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Gender Reveal Parties Have Always Been Dangerous
Escalating reveal parties show the dangers of the social media spectacle in a highly gendered culture
Recently, a gender reveal party caused a fire in Southern California’s San Bernardino County. Since Saturday, thousands of acres have been burning — during an already fraught period of wildfires in the state — because of a “smoke-generating pyrotechnic device” used in the celebration. While this might seem like a bizarre ending to a party gone wrong, this is not the first time increasingly unsafe gender reveal parties have ended in tragedy. In 2018, a soon-to-be grandmother was killed by a pipe bomb meant to reveal the gender of her grandchild, and in 2017, an expectant father shot a target to release baby blue smoke in Arizona, causing a fire so destructive he was charged $8 million in damages. The growing escalation of these parties indicates the perils of the social media spectacle in a highly gendered American culture — but it wasn’t supposed to be like this, at least according to the creator of gender reveal parties.
It has been widely publicized that Karvunidis regrets starting the trend and has begged people to stop — especially because the baby she announced the gender…
