By Jack BeresfordShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA woman was taking a closer look at her birth certificate when she noticed something that caught her by surprise.
Ruby Jade, 24, a graphic designer from Victoria, Australia, took to TikTok, posting under the handle @motionthiccness, to share what she had spotted when examining the document in closer detail.
Speaking on the video, Ruby admitted she “hadn’t really looked at it in like, 15 years” before then. However, when she did, she spotted what she describes as an “insane typo” that left her “very mad.”
“It was the first time I had noticed the mistake,” Ruby told Newsweek. “I am surprised my mom didn't notice, as a typical Virgo she's usually first to pick up on things like that, but I imagine she was arguably distracted by recent events.”
To illustrate the issue, Ruby began by showing followers her brother’s birth certificate that lists his weight as 3.650 kilograms, or a little over eight pounds.
Then she cut to her birth certificate with Ruby asking: “Would anyone like to guess what is mine?” in relation to her weight.
As she soon reveals, for reasons entirely unknown Ruby’s weight is listed as 2,200 kilograms or roughly 4,850 pounds.
To put that figure in context, the Guinness World Record was set in January 1879 when Anna Haining Bates gave birth to a boy weighing 9.98 kilograms or 22 pounds.
More recently, in 2023, a woman in Germany gave birth naturally to a boy weighing 13 pounds and measuring 24 inches tall.
Ruby wasn’t an especially big baby, so her reaction to seeing the mistake was a predictable one. “I found it funny,” she said. So funny she decided to share a clip revealing what happened to her TikTok.
The clip went viral, amassing over 370,000 views—far more than any other clip Ruby shared on the platform.
“I just felt like talking about it,” Ruby said. “I only post when I want to on here, I've been trying to grow my graphic design business with zero success on TikTok. I didn't really expect it to get more attention than my other videos.”
Users quickly flocked to the video to share similar stories.
“My father has went by Niall his whole life… even his mom called him Niall,” one user commented. “While getting his first passport at 50 we found out his name is actually Neil and we suspect it has something to do with having thick Irish accents.”
Another wrote: “An important document of mine…lists my date of birth in the year 1086.” A third said: “My middle name is K. something in my papers got stuffed up between the ages of 2 and 15 where one of my parents entered my middle initial instead of my middle name, so legally my middle name is just K.”
A fourth, meanwhile, added: “I’m older than my mom (her birthday is wrong) on my birth certificate.”
Reflecting on the video’s popularity, Ruby puts the success down to it being something many others had gone through.
“I believe it got attention because lots of people were quick to comment with similar stories, typos and errors in their own birth certificates/IDs etc. which I was surprised to hear and enjoyed reading,” she said. “Many comments recounted experiences which were much funnier or tragic I suppose than mine.”
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