When the satire is too real

193 onesies. One "gender" reveal.

I’m finishing up final, final, final book edits this week (so many commas to overthink, so many citations to double-check), so today’s WTF will necessarily be quick and dirty.

A friend sent me the following gender reveal video, which I watched, rapt with mostly horror, until the (VERY) drawn out conclusion.

Image source. One commenter summed up the situation like this: “Very disturbing cutting a baby doll open. Poor taste.”

In the video (watch at your own discretion), a group of gals host a gender reveal party for their BFF. The expectant mother is given a grotesquely lifelike baby doll wearing a series of onesies which she must cut through to get to the all-important “reveal.” How will you know whether or not to slap a pink bow on your newborn’s head as soon as they emerge earth-side without learning their sex beforehand? How will you know which color to paint their bedroom? How will you even know how to parent them without first learning about their sex organs?

In the video, the friends look on adoringly, the mother snips through onesie after onesie quizzically, the “husbands” cheer at the end when the baby’s sex is revealed to be male. There is glitter. There is laughter. There are pink balloons AND blue balloons. And obviously, there is the one thing without which gender reveal parties could not even exist: an unshakeable belief in a cultural construct of gender that adheres to strict binaries while also dictating behavior, preferences, and, most importantly, an infant’s sartorial destiny.

Here’s a DM exchange between the friend who sent it and yours truly.

I’m not sure how I missed the fact that the video was satire the first time around, since it’s pretty clearly labeled as such, but this week’s WTF is simply this:

In 2022 America, a Facebook video in which a pregnant person slices through approximately 72 baby onesies before cutting into the abdomen of a baby doll in order to learn her unborn baby’s sex will be seen as unquestionably authentic upon first viewing even if it’s labeled as satire because in 2022 America, parenting culture is so fully bonkers that the line between satire and reality is frighteningly hard to find!