(all screaming)
LYDIC: Gender reveal parties.
They started out as innocent gatherings
to share the blissful joy or horrible disappointment
of finding out the assigned gender of your unborn child.
But now, they've turned into this.
(screaming)
NEWSWOMAN: And this reveal of a baby boy
sent passengers scrambling to safety.
NEWSMAN: Fire officials are now confirming,
it was started by a gender reveal gone wrong.
Uh, almost like a grenade that went off
and exploded and caused this fire.
LYDIC: So I met with Jenna Karvunidis,
the blogger who threw the very first
gender reveal party back in 2008.
So what was your grand reveal?
Did you have skydivers come down
and light pink and blue dynamite?
You have a big, uh, fireworks production?
How many gators did you have?
We had a cake.
You had a cake?
Did you have a stripper pop out of the cake
and start a wildfire?
No.
Can I... can I see a picture of the cake?
That's the cake that started this whole trend.
A very... simple cake.
LYDIC: Look, I love a good party,
especially ones I'm not invited to,
but these baby ones were getting out of hand.
Whoa!
I think it is time for you to come out
and publicly disavow gender reveal parties.
Oh, I've definitely already said that,
and people should definitely stop doing that.
Oh, you said that? All right.
Well, that's good. I'm glad I got through to you.
Oh, I've publicly disavowed gender reveal parties
for quite some time now.
About a year, I've been campaigning against them.
So you technically invented the gender reveal party,
but you do not condone gender reveal parties?
That is absolutely true.
I didn't call it "a gender reveal party."
I actually called it "a peep show."
Cake and a peep show, huh?
That's how we ended up with my son.
(sighs)
So what happened to change your mind?
Somebody on Twitter was looking for the source
of the gender reveal party,
and one of my old social media followers
tagged me into the conversation, and I was like,
well, it's kind of funny that this is even coming about
because we, um, had our family picture taken recently,
and there's my daughter.
She likes to wear a tuxedo. It's, like, kind of ironic.
And people were, like, astonished.
And it became a story, and it became an opportunity
for me to really speak out.
LYDIC: Yes, the first baby to be gender-revealed is, in fact,
not eager to be defined by gender.
I think the parties, um-- they're physically harmful
for many obvious reasons.
You know, blowing up the forestry
and burning down things at the parties.
But they're also very socially harmful.
Well, yeah. I mean, they're boring as shit.
No alcohol, cheesy games.
No, I mean socially with the people in our society
for transgender and nonbinary people
who don't fit on the spectrum.
Um, these parties can be really harmful to them.
Yeah, that... I mean, that's more important
than the fact that they're just boring.
And even heteronormative people
really, um, are harmed
and incensed by this idea of
if it's, you know, an explosion, with the tractors or whatever,
it's a boy, and then, the girls are on the opposite spectrum,
and everything has to be pink and tutu.
I'm sorry. My son just came in.
He heard "tutu" and he came running in.
Oh, I'm sorry. My son is looking for his superhero toy, so...
No, but you like dolls and stuff, too, right?
No, we're not that heteronormative around here.
You like dolls and, um, and playing dress up.
You like pink stuff. Pink... pink is his favorite color.
Yes, it is! Yes, it is.
Pink is your favorite color.
Pink is totally his favorite color.
I totally agree with what you're saying.
But how did these gender reveal parties evolve
from cake eating to mass destruction?
I think a lot of people out there are searching for likes
on the Internet, and it has caused a lot of problems.
Yeah, exactly. Who cares about likes?
I don't care about Instagram likes.
Or the fact that Wolf Blitzer blocked me
from insta-stalking him.
Uh, yeah.
And, um, the ultimate truth is it doesn't matter.
And what really matters is how you feel about yourself,
how your family feels about you,
how your community feels about you.
So when you start a forest fire,
you are really acting against that goal.
Jenna, what would you say to the people
who insist on continuing to throw these parties?
Be a little bit more responsible with the parties.
Um, throw a different type of party.
Like, yeah, what's the baby's name? That's...
You know, so much more possibilities with that
than whether or not it has a penis.
That's a great idea. You should absolutely throw a party
and reveal what the child's name is gonna be,
so that all your family and friends can sit around
and judge the name you picked and tell you stories
about all the assholes that they knew with your kid's name.
That happens.
How was I supposed to know
that Taint would be a bad name for my kid?
Taint, get out.
-Mommy! -Taint, Mommy needs some quiet time.