The toddler has gone viral on TikTok for his fascination for grit bins.
His parents, Jamie McMinn, 28, and Amber Townsend, 26, created the account “Rubens World” shortly before he was born.
Jamie said: “When I found out that Amber was pregnant, I just decided to make a family TikTok so that we could look back on it.”
The couple live in Horwich and say that even though they have over 400k followers and 52m likes on TikTok, internet fame hasn’t intruded on their personal lives.
@themcminnfam Pizza & BIG YELLO BABEH’S on your birthday… what more could you ask for 🎉 #Rubensworld #fyp #kingruben ♬ original sound – Rubens World 🌍
Jamie said: “Not at all, really, because a lot of our followers are from America.
“We live near Middlebrook and we always see people over there who say ‘we love your content’.
“It’s the benefits of social media without people intruding into your social life.”
He said that he didn’t expect the videos to get as much attention as they have, and they started to really blow up after Ruben was born.
Jamie said: “My favourite is, we did a series ‘how to stop a crying baby’ – they’re so fun to make.
“Amber always likes the nice voice overs, like things about Ruben’s development and how he is getting on.
“Then I have got the more ‘chaos’ ones.
“Everywhere we’ve been we try to be as respectful as we can.
“If it’s a soft play we always make sure we get permission as a family before we go in there and not record other children.”
Jamie says that making the videos are “getting quite fun” now that Ruben can speak Ruben often appears in the videos obsessing over his favourite objects – yellow grit bins.
“There’s a massive one over there he loves – near the Toughsheet stadium next to the club shop.
“He calls them big yellow babies. He’s obsessed with yellow grit bins, anything yellow he says big yellow.
“He has always had little quirky obsessions, he had it with the little Vaseline tins he can hold in his hand.”
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Jamie said that he and Amber often look back at the videos they’ve made with Ruben and would “definitely do it again”.
He said: “I hope he feels the way we feel about them – he’s quite like us so I think he will. I think when he gets a bit older, past his teenage years, he will appreciate them.
“I have pictures of me and my dad and it’s very cool to look back on.
“I’ve said to my mates to take as many videos and pictures as you can – it’s like memories and I would definitely say to other people to try and capture memories.”
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