Last week, residents of several New Hampshire towns were startled by a blast that rattled homes and could be heard for miles. The source: 80 pounds of Tannerite, an over-the-counter, highly explosive substance used for firearms practice that in this case was involved in a gender-reveal stunt at a quarry in Kingston. The man who bought and detonated the Tannerite in Tuesday's blast turned himself in, and police said they're determining whether he'll face charges. In addition to the Tannerite, a popular method of gender reveals, police also found blue powder at the site of the blast, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. The New Hampshire explosion is the latest gender-reveal event to make headlines. Others have had serious, even fatal, outcomes, turning celebrations into tragedies. In Mexico last month, two people died after a plane involved in a gender-reveal stunt crashed into water. In February, a 28-year-old New York man was killed when a device he was building for his baby's gender-reveal party exploded, authorities said. In 2019, a soon-to-be grandmother died in Iowa when a gender-reveal device exploded and sent shrapnel flying. That same year, an airplane crashed in Texasafter the pilot dumped about 350 gallons of pink water, authorities said. Both passengers survived, one suffering only minor injuries. Last September, a firefighter died while battling a destructive wildfire in Southern California's San Bernardino National Forest caused by a smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used during a gender-reveal photo shoot, authorities said. In 2017, an explosion set off at a gender-reveal party in Arizona sparked a fire that burned 47,000 acres in the Coronado National Forest and cost over $8 million in damages and in fighting the fire. The father-to-be, an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot at a target packed with Tannerite, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges stemming from the fire and was ordered to pay restitution, starting with a $100,000 initial payment and $500 monthly payments after that. Gender reveals, from dyed cakes and confetti-filled balloons to the more over-the-top, sometimes destructive stunts, are likely being fueled by several forces -- a prime one being social media. "They're these really increasingly Instagrammable-worthy things to be able to put on social media," Rebecca Ortiz, an assistant professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, told ABC News. "Gender-reveal parties are focused on a lot on color and ornate presentation, things that are almost perfectly translated into the social media space."
this is getting out of hand What’s next? “I’m gonna set off this nuke. If the mushroom cloud is pink it’s a girl, and if it’s blue it’s a boy. Y’all make sure to take a few steps back.”
Gender reveal parties should be renamed "Initial" Gender Reveal Parties, since apparently once the child is just a few years old they can elect to go a different way.
Any clown or convicted fellon can walk into a sporting goods store and buy tannerite (the explosive they use in these) of the shelf with no record or background check. Its completely unregulated. There is an upper limit to the amount you can legally detonate at once, which obviously people are very mindful of. Just a little tidbit for any of you future terrorists to file away for later... Youtube is full of clips of idiots detonating extreme amounts at once, if you need some explosion p*rn.
Little did I know I had helped create a human being after this post. And I was wrong about my wife wanting to indulge in a gender reveal party, she thinks they are dumb! Found out we are having a baby girl by opening the results from the doctor.
That first one is exactly why I hate pitching to my wife. She hits it right back at my every single time, so I'm always trying to cover my face or my balls. My wife hates that I almost never laugh at videos, but that 2nd one has me crying laughing.
