Hey what's up hello! We've known for a long time that gender reveal parties are stupid, but this year they reached an all-time level of ridiculousness and destruction. So today, we give you some ideas for anti-gender reveal parties!
Episode transcript: https://www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/anti-gender-reveal-parties
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
Hey what's up hello! We've known for a long time that gender reveal parties are stupid, but this year they reached an all-time level of ridiculousness and destruction. So today, we give you some ideas for anti-gender reveal parties!
Episode transcript: https://www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/anti-gender-reveal-parties
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
(0:00)
SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA:… and a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla)
SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: gender reveal parties.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: M’acaroni in the pot, that’s the WAP.
SARAH: WAP, by the way.
KAYLA: I’m midwestern and it’s WAAAAP.
SARAH: Make it as nasally as possible.
KAYLA: (in a nasal voice) That’s the WAP. Anyway.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: What a way to open after we just got a bunch of new followers.
SARAH: Truly. Hi guys.
KAYLA: Hi. Yeah, thank you everyone for your response to last week’s episode. There were a lot of very interesting discussions on Twitter which was really cool. So welcome if you’re new, and sorry, this episode will not be as good.
SARAH: Listen. Every time we get a new influx of followers, the next episode is always just a shit show.
KAYLA: And we don’t plan it that way. It’s just very unfortunate.
SARAH: Not necessarily in that it’s a bad episode kind of way, just in that, it’s slightly out of hand.
KAYLA: Yeah we always get new followers when we have serious episodes which makes sense.
SARAH: It makes sense.
KAYLA: But it isn’t the majority of what we do. So then we go back —
SARAH: It’s a chunk but not necessarily—
KAYLA: I’d say a good 25% maybe.
SARAH: Oh I would say it’s more than 25%.
KAYLA: 30? 40?
SARAH: We tend to go off-topic even when we have serious topics but we do do serious topics.
KAYLA: Well anyway this always happens where we do a serious episode, lots of new people come in, and we’re like LOL caught you, now here’s our dumb shit.
KAYLA: But speaking of dumb shit, thank you also everyone for your support and encouragement and information about my interest in dead bodies —
SARAH: I was like, where the fuck is she going with this? I was like, what is happening?
KAYLA: Yes. So if you didn’t listen last week, you should cause first of all it was a good episode if I do say so myself, but also I went on this whole tangent about how I’m curious about how many — the thing I’m most curious about is basically with the amount of land we have, how long would it take — if we buried everyone underground — how long would it take for us to run out of land to bury bodies under? And, I’ve never been able to engage anyone in this conversation. But, a bunch of you guys were like, “yes I’m down for this” and sent me some great videos and articles and two people sent me some nice estimates of how long it would take so two people sent me some long equations on how to find the bodies. So, one I want to should them both out — so Sam with a Beard on Twitter @samwithabeard tweeted me a very long thread about the math they did. I think they are saying with their calculation, with their estimation of land, how big caskets are, their estimate — we could make new graves almost 300,000 years. This is very different from the other estimate we received.
SARAH: Both very far out though.
KAYLA: Both very far out. And I don’t understand math and I don’t know what is the difference between the things these people did — sorry, I don’t know who’s right. I don’t know how to do this.
SARAH: I also don’t know how much of the land they considered to be viable, how big is the average person, how big is the average casket, how long does it take a person to —
KAYLA: Decompose? Yes. So this other person, Kelly, who is a math teacher, also reached out and did a lot of calculations. So Kelley also took a lot of things into account — surface of land, the average casket, the death rate per year, everything like that. Kelly sent us a very long email with a whole graph, is it a regressive graph or something?
SARAH: Why the fuck would I know?
(5:00)
KAYLA: I don’t know. It’s one of those graphs that helps you predict things in the future with an equation. Clearly, I have no idea what’s going on. Anyway, Kelly says to take this with 10 grains of salt because there are a lot of uncertainties and changes within the next many years. But Kelly said it would take 1.5 million years to fill up the whole earth with bodies. Very different, but both of these estimates are wild, and the fact that people spent this much time calculating this is wonderful and thank you so much.
SARAH: And I’m sure I’m not going to be alive for either of those estimates so.
KAYLA: No, so, I think we’re good.
SARAH: We’re fine. Anyway, get cremated.
KAYLA: Anyway, I was talking about this with my mom and she was like, “well I am getting cremated anyway.” And I was bringing this up to Dean. I was telling him that we had this conversation and I was going to segue into something else and then he started trying to do the calculations to me over the phone and I was like, no no no, this wasn’t even the point of my story. I was trying to talk about Derek.
SARAH: Oh, you were trying to talk about my friend from California?
KAYLA: Yes, I was trying to tell him about Derek. Anyway.
SARAH: Incredible. Is that all of the intro stuff we have? We’ve been here a while.
KAYLA: We’ve been here a while. I guess.
SARAH: So Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: We’ve had this idea for a while because a while back Sarah’s sister texted her and it was after — okay I guess I have to back up more. So, there’s a lot of fires right now on the west coast and it’s very unfortunate. Some of the fires are because of a very dumb couple who was having a gender reveal party and used a sparkler or some such thing —
SARAH: Some sort of smoke bomb, I think.
KAYLA: And it set fire to the area.
