"Pain is meant to be a teacher": Shari Franke Google Doc receives tons of video evidence links in wake of crowdsourcing effort 

Shari Franke, the eldest daughter of influencer Ruby Franke, who appeared on the YouTube channel 8 Passengers and is now estranged from her mother, is crowdsourcing questionable video evidence against the vlogger, following Ruby’s arrest on Wednesday for suspected child abuse.

20-year-old Shari created a Google Doc file and shared the link on her Instagram stories on August 31, asking everyone to add links to concerning clips from Ruby’s 8 Passengers vlogs and her videos on ConneXions where she appeared alongside Jodi Hildebrandt. Shari said that trying to go through the videos and sorting out evidence was too much for her.

Ruby's previous channel, 8 Passengers, was deleted from YouTube earlier in 2023, with the mom of six continuing with her last year's venture. In June 2022, Ruby partnered with Jodi to create the channel ConneXions, a self-supposed support group for moms. Ruby and her husband showcased extremely rigid and allegedly abusive parenting methods in their own channel, while ConneXions revealed Ruby and Jodi's disturbing beliefs and ideologies.

However, the original videos of ConneXions and 8 Passengers have been deleted from social media, leading to Shari Franke asking the public for help in collecting whatever questionable clips they can find in bits and pieces across the internet. Many people started adding links to the Google Docs file, which revealed the sinister methods employed by both women. In one of the deleted videos from ConneXions, Ruby Franke's business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, said:

"Pain is meant to be a teacher."

Disturbing comment made by Jodi Hilderbrandt in one of her ConneXions videos. (Image via Google Docs)

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Shari Franke's crowdsourcing effort brings to the fore several disturbing clips

Ruby Franke was arrested on Wednesday, August 30, on suspicion of two counts of aggravated child abuse along with Jodi Hildebrandt, after malnourished children with other wounds were found at Jodi’s Ivins residence in Utah.

After news of the arrest broke out, Ruby’s estranged daughter, Shari Franke, took to Instagram and said that she and her current family are glad that justice is finally being served. She expressed via Instagram stories that Wednesday had been a big day for her, adding:

“We’ve been trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this, and so glad they finally decided to step up.”

Within a few hours of Shari Franke’s request for evidence, the Google Docs file was filled with more than 40 links to videos that different people had flagged. Some content from 8 Passengers had evidently alarming instances where Ruby tried to discipline her children with brutal punishments.

One clip shows Ruby and her husband Kevin talking about throwing away their children’s belongings, including their son Chad’s homework, unless he pays for the items in cash. Kevin said in the video that the kids can also do equivalent chores to earn their things back.

Another video shows one of their sons, Russell, who was quite young back then, asking Ruby if he could get some breakfast, to which the mother replies that he doesn’t need food. The clip cuts to their other daughter Eve asking Ruby to help her with some musical notes and Ruby telling her that music rots one’s head. The next clip shows Ruby dropping Shari Franke at school and telling her,

“Hope you have a lousy day. Don’t be nice to anybody.”

Other clips from 8 Passengers showed how Ruby discussed with Kevin taking the children’s bedrooms away. She often punished her kids by withholding food. The couple even canceled Christmas for their youngest child once for being "selfish".

More disturbing notions that Ruby has been following were captured in her videos and podcasts on ConneXions. In one of the clips linked on Shari Franke’s Google Docs file, Jodi Hildebrandt discussed the necessity for children to experience pain, saying that pain is meant to teach kids. She added that she wants children to be able to tolerate pain in such a way that they learn to appreciate it.

In another clip, Ruby Franke said that everything in a parent’s house belongs to the parent alone and that the kid does not own anything. Both Jodi and Ruby advised parents to inflict extreme punishment on their children for every little mistake.

More recent content from ConneXions where Ruby Franke and Jodi spoke about their controversial opinions on sensitive issues such as race, gender identity, s**ual orientation, r*pe, and eating disorders, has also been linked to Shari Franke’s document.