One of the most infamous tweets of all time is now dubbed “Ruthkanda,” wherein a mother claimed her child was so heartbroken over the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that she crossed her arms on her chest as in Black Panther, and then declared, “Ruthkanda forever.”
As far as I can tell, the mockery over this “cringe” tweet got so intense that the original poster locked her account and has yet to unlock it. At first I thought this was a bit much until I saw a semi-recent promotional tweet from her employer where she was tagged, and two of the three comments referenced Ruthkanda.
But now, there are Ruthkandas all over the place, taking a slightly different tone, and mostly receiving praise. The new Ruthkandism is filming and posting a serious conversation you had with your young child, often about a topic you did not need to address, often with the specific motivation of showing everyone what a great job you’ve already done and how little you even needed to have the conversation in the first place. In fact, think of it less as a conversation and more of a rapid-fire quiz, showcasing how your child already knew the Right Answers.
Right now, it’s the Cornell sexual assault case. Yahoo News covered the importance of broaching the topic of the Cornell case with your children, including, according to the article’s header photo, children who are still wearing footie pajamas:
The Cut also uses a photo of kids who can’t possibly be older than six to make the same point.
Now, in all credit to Yahoo, in that article, the Cornell case is merely used as a titular prompt for a broader conversation about consent. And, yes, it’s good to talk to young children about consent in an age-appropriate way: you never have to let anyone hug or kiss you, you control what happens to your body, there are certain parts of your body nobody should touch, you should listen to other people when they don’t want to be touched, you should never touch anyone else’s off-limits body parts, so on and so forth. As they get older, you can be more specific, and discuss consent as it relates to sex, underscoring how binge drinking, porn and other factors can make things murkier and more dangerous. Fine! Great! This should already have been happening pre-Cornell, and the Cornell case should make no difference unless your plan is to ride the wave of a hot news story and get attention and praise (oh, nobody would do that, right?)
And yet, social media is littered with parents filming themselves talking with their children (often sons under the age of ten) “about Cornell.” (Again, sometimes they’re just talking about consent, while using Cornell in the title to get attention.) Now, don’t make any mistakes: they may say it’s about raising good men, but really, it’s about showing everyone on TikTok that they’ve already done this, and look at what a great job they’ve done. They are thinking so much about consent without stopping to wonder if a nine-year-old can actually consent to having this video with his face and name out there. Typically the caption is something like, “WOW, my 6-year-old understands consent better than a bunch of grown men!” These types of videos are obnoxious and a privacy violation (some show the child’s face and name!) but at least the content is age-appropriate.
Then there are…others.