SARAH: Like 2 million acres.
KAYLA: Yeah, so it’s making the fire worse cause of these dumb people having a gender reveal party. And gender reveal parties are stupid anyway and —
SARAH: And the woman who essentially invented gender reveal parties regrets it because her kid is nonbinary.
KAYLA: Oh my god I didn’t know that.
SARAH: They’re either trans or nonbinary, either way, they’re not cis.
KAYLA: That’s very funny. Anyway, following that, Sarah’s sister, Emily who you all know and love, texted Sarah and was like, “Me and my girlfriend want you to make us a gender conceal party and you can do with that whatever you want.” And so Sarah sent this to me and we started brainstorming some ideas and we were like, this could be an episode because each and every one of our conversations must be documented and monetized because obviously.
SARAH: And we also have been talking about this for months where we’re like, we should do an episode of the podcast where we just read our texts to each other.
KAYLA: Because truly, it’s bananas.
SARAH: Yesterday we were talking about how heavy the average buttplug is and neither of us knew and neither of us wanted to Google it, so we never got the answer to that.
KAYLA: That’s just a little snippet —
SARAH: Just a little snippet.
KAYLA: — of what happens in the background here. And this is a nice mix because it started on text of that plus, we’re just going to give you some ideas of things to do that are not basically some anti-gender reveal party ideas.
SARAH: These are basically like you have a gender reveal party and then it turns out you don’t reveal the gender.
KAYLA: You reveal something else.
SARAH: It’s like a baby shower.
KAYLA: These are just alternate reveals.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: Would you like to start off by just reading our texts?
SARAH: I would love to. And I went back and I found them and I screenshot them.
KAYLA: Which I was very excited about, cause then I didn’t have to look for it.
SARAH: Oh yeah, it was annoying. So my sister, of course, said, “want you to host a gender conceal party for us,” granted my sister is not going to have a child anytime in the near future but I’m just preparing.
KAYLA: Sarah’s also going to plan mine as well. I’m not pregnant. Stop. Everyone shut the fuck up.
SARAH: Kayla’s not having a child.
KAYLA: I’m busy being depressed. What? Who said that?
SARAH: And so I said to my sister, I knew immediately what I wanted to do. I said, “there’s going to be a cake, you’ll cut open the cake, inside it will be green. Your baby is a Shrek.” I think that’s the best-case scenario.
KAYLA: I think it’s a very good start. It’s a solid start.
SARAH: Yeah. Then are we just going to read all of these texts or are we going to summarize?
(10:00)
KAYLA: I mean I think we should just read it. If this has been our dream to read texts, then I think we should live that dream.
SARAH: Okay. Please read your texts.
KAYLA: So Sarah sent me this screenshot of her text conversation with her sister and said that “I will be the coolest aunt ever.” And I said, “open the cake and there’s nothing. Just a voice: Gender is fake.”
SARAH: And then I said, “open the cake and it screams.”
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Like the golden egg from Goblet of Fire.
KAYLA: Open the cake and there’s a smaller cake.
SARAH: Have a gender reveal party for the cake.
KAYLA: A child.
SARAH: A cake is the concept of gender embodied.
KAYLA: Cut open a cake to find another knife pointing back at you. War has begun.
SARAH: A knife! No! Open the cake to come out — I got distracted in the middle of a sentence and I forgot what I was trying to say, so I just sent it.
KAYLA: Oh that, huh.
SARAH: Yes! Open the cake and find a pile of stamps. Support the USPS.
KAYLA: Dean just texted me, “let’s have an anti-gender reveal party.” I think he’s stalking us.
SARAH: So, I’ll get to plan more than one? Perfect.
KAYLA: Open the cake to find the cake was actually Donald Trump. You finally assassinated the president
SARAH: Open the cake, inside is a mirror, you have to look at yourself, consider your mortality.
KAYLA: Uh oh, cut open the cake to find your baby. It was there all along.
SARAH: Cut open the cake to find a dildo. Does this mean your baby is a boy? No. That’s weird. Don’t sexualize a baby. It just means you have a dildo now.
KAYLA: Free dildo!
SARAH: Free dildo sounds like Free Willy. There’s a bad porno title in there somewhere.
KAYLA: Cut open the cake but suddenly you realize you’ve cut open your wife. You’ve just performed a c-section.
SARAH: Cut open cake and inside is a small frog. This frog will be the godparent of your baby.
KAYLA: And then I said, “man, this could have been an episode.”
SARAH: And then I said, “it can still be an episode.” End scene.
KAYLA: End scene! Thank you, for coming to our play.
SARAH: So, that’s where we got this idea.
KAYLA: So you’re welcome everyone for a little peek into our texts.
SARAH: Yeah. So, it’s time to elaborate. Not elaborate, but to continue coming up with options. I have two that I wrote down.
KAYLA: I have zero so, you go.
SARAH: This one I wrote down at about 12.30 last night when I was getting ready for bed and I considered just screenshotting the note and sending it to you because I thought it would be funny. But, I thought it would be funnier to get your genuine reaction on the podcast.
KAYLA: Good. Monetize our relationship.
SARAH: The problem is I’ve now hyped it up. And I shouldn’t have done that.
KAYLA: I mean, you did. You did hype it up.
SARAH: I regret having done that and I’m sorry.
