Ruby Pseudo Talks To PSFK

If you want to know what the kids are up to, who do you ask? Miss Ruby Pseudo of course. For a long while, PSFK has been fans of Ruby’s blog where she interviews the youth about their lives and lifestyles. We dropped the trend-spotter-extrordinaire a line to get a read on the youth, their brands and her adventures.

What one critical shift in youth culture should we be aware of today. Why?

I think the main scratchy shift in youth culture today is the problem of being different, how difficult it is for true underground to typically exist anymore. In this information culture, where we infect each other with what we’ve seen, heard and noticed at a rate of knots, the miniscule can become mass and monitored overnight, which is a shame.

‘Cool’ is highly accessible these days, there’s no excuse for not being so. With that comes the backlash of reinventing what cool is and - once again - making it elitist and inimitable.

What/who are a few of the companies that are embracing the changes in youth trends and promoting innovation and creativity?

Funnily enough, I always revert back to what Bobby Benson said in one of the first live interviews Ruby Pseudo did, where he explains that he expects brands to be consistent, to be reliable. For all these brands switching up and changing their messages every magic moment, its actually leaving the consumer wondering and wandering. For me then, perhaps with the youth consumer in mind, it is about brands that are connecting them to each other without asking for anything in return (nope, not even asking them to spread their service/product message).

It’s about brands that aren’t trying too hard to impress nor appear too ‘hip’ and hardened. However, saying this - I don’t know that there’s necessarily many brands that do understand this. Nike, and I’d say this anyway, do, (sorry).. Apple do (again ’sorry’ -but hey, isn’t it time some other brands come and impress us?) and Penguin are doing a good job at not being placed in the same box as their affiliate industry of music - and their Spinebreaker project is really interesting…

Faris and I discussed how we liked Wispa coming back to market, but i’m not sure that it isn’t a big PR stunt we don’t yet know about…

Orange, as a phone brand, are offering services that appeal to the consumer too and are helping them out on their terms, on their turfs, that’s what they want… it would probably be easier to say which brands are getting it wrong than what brands are getting it right…

Selfridges as a department store seem up to date with ‘what the kids’ are up to, their Future Punk exhibition was a good example of this… I don’t know, look at what some of the musuems are doing, weirdly, they’re attracting kids at a rate of knots, bringing in great conversations, late nights and maverick things to muse upon…

Perhaps it’s a lesson for all of us: educate, give kids things to talk about and help them better themselves… nice.

Thanks so much for all those examples and reactions. Tell us, what are you up to these days?

Ruby, bless the little lamb, has just set up herself up as a limited company - Ruby Pseudo Consultancy Limited - and is working on myriad projects, mainly with the global Nike network. Still consistently surprised at the reaction to the blog, I keep meeting people that are like - ‘Oooh, you’re Ruby? Nice!’… It seems increasingly pertinent to get ‘the kids’ views on things and I seem to be one of the rare people in London who don’t mind rocking up and speaking to the little rascals. I get to have a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of great minds. I’m very lucky.

Congratulations - and Thanks!

Ruby Pseudo