Gender Reveal Party

Decoder Ring

Slate Podcasts

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Jenna Karvunidis invented the gender reveal party, but now she has regrets. On this episode of Decoder Ring, we explore the pink and blue world of the gender reveal party, and how Jenna's small barbecue celebration turned into a global phenomenon that's gotten way out of control. We talk to psychologists, historians, critics, and business owners, to figure out why the gender reveal is having such a big, bizarre moment right now, and how we can best understand the strange power they hold over social media.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So it was 2008 that summer. I was pregnant. And a coworker of mine was three or four months ahead of me with her pregnancy. And it was time for her to have a baby shower at the office. And so naturally as the other pregnant lady working there,
0:22.2	they were like, Jenna, you're in charge of the cake. And I was like, great. I made this little cake
0:27.2	that looked like a duck. It had a little separate extra cake for the ducky head and little
0:31.6	candies for the tail. I just thought I was really fabulous. It was primitive by today's standards.
0:36.6	We had the baby shower at work.
0:38.1	And I was just so obsessed with like this cute cake. I just love that whole aesthetic of doing things
0:43.6	extra. And I'm like, I need another occasion like right now. I need to make this cake again.
0:50.8	So I was pregnant, but I mean, I was like three months pregnant. I'm like, my baby shower is going to be months away. And I realized that my anatomy scan was coming up. The anatomy scan where they scan for the health of the baby and you also can learn if it's a boy or a girl. And so I was like, you know what? We're going to turn
1:12.2	this into an occasion. We'll surprise everybody if it's a boy or a girl. I'll make two of these
1:17.2	ducky cakes I'm obsessed with. Yes, overkill. And I'll fill one with pink icing and one with blue
1:22.4	icing and I'll put them in the kitchen and I'll have my sister-in-law deliver the news to a barbecue party.
1:28.4	And so I thought that way we can all find out together. It'll be such a moment. I won't even
1:34.5	know. Like I will literally find out at the same time as everybody else. We have the barbecue.
1:38.9	And like I said, nobody's getting it. We're just, they're kind of annoyed that I've made everybody
1:42.9	go out on a school night.
1:49.7	The moment that we cut into the cake, it's almost like the weather changed. It just felt like everything changed. We cut into the cake. We all see that it's pink icing. And it's just like
1:56.3	our close family and like two or three friends. It's like everyone's got so excited. I mean,
2:03.8	they were tears. People were like, oh my gosh, my friend said, it seems like she's been born.
2:10.1	I mean, it was like this moment. And I got what I wanted. I got to make my cake and I got
2:15.1	everybody really excited that we were having a girl.
2:22.4	My name is Jenna Corvinitas and I was an early adapter to social media and I happened to throw the first gender reveal party 11 years ago when I was pregnant with my first daughter
2:27.1	and now I completely cringe at the entire trend.
	...

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