KAYLA: Well, can’t go back now.
SARAH: Cut the cake open and inside is the mortifying ordeal of being known.
KAYLA: (laughing) Stupid.
SARAH: That’s all.
KAYLA: That was stupid.
SARAH: It was good.
KAYLA: I think, cut open the cake and there is — so okay, in case you’re not aware of how gender reveal parties can work, is often you’ll cut open a cake and it will be blue or pink and that tells you the gender of your child. Just so we’re on the same page.
SARAH: As we all know men are born with blue skin and women with pink skin.
KAYLA: Yeah. I was born with yellow skin I had jaundice when I was a baby.
SARAH: Oh no.
KAYLA: What gender is that? Who is to say?
SARAH: If you look at pictures of me as a baby, I looked kind of orange.
KAYLA: I still have very yellow skin. The undertone of my skin is so incredibly yellow.
SARAH: She’s Sicilian.
KAYLA: Upsetting how yellow I am.
SARAH: Sicilian skin.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: I’ve got that very pink undertone so I’m definitely a woman.
KAYLA: Well, I guess, if that’s how gender works, I’m unsure.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Anyway, cut open the cake and it’s just that green slime from Nickelodeon.
SARAH: Mmm, yes. Figure It Out was such a great show. It could be Figure It Out, the gender reveal party. And then you’re like, oh it’s slime, figure it out!
KAYLA: Uh-huh.
(15:00)
SARAH: Anyway, Figure It Out was a Nickelodeon game show in the 90s and early 2000s for anyone who’s wondering. There was involved some classic Nickelodeon slime.
KAYLA: I love game shows.
SARAH: Okay. I think another option is if people is if you invite people over for a gender reveal party and then they show up, it’s socially distant of course, it’s outdoors it’s safe — but they show up and they’re like, “oh this isn’t decorated for a gender reveal party, what’s happening here?” And you say, “it’s a letter-writing campaign, sit down. We’re writing letters to some prospective voters.” And our representatives.
KAYLA: Lock them in. No getting out now.
SARAH: You want to celebrate my baby? This is how you make their life better.
KAYLA: Yes. Perhaps, sometimes people will pop balloons and confetti comes out with the colors, but alternatively, you pop the balloons and a bunch of those little plastic babies come out — have you seen these?
SARAH: Oh, absolutely. My cousin bought a bunch of them once.
KAYLA: I love that. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, I don’t know how else to explain it. They’re the size of the top of your thumb or something. I think they’re supposed to be for the inside of king cakes.
SARAH: What cakes?
KAYLA: King cakes. It’s a New Orleans Mardi Gras thing where you put one tiny baby in the whole cake and then whoever gets the piece of cake with the baby it makes something? It’s a rat king. You know what a rat king is?
SARAH: It sounds familiar but I don’t really know what it means.
KAYLA: I love this educational podcast. A rat king is when all of the rats in the sewer, their tails get tangled together.
SARAH: Ahh.
KAYLA: So it’s just like one giant rat.
SARAH: No!
KAYLA: So you pop the balloon in a baby king so all the babies are tangled up. That falls out of the balloon.
SARAH: I hate it.
KAYLA: I would look up a picture of a rat king but I’m really afraid and I will not be doing that.
SARAH: Oh I would not be doing that. I would much rather Google the average weight of a dildo — not a dildo, a butt plug. That actually probably wouldn’t bother me that much, but I was like, you know what, no. I can’t.
KAYLA: Can’t, won’t.
SARAH: Can’t, won’t. A lot of times they have those smoke things that caused the fire. I think instead of one of those smoke things, it’s a gentle mist of water to cool you off on this warm day.
KAYLA: Like in a theme park where you have the misting station. That’s very good.
SARAH: And it also has the double purpose of helping to prevent wildfire.
KAYLA: I love that. I think perhaps — have I ever seen someone do this for gender reveal parties, no but I’m assuming it’s happened — that you pour out a bucket and whatever the paint color is, you know one of those classic ones. So you do that but it’s just a bunch of blood and you’ve recreated Carrie.
SARAH: Oh no.
KAYLA: The horror movie / it’s also a musical.
SARAH: You cut open the cake and inside the cake is actually the guts of a pumpkin. You know how slimy and seedy and stringy they are?
KAYLA: I do know.
SARAH: That’s what’s inside. And people are like, “this is not a baby gender,” and you say, “this represents my baby.”
KAYLA: That’s disgusting but it probably is what your baby looks like currently. So.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Perhaps you cut open a cake and a bunch of teeny-tiny bats fly out. Spoopy.
SARAH: Spooky!
KAYLA: Spooky!
SARAH: You have a big box. And you lead the people to believe that inside the big box is balloons that when you open the box, will fly into the sky and hurt the environment.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: In the color of your baby, because as we know, babies come in two flavors.
KAYLA: Ew.
SARAH: Pink and blue.
KAYLA: What do you think — is it like blue raspberry and cotton candy do you think? Like strawberry?
SARAH: Absolutely. For sure.
KAYLA: I love that.
SARAH: And then you open the box. What’s inside the box? A stripper. Woah. It gets better. Your dog is there. Your dog recognizes—
KAYLA: With the stripper?
SARAH: No, your dog is just at the party.
