dreams 🤎

Congratulations Ruby ❤🎉

This is funny because I’ve definitely bought things just because of Ruby 😭

I sorta disagree with her statement that people do not buy things because influencers told them to and that thinking this way we assume they don't have autonomy and that it's usually kids who do that. What I can agree with is that this is cultural. In Bulgaria kids and teenagers DO follow trends because they compare with other people around them and they want to be relevant and avoid getting made fun of. Once we leave school, though this stops. We no longer care what others think and we are more capable of making wise choices and often that is led by having no money to be trendy. Considering most trendy stuff are expensive. We look for knock offs and alternatives. Whereas in the US the consumerism persists beyond High School and I have noticed that parents are the ones who teach their children to be trendy. Exhibit A) little girls (5-12) going to Sephora for make up. All of them are brought by their parents who spend their own money for things their children don't need. Exhibit B. Stanley cups. They all know they are not special and that they leak. However, they buy bulks because they are trendy and they are not hiding it. As soon as another influencer came up with another cup, most kids and adults finally admitted the Stanleys are trash and now are buying the other cup. Exhibit C. Booktok. Most books that are being thrown in our faces are low quality romance books or dark romance that make no sense. Everyone freaks over them and people buy them because everyone is reading THAT book. People lie about how many books they read and do hauls because other booktokers do it. People nowadays are simply programmed to be trendy. For me that's not a good reason to buy a product. P.S why did no one throw out this coughing guy

How does she think advertising works and why would they spend millions of dollars on celebrities to hawk products if it makes no difference? A bit naive if you ask me.

Well done Ruby!

You are doing very well Ruby. Congratulations! This is a big step✨🙌🏻✨ 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

So proud of seeing you on this Ruby! Followed you on RU-vid for years (and still do)!

I'm a huge fan of ruby, and although this wasn't the best performance I think she's capable of, I'm still incredibly proud of her. Delivery and coherency of the argument obviously needs practice but it's saddening to see everyone criticizing her and implying that she's just trying to cover herself from criticism solely from selfishness, or that she's just 'looking for an east payday' like someone has said. I may be biased towards her, but it is objectively of poor taste to assume things about a person and to think that you can hide behind the anonymity of social media to disrespect someone, no matter if they're Ruby Granger or a random Karen, influencer or not.

This feels like such a full circle moment, so proud of her

i’ve been watching ruby since her GCSE and A-level days!! i remember clearly watching her oxford rejection video and now seeing her thriving at oxford and listening to her speak is AMAZING she’s such an inspiration

Of course she'd place the onus on the viewer though, she's an influencer..

I would developed severe social anxiety if I knew everything I did was judged to the nth degree

There „is no point in listing the ways that influencers have had a positive impact - I don’t think that would be a productive use of this time.“ is not exactly a sound working premise for the type of argument that is meant to be advanced… more so than anything this is a point against… Of course, influence can be exerted in positive or negative ways. However, to influence young people into buying things they don’t actually need and they themselves have not paid for, is hugely problematic. You cannot refer to yourself as an „influencer“ whilst arguing that the profit you are making is purely based on free will. And people such as Ruby Granger DO have a very young audience - which may lead one to question as for why she did apparently never consider the responsibility that comes with what she is doing. She advertised some dodgy snake oil in one of her recent videos… which is rather concerning.

I'd like to see whether she was reading verbatim from her notes or whether she had bullet pointsfor her main ideas. Makes a lot of difference to your delivery. I used to belong to the Debating Society at school and it is not easy to stand up before a lotof people and give n eloquent argument😮

Great job, Ruby! Keep at it!

I agree that this wasn’t the best delivered speech of the evening. But the argument she presents halfway, about influencers democratising information, is BY FAR the most valuable argument of the night. It highlights the very purpose of this RU-vid channel: to give freedom of speech a global outreach. This house does not regret the rise of influencers. This house OWES its success to the rise of influencers. I only regret to not have commented sooner. Thank you Ruby Granger for putting the argument forward. P.S: In the spirit of this speech, I beg you to pressure the Oxford Union to invite Robert F. Kennedy Jr to speak before November.

I've been following Ruby for about four years and I think she needs to improve her debate skills a little more. My comment is constructive, not destructive, and for that reason I think that she should read less and look more towards the public, have greater power of conviction. She is still a student and will improve with time.

