Gender reveal parties are a way for families to unveil and celebrate the gender of their unborn child to their parents, family and friends. Over the past few years, gender reveals have become more popular and extreme. They used to be peacefully celebrated, but recently, a couple accidentally started a fire in California during their gender reveal.

These gender reveal parties can take weeks of planning depending on how extreme the reveal is. Mothers are mostly what come to mind when thinking about reveal parties. Yet, fathers also need to be taken into account when planning a party unless they aren’t involved in the mother’s life. The father should have consent in the actions if the father is part of the mother and child’s life. As well as his ideas should be included. This does not go for just fathers, but rather for any partner the carrier of the baby may have.

Many people are involved in multiple social media platforms. Some enjoy posting about their life, while others care about views. Videos and pictures of gender reveal parties are a popular thing to post for expecting parents. The more exorbitant and flamboyant any celebration is, the more views it will get, which especially applies to popular influencers.

Family channels on YouTube have been getting more traction recently. They record their life, fake drama and scenes involving their family. These types of videos are obtaining millions of views, which can fund the families greatly. Other influencers that document and post their life are celebrities. Celebrities take more extreme approaches because they have the money to do so. Celebrities will produce larger, more expensive and more intense celebrations, but taking an extreme approach to such things causes an uprising. When an audience greatly reacts to a post, the post will gain more popularity. The more popular a post is, the more views the celebrity in question will gain. On platforms like YouTube, that would mean the influencer would gain more money off of those views.

Gender reveal parties were invented by Jenna Karvunidis when she wanted to excite her family over her first baby. Recently, a gender reveal started a California fire, which has changed her views on gender reveal parties. Reveal parties have been increasingly more dangerous as time goes on, and Karvunidis is concerned with the aggressiveness. She feels guilty for putting it out there, now that these parties are starting to cause destruction. Bianca, the first daughter of Karvunidis, has been educating her mother on gender politics in our society. Bianca has rejected the idea of gender standards, such as how children born as females should own pink things, and how men should own blue things. As Karvunidis was being educated on the topic, she became concerned about hurting transgender and non-binary communities.

The California fire El Dorado was the fire that started due to a gender reveal party. This fire started by a party because a pyrotechnic device malfunctioned when it was supposed to reveal a blue smoke, the couple in question was going to have a boy. Other extreme parties have had accidents such as catching a car on fire, other wild fires starting, a plane crash and a death from an explosive.

Our society’s standards have constantly changed from year to year, including over gender reveal parties. In the early 1980’s ultrasound technology was developed to the point of women finally being able to tell the gender of their child before they were born. It is now seen as bizarre if a person no longer wants to know the gender of their child before it is born.

For babies, the color of their clothes and other items matters to parents because it represents their gender. Pink and blue have been the specified colors for their respective genders. Companies that create baby cakes, clothing, toys, balloons and even pyrotechnics for reveals have been profiting off this fact. They capitalize on both gender reveals and the baby’s gender when buying their necessities. Advertisement from these companies works greatly on expecting parents. Instead of needing to search for where to buy products for their gender reveal and baby, the parents will already be considering the company that spent money on advertising.

Some businesses even incorporate something that is called the pink tax. It involves gender discrimination in products that women would buy. In other words, a pink shirt for female babies would cost more than a blue shirt for males. It typically isn’t an actual tax like the name suggests, the extra cost is from the company that creates the product. The pink tax doesn’t only apply to babies and their items. The tax can apply to hygiene products, clothing or even haircuts for adults and teens.

Peer pressure from society is the reason why all aspects of gender reveal parties have become prominent. People are expected to have the party, make it big and exciting, post it on social media and use gender specific colors for their baby. Many people decide to never break out of these standards because of the pressure that others put on them. The parties being posted on social media and supported by influencers especially adds to the pressure. If others don’t cave to these standards, they won’t be seen as “cool.”

While celebrating new life is fun, doing it in a dangerous way can cause significant ramifications that could end up hurting several people in the end. It may just be easier to have a cupcake filled with icing than to celebrate in such catastrophic ways.