(20:00)
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Your dog recognizes the stripper and is like, “oh my god, it’s my long-lost owner” and they reunite in front of you.
KAYLA: Oh god.
SARAH: That’s all.
KAYLA: That was a lot of twists and turns.
SARAH: And then the stripper becomes kind of like another member of your family and it’s really sweet.
KAYLA: That’s nice!
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: We love a third income. Perhaps you blindfold the parents —
SARAH: Thought you were going to say “baby.”
KAYLA: Yeah. Yes. So you blindfold the parents so you can have them take off their blindfolds and see whatever it is they’re seeing to tell them the gender of their dumb child. But instead, you blindfold them and instead you all sneak away and you see how long it takes for them to realize what you’ve done. And then they’re all alone.
SARAH: Oh no. Another really great way to reveal your child’s gender is — all I can think of is, watch the movie ET. I don’t know why.
KAYLA: That’s nothing.
SARAH: I guess I was just thinking, what if your child’s an alien?
KAYLA: Is this something you have written down?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Okay thank god.
SARAH: I told you, I only had two things written down.
KAYLA: I’m just really glad that’s not something you pre-thought about.
SARAH: No. One of those things — it was really just haunting me. Here’s what you do.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: You have a scavenger hunt. And you hide a bunch of spoons and forks. Now which gender does the spoon represent and which represents the fork? I don’t know.
KAYLA: None of our business.
SARAH: None of our business. You have two teams. You have them search for the spoons and the forks. And you say, whichever team sounds more, that’s the gender of the baby. Except you have put equal number of spoons and forks.
KAYLA: Choose your own adventure, kind of.
SARAH: But you don’t hide it in a difficult places. So they’re like, “I have my 12 spoons,” and they’re like, “I have my 12 forks” what is the baby? And you’re like, “a human!”
KAYLA: Really got em there. You tricked em. I think in the spirit of games, perhaps you invite everyone over and surprise — it’s a murder mystery party. But what do you mean, a murder? This is supposed to be a baby shower. Surprise, I’ve had an abortion.
SARAH: I was going to say, is that where this is going?
KAYLA: But, it is not murder, because abortion is fine.
SARAH: Pro-choice, baby. That baby would have been pro-choice but that baby didn’t become a baby.
KAYLA: Because it’s fine. Everyone, abortion is fine and great. Anyway.
SARAH: Another way to reveal your child’s gender is you know those videos where people get a dog or cat or something and they have several of them, and they have several color of collars or something. I’ve seen this with babies and picking out clothes where you put it in front of them and whichever they go sniff, that's the one they get? Do that, wait till your baby is born, and then give them a blue thing and a pink thing — and whichever one they grab is their gender now.
KAYLA: Oh, they get to choose. That’s very exciting. I think you let everyone just vote on what they want it to be. Put all their votes in a hat, you pick one out, that’s what it is.
SARAH: Yeah, that’s good. I think you just ask them.
KAYLA: Your baby?
SARAH: Yeah, your unborn child.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: And they’ll tell you.
KAYLA: Maybe you go get your ultrasound and it does some sign language to you through the womb.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like, “this is how I identify. Thank you for asking.”
SARAH: You have a really smart baby — they can do ASL and they’re not even born yet? Wow.
KAYLA: I think you could — you know how there’s bomb-sniffing dogs? There’s actually this new thing that they’re doing and it’s gender-sniffing dogs. So you do hire one. They also come in miniature ponies if you’d also like a gender-sniffing miniature pony. And you hire one, and it comes to your gender reveal party and it snuffles your stomach and then it declares the gender of your child.
SARAH: Snuffles.
KAYLA: It snuffles. Yes, that’s what I said.
SARAH: I think a way to reveal the gender of your child is just to have okay — this is perfect. So, there’s an episode of Schitt’s Creek.
KAYLA: Shocking. Absolutely shocking.
SARAH: Where there is a baby shower which is actually a baby sprinkle.
KAYLA: I don’t like that wording.
SARAH: David gets roped into helping put on this baby sprinkle. He arrives and the people there — I won’t say who’s pregnant because that would be a spoiler. But the people there are like, “oh look we have this piñata, it’s shaped like a baby.”
KAYLA: Oh god I love that! What a fun thing.
SARAH: And David’s like, “we’re not doing this.” But they had that piñata and there’s a wonderful scene where it’s handed to him and he’s just holding it and he goes, “what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” And it’s the end of the scene and it’s very funny. But, the trick is to get a baby piñata and then you get all of your guests to wail at it. Just hit it as much as possible until it breaks. And the color of the candy inside is the gender of your baby.
KAYLA: Here’s the thing, is that if I were to have a gender reveal party, I feel like I might request that that’s very funny.
SARAH: Kayla I’m going to show you what it looks like.
KAYLA: That’s very good.
SARAH: What the baby looks like. It’s important that you know.
KAYLA: Okay, thank you. Can I tell you my next one?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: You know how you can read tea leaves? And you can read those inkblot tests? Go with me here, are you paying attention?
SARAH: Oh yeah.
KAYLA: You save your pads from your periods – now go with me — and from the last period you had — and I will not be apologizing for this because periods are normal and fine — you take a look at a pad from the last period you had before you became pregnant and stopped bleeding whenever that happens or whatever. And if you take it to the person who reads these things for you, they will read it and tell you based on the pattern of your blood, the gender of your child.