Congratulations, Ruby! Great to see you here! I'm one of your subscribers 😊

her argument isn't super strong, but I really enjoyed the various links and commentaries she pulled from the discussion- she's the sort of student I'd love to have a seminar with.

I feel so proud as well as grateful 🥺🥺

From watching rubys vlogs to seeing her here 💕my heart melts

Being an old subscriber of her ❤its really an ecstatic moment to see her in this video

very proud of you, Ruby!😊

Killed it, Ruby! So proud of you!

great speech!

Ruby !! Congratulations!

Way to go Ruby!!!!❤ A job well done!

She has such a soothing and soft voice... Ruby granger❤

How i admire you Ruby!❤️

I really like ruby but I didn’t really get a thing of what she was “arguing”, this was a heartless conversation with herself 😅

Ruby!! So proud😊😊

Yay Ruby!!!! ❤

Go Ruby!!!

After witnessing the outrageous manipulation and propaganda of mainstream media just in the past few months, it doesn't surprise me that the "influence" of social media is being addressed more often. It wasn't that urgent when capitalism was benefitting. But now that it showed its potential to "sabotage" capitalism and the mainstream narrative, it became of major concern. Everything is political and this is a very political debate. I think the young lady here made a good point when it comes to autonomy and the "democracy of media".

Good speech... Keep youtube channel looks better again, yours.... Be kind always...🌐🇬🇧❤

I'm feeling proud.

Well done Ruby👍👍

LET'S GO RUBY ❤❤❤❤

is this satire

This is ruby granger

Go Ruby! ♡

I did a bit of quick research. From all the speakers of the night, Ruby had the most views!! 😂😂 Well done Ruby.

Ruby Granger You did the best.❤

Bravo Ruby!!! ❤

Well said Ruby 🌺🌺🌺

Yes Ruby my girl!!

Excellent!!!!

Go Ruby 👏 👏 👏 : )

that is the dream journey.

Just great!

Proud of you Ruby..well done❤

I think it's interesting, given the debate topic, how many more views this video has received compared to others on the channel just because it has Ruby in it

Reddit already works in a way that anyone's post can go viral. TikTok isn't the first. Followers have no meaning on Reddit.

im so proud of her

such good research behind this argument

well done. Ruby

The first part of this argument focused on the democracy of social media and how it allows people to share ideas and elicit their own influence, specifically those who formerly could not do so, is great food for thought. I think the important point here is that this democracy of social media is opening the floor for those who may have been voiceless and grants them more involvement and visibility in society. The question of the value of influence culture to autonomy is debatable because we can find some easy arguments for both sides. I do question if we lose autonomy by "following" someone and whether or not we consciously or unconsciously put influencers in a position of power. However, it can be far more difficult to question the influence of institutions, government, media, etc. because those apparatuses are not as accessible for the average person to voice their criticisms. Versus the influencer who has a comment section and multiple social media accounts directly linked to them. I don't think the influence of influencers is the most concerning kind, it is the one being debated right now because viewers have direct access to voice their opinions and criticisms on the same platforms as the people who are sharing ideas. It seems because of this proximity we do maintain some autonomy, we can directly question the ideas of influencers, but I'm not sure that we are completely free from the influence those individuals and communities have on how we communicate, think, or act.

Why is the person in between the boxes look like she has run away from a Miss World competition?

as someone who has grown up watching Ruby since she was in middle school, it makes me so proud to see her speak,

so so proud of you Ruby.

Love her channel ❤

RUBY GRANGER!!!

Go Ruby!

"Um" -- Ruby Granger, 2023

Her argument is so incoherent it’s ridiculous. I dont get the praise around of this crap.

Ruby for president !!

As a German, I liked the reference to "Ludwig Wittgenstein" which was pronounced with a strong English accent haha "Unsere Sprache ist die Grenze unserer Welt"

Oh hi Ruby!

I've been following ruby for years and It's an apotheosis to see her speaking at Oxford Union about raising awareness on influence, language and individual free will.

OMG IT IS RUDY !!!!!!!!!

Wow Rubyy

ruby granger you are amazing

Ruby! ❤

Ruby, classic woman, rare and lovely.

This is painful and an embarrassing reflection on the Oxford Union.

The mere fact that they call themselves influencers says it all surely .. I’m almost tempted to buy Hello Fresh or that deodorant they all use 😂

Oohhh Ruby I'm so proud of you! I've known you since watching unjaded jade's vlogs, and friendship you two have and energy you spread is so inspiring ❤️