Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Ruth.
Hi Emily, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born a small child, right here in Kansas. My grandmother’s name was Dorothy and she told me one day when I was six-years-old, leaning forward, conspiratorially, “Ya know … I’m the ‘real’ Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.” I remember trying to decide if she thought I was a dumb kid or she was approaching senility. Either way, this and my favorite babysitters’ (my grandmothers) love of being a fan set me up for a rather mythological existence – my grandma Joyce wanted to marry Elvis, you see. As soon as I could write, I was writing stories and in journals and everything down as far as I could see. All through middle and high school, I kicked around “Social Media” before Social Media was a thing, which we used to call the Bloggosphere, writing things like, “Ughhh school blah.”
One day, senior year, a teacher dramatically staged his resignation in front of our class and I became possessed with journalistic furor hiterto unknown in my life to Get The Story Out. I typed it up, printed six copies, and distributed it to my fellow classmates, with the help of friend. By lunch time, everyone had read my story. I was flabbergasted that it worked.
This led me to pursue a journalism degree when I arrived at my university’s pre-registration, largely because I felt the number of Shakespeare courses required for an English degree was excessive and frankly punitive.
I joined the newspaper staff at the school, and by my senior year I had climbed through the ranks from page editor to Copy Editor, and was also given dominion over the back page, which was reserved for my column. To test my readership numbers, I decided to campaign for a nomination to the Homecoming Court, thinking it was just a lark – and then I got nominated. I could not believe it. My readers got me there, I got to get the fancy dress, and ride the golf cart around the football field, and I even won musical chairs at the pep rally the night before. What I thought of a silly story to increase readability became some of the best memories of my life – all thanks to my readership. That’s when I found out, me and my fans are in this together.
Once I graduated suma cum laude as the standout journalism graduate of my class, I continued to pursue my passion for writing, branding, publishing, and social media. After four and half years at a weekly magazine as Assistant Editor, I interviewed for the parent company’s Marketing department as Copywriter and scored the position – which, as an avid Mad Men viewer, had become a very serious dream of mine.
Simultaneously, I continued blogging online and ended up finally developing that cult following I always wanted as I kid, with the moniker “teapotsubext.” My friends and I on there liked to investigate the subtext in television and movies, and I particularly enjoyed subtext that hit you over the head like wheel-spinning facial expressions. At the height of this blog, I had around 10,000 followers and I felt like the King of the Internet, I will not lie to you.
I ended up moving on from that blog due to death threats against my son and I sent to the anonymous inbox, and locked in on my strategist career. Five years later, I was officially titled the Marketing Strategist at a local agency, working my way up in less than a year from Content Coordinator, as well as having a chance to serve as the Interim Marketing Director for a few months during the hiring process for our next department lead. There I enjoyed the opportunities to work with Adobe, Shopify, PayPal, Celigo, and many ecommerce solutions software companies.
During the economic retraction following the pandemic shut downs, I was laid off from the agency, and from the small camp I was hired to after that due to budget restrictions. I was burnt out, disappointed, and felt like my career was floundering while my son’s grades were so bad he was threatened with expulsion.
I decided to bring my son home for home schooling and in between lessons, I worked on getting myself back into the melee that is the Internet content creation hustle.
The new social platform, Threads, had just launched and I decided to put everything I learned about marketing to use for my own brand and started the account @ImEmilyRuth.
Writing about my corporate burnout recovery process led to the creation of what I know refer to as “Chill City,” a fun name for my collective brand and following, as well as a name for my readership, who I dubbed Dragons, for their fierce independence and loyalty to defend me – as loudly as necessary.
Since then, as a collective we’ve faced a frankly ridiculous amount of harassment, fought with internet trolls that turned out to be Nazis in disguise, campaigned for the Cease Fire in Gaza together, and became a journalistic news force for good across social media known as the Chill City Underground News Network, working to stem the tide of misinformation in the digital age.