SARAH: Wow. Amazing. Did you see the text I sent you?
KAYLA: Yeah hold on I want to write that down as a potential for the poll.
SARAH: And I’ll share some pictures when this episode comes out.
KAYLA: (laughing) Oh that wasn’t what I was — I was expecting an upright baby standing but it’s on its hands and knees crawling.
SARAH: This baby is on its hands and knees.
KAYLA: I was expecting a baby that looks like the Boss Baby standing.
SARAH: Oh no, it’s worse than that.
KAYLA: Wow that’s horrific.
SARAH: It’s worse.
KAYLA: That’s much worse than I expected. If I did this I’d like a different-looking baby, just so we’re aware.
SARAH: No I’m going to get you that exact baby.
KAYLA: I’m — no.
SARAH: Okay. I think another thing to do — gender reveal party — giant cake, biiig cake.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: Someone pops out of the cake. Oh my god, who is it? Is it the stripper again? Is she coming to reclaim her dog? No, it’s your long-lost sister.
KAYLA: Ohh. Uh oh.
(30)
SARAH: She knows the gender of your baby. How? Unclear. She just knows. She’s a witch.
KAYLA: You know who actually comes out of the cake when you cut it?
SARAH: Who?
KAYLA: The real father of the child.
SARAH: Oh shit, It’s Maury Povich.
KAYLA: It was supposed to be a secret that there was a different baby daddy but he just couldn’t stay away.
SARAH: He’s like, “this is my child.”
KAYLA: And he had to come back.
SARAH: “I want to be in my child’s life.”
KAYLA: He had to come back. And Susan is like, “No! Jeremy!”
SARAH: You’re so right. I think — back to the cake. You cut open the cake, inside the cake is a black hole. You fall into it, goodbye.
KAYLA: Oh. Goodbye!
SARAH: Goodbye!
KAYLA: I think another way to find out — or really determine — the gender of your baby is you roll a D20 and I just rolled a critical one for anyone who cares. But if you get a 1-10 it’s a boy. And if it’s a 11-20 it’s a girl.
SARAH: So you ‘re having a boy?
KAYLA: Yea, but I feel something bad — well, men are bad — so that is what I get for rolling a critical one.
SARAH: Okay. I think you do a gender reveal by — I’m not going to make a Schitt’s Creek reference, I’m not. I really could.
KAYLA: You’re so strong.
SARAH: But I’m already going to be bringing up Schitt’s Creek again at the end of this podcast.
KAYLA: You’re so incredibly strong.
SARAH: Thank you. The way that you tell your baby’s gender is you go to the doctor, and they do an ultrasound and they look at the baby and they’re like, “this baby seems to have a dick, let’s use antiquated rules to assume your baby is a boy, but we haven’t met this baby, we don’t know its gender identity. BOY.”
KAYLA: This one wasn’t as fun.
SARAH: And then you punch the doctor in the face.
KAYLA: Oh okay, that’s more fun.
SARAH: Is it fun now?
KAYLA: Yeah, that was much better.
SARAH: Cool.
KAYLA: I think another fun party activity to decide the gender is everyone looks and stares up into the sun and then you close your eyes and whatever color those little colored dots are that come into your eyes when you stare at the light, whatever color that is, determines the gender of your baby.
SARAH: Mm kay. I think you play a game when everyone has a ribbon for the color of what they want the baby to be. And then you play a game of pin the tail on the donkey, but it’s pin the tail on the baby and by that I mean it’s pin the tail on the pregnant woman’s stomach. Or the pregnant person’s stomach, I don’t mean to assume that the person that is pregnant is a woman. And at the end whichever most ribbons of that color have been pinned to the baby belly — that’s the baby gender.
KAYLA: Sounds uncomfortable.
SARAH: Yeah. Lot of things about pregnancy are uncomfortable.
KAYLA: That’s very fair. Dude you’re going to be so annoyed when I one day get pregnant I feel like.
SARAH: I know.
KAYLA: You’re going to hate it so much, huh. You have all your friends and family over, you’re having your gender reveal party, but then everyone fights to the death and whoever outlives everyone makes it through the bloody — gets to decide the trophy, they get to decide the gender of the baby. And then they get to keep the baby also.
SARAH: Oh yeah. So it’s like a witch fairy godmother thing?
KAYLA: Yeah, like the first-born.
SARAH: Yeah yeah. What happens is you have a cake, and inside, an invasive species of squirrel comes running out and invades your yard.
KAYLA: Oh, uh oh. That’s not what you want. Actually, how you determine the gender of your baby is you don’t actually get to know until —
SARAH: (laughing) I thought you said “the agenda of your baby!”
KAYLA: The agenda of your baby is. The baby agenda. So when your baby is born, it actually comes out fully clothed and fully has hair on it, which not many people know. So if your baby comes out with leg hair and little blue overalls and short head hair that’s a boy. If it comes out with a little pink dress, very shaved armpit, legs, no body hair, and it has very luscious long flowing hair, then it’s a girl.
SARAH: Mm-hmm. That’s interesting because I was born with no hair at all.
KAYLA: Well Sarah, I think you have some thinking to do.
