A video of a gender reveal that went catastrophically awry is serving as a warning to all expectant parents.
The unknown U.S.-based couple have been left red-faced as a clip of the disaster is making its way around the Internet after it was picked up by sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports.
The parents-to-be have been dragged on social media – not least for their ill-judged attempt at popping a huge black balloon which contained their future baby’s gender by repeatedly hitting it with flat sticks.
Fail: A couple’s gender reveal went hilariously wrong, but social media users are fed up of the trend and spared them no expenses when mocking them
Isn’t someone going to tell them? It all started when the parents-to-be attempted to pop a balloon with flat sticks
‘Popping a balloon by hitting it with a stick is not [possible],’ one Twitter user pointed out.
‘Sticks are for pinatas. They need sharp stuff for balloons. Where are the lawn darts,’ another chimed in.
Yet, no one present for the gathering seemed to point out the obvious.
‘Hit it hard, strike out,’ the man filming the footage yells along with everyone else who has assembled in the yard.
The disastrous gender reveal moment only seemed to deteriorate from there.
As the helium-filled balloon began to float away as the dad-to-be swiped at it with such intention with his useless baton, it quickly floated away in the wind.
Giving up: After one particular forceful smack of the balloon with a stick, the balloon bounces over to the man’s pregnant partner
Bye! The balloon becomes untied from the ground as a result of all the blows with the baton, and the wind lifts it off away from the yard
Panic: The dad-to-be rushes after it, as does another woman who runs in to save the day with her hands raised in the air, right
Despite the fact that the balloon was zooming away at speed some 30 foot in the air, the man ran after it attempting to catch it.
As the balloon distanced itself from the couple’s yard, the man tried to hoist himself up over a white picket fence only to lose his footing and face palm into the barrier.
Meanwhile, another woman has ran in to help save the day, only to realize she is unable to even life herself up on to the five-foot fence. Evidently determined, she has her hand raised in the air as if to catch the balloon’s string, despite it being well beyond any human’s grasp.
Everyone who had gathered for the significant moment was heard in both stitches of laughter and screaming, ‘Oh my God’ in the background as the mortified dad-to-be picked himself up off the ground.
Social media users, however, did not find it so hilarious.
Lost cause: While the balloon is floating away at speed, the duo attempt to chase it by trying to hop over a fence
D’oh: The man lost his footing and fell to the ground while the woman wasn’t even able to hoist herself up
The eye-rolls on Twitter were almost audible.
‘Oh no they will [never] know what the gender is,’ one user wrote sarcastically.
‘Feel bad for the baby they put inside of that balloon…these gender reveals [are] getting out of hand,’ said another.
‘Good luck to that kid. Hope the apple falls far away from that tree,’ said another – taking a dig at both the stupidity and seemingly poor athletic skills.
Many people aired opinions about how irritating gender reveals have become; after all, this certainly isn’t the first failed attempt to go viral.
In a comment that was widely-liked, one man said, ‘Gender reveals are the scourge of modern day America’.
No sympathy: The viral video was mocked by countless users on social media, all of who were evidently fed up with the trend
Ironically, the very woman who is credited with creating the gender reveal in the first place recently said she regrets what she started.
The baby whom she was carrying at the time that she spawned the popular trend by throwing a ‘gender reveal party’ is now a 10-year-old girl named Bianca who wears suits.
In July, she wrote, ‘[The Gender Reveal party] was picked up and an interview with me was published in The Bump magazine and the idea kinda spread from there. I’ve got the article framed!
‘Anyway, I’ve felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally – guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby.
‘Who cares what gender the baby is?’ she continued.
Joke: Some users joked about whether the cliffhanger meant the baby would be non-binary
‘I did at the time because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now – that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.’
Her statement came after an onslaught of dangerous occurrences during gender reveals.
In November 2018, the U.S. Forest Service released a video of a party in Arizona that had taken place earlier that year and had resulted in a wildfire.
Almost 47,000 acres of land were ruined when Dennis Dickey, an off-duty US Border Patrol agent, shot a target reading ‘Boy’ during a gender reveal party.
The target had been packed with the highly explosive substance Tannerite and when it was shot, it emitted a blue cloud of smoke, but also ignited the surrounding bush – ultimately causing $8 million in damages to the Coronado National Forest.
The expectant father pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of U.S. Forest Service regulations and was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to pay $8 million in restitution.