When the remnants of the Q Anon following found us and started telling everyone that I was Q, I refused to play along. And they said – that’s exactly what Q would do. So I said FINE, stuck a stray Q in my posts as fake clues, and once everyone was convinced that meant something, I broke it down for them: There is no Q, it was always a conspiracy.
Chill City taught Q Anon that Q should now stand for Question Everything Online, and since then the internet as a whole as seen less dangerous conspiracy groupthink, and more healthy skepticism than I ever thought we’d be capable of. I took on the moniker Miss Information as a badge of honor for making it through such a bizarro-world gauntlet, and now my fandom and I dedicate ourselves daily to pursuing and sharing all the truth we can. We call it Breathing Fire!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Honestly, not at all. My life basically started to fall apart once my writing and singing career took off about two years ago.
I had been laid off from two jobs respectively and felt like I was actually doing great building a brand while being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother, even without earning any income.
Then my husband neglected his job, lost pay, we were evicted, he was fired, we had to put all our belongings in storage and go to stay with my parents. About a week later, my husband disappeared. He said he wanted to explore something else for a while, and he hasn’t been back since. This happened in the midst of copious harassment, even from the local police, the neighbors, delivery services, and our banks in Springfield, Mo., as well as online. People I never expected to be unkind to me flew off in jealous rages and have refused to ever speak to me again, telling me to “have fun” with my content career.
None of these reactions are something I ever saw coming, even in light of the internet harassment I suffered when blogging in the 2010s. I jokingly started referring to the conspiracy-level hate campaigns against me as Famer-Gate, given the similarities to the infamous Gamer-Gate harassment scandal. I guess they wanted to get the band back together.
Even so, I refuse to give up on my goals, and I will not abandon my followers in Chill City. It’s too important to all of us not to negotiate with these terroristic individuals.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
EmilyRuth Consulting is the micro and macro consulting firm I recently launched.
I specialize in general business strategy, marketing and brand strategy, messaging strategy, and internal organizational communications.
From a base branding package for social media marketing, to a two-week consultation residency at your company resulting in a full report about your internal communications needs, a brand playbook, and budget-tightening recommendations such as paperless billings, I offer any level of business consultation you feel you need. I can tell you what I think you need following a consultation interview – for a fraction of the cost of any agency operating in Kansas City.
I also specialize in pro-bono advice on my social media accounts and have (attempted) to advise Elon Musk, Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, brands like Netflix, Duolingo, SourPatch Kids, and Wendy’s. I also created a Chill City Investors Club known as The Sons of Liberty, who I advise on stock investments based on trends I observe in various markets from consumer standpoint. Currently, as a group we’re pursuing precious metal stocks in the face of a potential economic dip around the value of paper money.
The AllBright Group is the parent company I’ve created to stable all my upcoming business ideas, which will hopefully spring from the success of my consulting firm. Fingers crossed! You can learn more about EmilyRuth Consulting and The AllBright Group on my Facebook page, I’m Emily Ruth and Threads account, ImEmilyRuth.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Like this! My favorite thing to do was ride my bike around the neighborhood, observe everything around me, and think about it. Then I would peddle on home and write all my thoughts about what I saw down in my journals.
One weekend, I got very emotional about water conservation and made signs for all the faucets that said not to leave them on longer than five seconds.
And I read. I rode my bike, wrote in my journal, and read my books. Solitude has always been my solace, despite being a performer, and I’m very thankful for the environment of social media and the internet where I can connect my work to lots of folks while also maintaining my boundaries.
Pricing:
- $55/hour for basic branding, social media, and consultation services.
- Two-Week Consultation Residency, featuring ten-page internal communications report, ten-page brand playbook, and more: $50,000/ two week residency.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://emilyrtharp.wixsite.com/emilyruth
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/imemilyruth
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/17XqZrUK6S/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: /EmilyTharp
- Other: https://Threads.com/imemilyruth