SARAH: Oh, okay. What happens is you watch two different movies. The first is
KAYLA: Santa Claus 2.
SARAH: (laughing) No. The first is Saving Private Ryan.
KAYLA: Oh, little bit different.
SARAH: The second is —
KAYLA: Santa Claus 3.
SARAH: (laughing) No. The second is Bridget Jones’s Diary.
KAYLA: Kay. Still wrong. Got it.
SARAH: I have not seen either of those movies. And then what happens is you go off of your vibe of which you think the baby liked better. Did they kick a lot during one? Did your baby belly just become warm suddenly like magic?
KAYLA: Ew. Oh god.
SARAH: And then that determines the gender of your baby because of course the one who likes Bridget Jones’ Diary is a girl and who likes Saving Private Ryan is a boy.
KAYLA: Right. Of course. Speaking of Santa Claus 2 and 3, did you know that actually gender reveal parties are only held on Christmas day? Did you know that?
SARAH: Is it cause of Jesus?
KAYLA: What? No you’re supposed to say, “why is that?”
SARAH: Why is that?
KAYLA: It’s because, actually, every Christmas eve, parents get to put on their wishlist to Santa, what gender they want their baby to be. And if they’ve been nice that year then Santa delivers the gender that they want. If they’ve been naughty, they have a boy.
BOTH: (laughing)
KAYLA: Just kidding.
SARAH: What if they’ve been really bad, do they get a gremlin?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Gender reveal is—
KAYLA: Yup. That’s what we’re talking about.
SARAH: Yeah, so you find out the gender of your baby from the doctor, and then, you just don’t fucking tell anyone. You don’t tell anyone. And then the baby is born and you’re like, “this baby is named Jordan” and they say, “what is it?” and you say, “a baby.”
KAYLA: None of your fucking business.
SARAH: And they say, “what is it?” and you say, “it’s a fucking baby, Karen.”
KAYLA: Karen.
SARAH: “And their name is Jordan!”
KAYLA: Pretty gender-neutral. Mmhmm. I think similar to your idea of Bridget Jones and Saving Private Ryan, you take your pregnant self and anyone who is your partner, is a parent, or whatever to see a musical. And you see two musicals. And you see Newsies and you see Little Women. And you just kinda see what happens.
SARAH: Okay. What if I like both?
KAYLA: Well, Sarah, once again. Seems like you have some things to think about.
SARAH: Okay. What you should do is, instead of birthing a baby, you adopt one of the many kids out of the foster system. And then you ask that child. You say, “what’s your gender identity?” And then they tell you.
KAYLA: Oh easy.
SARAH: And then you have a party celebrating your new child that you adopted. And their gender.
KAYLA: Easy. Good. So, something you might also not know about babies is at the moment of birth, the fresh baby comes out and this summons a magical creature to your — wherever you’re having this child — a bathtub, a bed, I don’t know your life. And for all little girl babies, a beautiful unicorn is summoned and that’s your baby’s unicorn, they’re bonded for life.
SARAH: Like they imprint on one another?
KAYLA: Yeah, like Hercules and the Pegasus. And so for boys, a dragon comes.
SARAH: What if I want a dragon?
KAYLA: Well then you should have been born a boy, huh?
(40:00)
SARAH: I had a horrible idea and I hate it a lot and I have to share it because I need you to suffer too.
KAYLA: Great.
SARAH: So, you can’t actually find out what gender the baby is until after they’re born. And then once they’re born and you’re like, “oh! Baby’s hungry. Baby needs to try and breastfeed for the first time. Right boob or left boob? Right boob is girl, left boob is boy.”
KAYLA: That is not where I thought where this was going. Okay.
SARAH: That’s all. Where did you think it was going?
KAYLA: I thought it was going to be like, “how much do they like the boob? If they like it a lot, it’s a boy.”
SARAH: Oh no.
KAYLA: There’s a lot of issues that come along with —.
SARAH: There’s so many issues with that.
KAYLA: With that assumption, there’s so many things wrong with that.
SARAH: Mine was a lot more innocent than yours.
KAYLA: Yeah, when you said you hated it so much, I was really expecting something bad.
SARAH: Mine was only normative in terms of gender, yours was also normative in terms of sexuality.
KAYLA: Yeah and of sexualizing your mother, which is weird.
SARAH: And of sexualizing a baby.
KAYLA: Which is also bad.
SARAH: Also bad.
KAYLA: All around, not a good one, gotta say.
SARAH: Are you going to make me go again — does that count as one? I don’t know if that counts as one.
KAYLA: No. When your baby first comes out I think they do fingerprints or something. Do they do that?
SARAH: They do a footprint.
KAYLA: Yeah so they do the little footprint of your little baby’s little foot and actually written out in the little wrinkles, and you’ll be able to see this in the stamp, it will say girl or boy.
SARAH: Ohh yeah.
KAYLA: It’s actually written on their foot like Andy from Toy Story.
SARAH: Yeah. When the baby’s born and they cry, you have to listen very carefully for that first cry to see if it sounds like “girl” or “boy.”
KAYLA: If it’s a very deep baby voice or a high baby voice?
SARAH: Or if it’s just GAAAARL or if it’s like BOIIIII.
KAYLA: That was horrible to listen to.
SARAH: They’re just announcing their gender.
