Every single post I’ve seen about Ruby Franke’s arrest has at least one person echoing the same sentiment in the comments. It’s always worded a little differently, but it’s something along the lines of, “I didn’t know it was THAT bad.”
This makes me angry. And I hope after you’ve read my POV here, it’ll make you angry, too.
I knew of Ruby Franke and her YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, long before she became one of the biggest headlines in the news. In fact, I started an essay about her over a year ago that has been sitting in my drafts collecting dust.
While I am guilty of letting a lot of drafts sit until the point of obsolescence, this one has a sad reason behind it. Every time I went to finish it, I was struck with the overwhelming reality that no one would listen to my urgent plea to look closer at this abusive woman.
Why? Because the general public is generally incapable of seeing the relevance of anything less than blood-and-guts evidence. That is, something dramatic involving visual proof, dramatic flair, or a flashy headline.
In regards to the story of the Franke family, people seem to be shocked. “I didn’t know it was THAT bad” is the cry of the general public. Didn’t you, though?