KAYLA: Awful. Another thing is I think when the baby comes out, they give it shots or whatever and I’m assuming there’s some blood. And so if your baby has blue blood, it’s a boy and if it has pink blood, it’s a girl.
SARAH: Oh.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm.
SARAH: Let’s do one more each.
KAYLA: Good I have a really good one to end on.
SARAH: Oh Jesus. I was going to specifically say that we’re putting the bar low but then you said you had a good one.
KAYLA: I had already thought of it. Sorry.
SARAH: You have a party. It’s a baby shower. You know that movie where they’re dancing on the stage and there’s a chair and they pull the string and the water goes ahhh?
KAYLA: Burlesque?
SARAH: Sure.
KAYLA: I think it’s Burlesque.
SARAH: I couldn’t tell you what movie it is. It’s like that but you have those eyewash shower stations in science classrooms.
KAYLA: Uh-huh.
SARAH: And the water in it is either blue or pink. And the pregnant person stands underneath it and they pull the thing and whichever color they’re drenched in is the baby. Now what if there are twins and they’re the same gender? You get purple.
KAYLA: Ohh. We haven’t really been taking twins into consideration here, have we?
SARAH: Purple either means you’re either having twins of different genders or you’re having a non-binary kid. No way to know.
KAYLA: Wow. A mystery.
SARAH: A mystery. There’s simply no way to know if you’re pregnant with two children or just one baby. There’s no way at all.
KAYLA: Really? That’s interesting.
SARAH: Even after they’re born.
KAYLA: Oh. That’s. Huh.
SARAH: I know.
KAYLA: Well, on that note, my last one is you go to get an ultrasound which is — why would you do that cause you’ll not be able to see what’s in there anyway — but, actually you can so you see the little baby, it’s there, but you notice — your baby’s in there for a long time, right, it’s nine months — and it wanted to decorate. It wanted to put up some string lights, some LEDs, some really good aesthetic. So if you’re having a boy and you look in there you’ll see a lot of rock band posters, and you’ll see Axe body spray on their desk, dirty laundry—
SARAH: And a single camping chair.
(45:00)
KAYLA: And the mattress is on the floor, who needs a bed frame? And then there’s just some old dishes. That means you’re having a boy if it decorated your womb room like that. If you’re having a girl, there’s twinkle lights and those leaves that people put up on their walls these days.
SARAH: I have them on my walls.
KAYLA: I know you do. And there’s Barbies, and makeup and a Starbucks drink.
SARAH: Sparkly things.
KAYLA: Sparkly things, a bedazzler. So if those are in your baby’s womb room, then it’s a girl.
SARAH: Yeah. Wow, I think that really covers it.
KAYLA: And this is why pregnancy is so painful because you’re not just birthing the child you’re birthing all of their whole bedroom.
SARAH: You’re going to birth an entire XBox if you have a boy, so just be prepared for that.
KAYLA: Be ready for that.
SARAH: Wow. Cool. So glad we’re on the same page about gender reveal parties. I did see some tweets about how gender reveal parties shouldn’t exist. And everyone’s like, “yeah.” But someone was like, “no, they should exist, but only when the person is announcing their own gender.”
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: When you’re like, “I’m 16 and I’ve decided my gender identity” then you throw a gender reveal party.
KAYLA: And listen if you keep going back and forth between your genders, you can keep having a lot of parties.
SARAH: If you’re genderfluid, just party every day.
KAYLA: Party everyday, congrats, you’ve won.
SARAH: Great excuse to see your friends.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: Cool. So our poll this week — what’s the best gender reveal party? Should we include any of the ones from our original texts? Is that allowed?
KAYLA: I’m trying to think.
SARAH: Shrek baby is a classic.
KAYLA: I liked accidental C-section.
SARAH: Oh I forgot about the accidental C-section.
KAYLA: Feel like that’s a good one.
SARAH: Okay. Shrek baby, accidental C-section, stripper with dog.
KAYLA: Murder mystery.
SARAH: Great. Excellent. Kayla, what’s your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is that I updated my phone to the new iOS and it now gets very hot whenever I do anything with my phone even if it’s just scrolling through Twitter or talking on the phone, which makes it very hard to talk on the phone because my face gets hot.
SARAH: Use your fucking headphones.
KAYLA: I do. But it’s so annoying. And it cannot hold a charge. And my phone is just now 2 years old. It was literally just paid off. And I think Verizon knew that because they also sent me a text yesterday that was like, “$200 off when you upgrade to an iPhone 11 whatever it is these days” and I know they did it on purpose, and I’m upset. Cause I don’t want to buy a new phone they’re so expensive.
SARAH: Yeah with the new update, everyone’s like, “I’m customizing my homescreen.”
KAYLA: “Here’s my widget and shortcuts.”
SARAH: Like a fucking jailbroken iPod Touch from 2008.
KAYLA: I just don’t think — everyone’s look aesthetically pleasing but I think I would get so annoyed if my homescreen looked like that.
SARAH: Also how do you find anything? I see ones that are super aesthetic like all the pictures are the same colors and —
KAYLA: I don’t read the name of each app I just look at it. I wouldn’t know what I’m doing.
SARAH: Also, I just don’t have the patience for it but — I’ve changed nothing on mine — the one thing that I would consider doing is changing the YouTube app for it to be the really really old one from 2008.
KAYLA: The brown TV?
SARAH: The brown TV.
KAYLA: You know what I miss most about the old YouTube app is that you could close it and the music would keep playing. And I understand why they took that away but I don’t like it.
SARAH: If you have YouTube Red or whatever the subscription is, you can do that now.
KAYLA: Well I’m not paying for that shit.
SARAH: I’m simply not. But yeah, that was the greatest thing.
(50:00)
KAYLA: It was. So yeah, that’s my beef. My juice — wow. Well. Uh. My juice? My copy of Ace came and it is a very beautiful book to look at. Very nice cover, very good design. My other juice is I feel like our community is growing and our connections are growing. There are finally people I’m comfortable reaching out to for help for podcast things and media things and business things in the ace world and it’s cool to have that support from other people. Not that our listeners aren’t supportive with everything but you know what you mean. It’s cool to be like, oh we’re doing this. This is for real though? Wow.
SARAH: Nice. I’m going to do my beef first because I don’t want to end on a horribly sad note. In this note that I have I wrote “beef: all of it.” My beef is that we have surpassed 200,000 people dead from COVID in the United States of America. I tried to do some math on this comparing it to —
KAYLA: Why would you do that?
SARAH: Shhh. I tried to do some math on this comparing it to other US wars and little bit of stuff and then I started getting really mad. And I decided not to share this in part because many of our listeners are like-minded and they don’t need me to lecture them and in part because you can Google it yourself. It’s very easy. But I was thinking about it and it’s really important we take this anger about what’s going on and we do something with it. Frustration into fuel. Make changes. But at the same time, it’s not healthy to be actively angry all the time.
KAYLA: That’s also true.
SARAH: In fact, it’s not conducive to achieving your goals if you’re burned out all the time. So I would like to take this time to remind our listeners to take care of yourselves.
KAYLA: Take a break!
SARAH: Take a break.
KAYLA: Run away with us for the summer.
SARAH: Let’s go upstate.
KAYLA: Guys, let’s fucking go upstate.
SARAH: Particularly in America, but let’s be real, everywhere — things are fucked in so many different ways and just because it’s normal now doesn’t mean it’s not really bad for our mental health at times so I would just like to remind everyone that if after a long day of work, after reading the fucking news if all you can do is sit on your bed and burn a nice fall candle that crackles and makes crackly noise and rewatch Schitt’s Creek again in its entirety then that is okay.
KAYLA: That’s fine.
SARAH: And if it’s making you feel at all better, that’s good for you. You don’t need to be productive all the time, in fact, please don’t be.
KAYLA: At this point, anything to make you feel better as long as it’s not harmful or unhealthy.
SARAH: And if you’re like, “capitalism makes me feel like I’m tired all the time and I have trouble fighting that” here’s what I tell you: you not being what you consider to be productive will really piss off Jeff Bezos.
KAYLA: Jeff Biz-bos?
SARAH: And you know what’s great? Pissing off Jeff Bezos.
KAYLA: Biz-bos.
SARAH: Did that turn into Biz-Jos? I heard a Biz-Jos.
KAYLA: Jeff Biz-bos.
SARAH: Okay. Take care of yourselves, guys. My juice? Are you ready?
KAYLA: I think I know what it is.
SARAH: What’s my juice, Kayla? Tell me.
KAYLA: You can say it.
SARAH: No no. You know what it is.
KAYLA: Nope.
SARAH: Schitt’s Creek won 9 Emmys. They swept the entire comedy category which has never happened before. And did I kind of feel bad for some of the other shows that were nominated because they were very good? Yes. But did I feel so bad that I wished that Schitt’s Creek hadn’t swept? No. They won Best Writing, Best Directing, Best Comedy, Outstanding Lead Actor, Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstand Supporting Actor, Outstanding Supporting Actress. The entire first hour of the Emmys, no one won except for Schitt’s Creek.
KAYLA: Did they really take every award in the comedy category?
SARAH: Yes!
KAYLA: That’s funny.
SARAH: At one point, Dan Levy himself had won 3 awards in a row. And he apologized.
KAYLA: Aww. Dan.
SARAH: And he was like, “the internet’s going to come after me.” Because he himself personally had won 3 in a row. But Annie Murphy winning was so exciting because she deserved it and I was a little afraid that the other 3 were going to win and she wasn’t and that would be sad, but she did win and it was great and it deserves all. I’m really trying to get Kayla to watch it. Kayla, I considered being like, hey you know how I can get you to watch it? By me and you watching it together. And then I got distracted watching the entire series.
KAYLA: And then you were like, “fuck this bitch. I’ll watch it myself.”
SARAH: I’ll watch it again.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: So. There’s that. Okay. You can answer our poll, tell us your beef, your juice, your love for Schitt’s Creek on our social media, @soundsfakepod everywhere. We also have a Patreon — patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you’d like to support us. We have a lot of patrons these days.
KAYLA: It’s getting crazy but please support us more because I’m sick of our mics and I’d like to buy some new ones. Also keep transcribing.
SARAH: Kayla really wants new mics.
KAYLA: It’s getting bad yall.
SARAH: We have a couple new $2 patrons. We have Yijin Kang and Nerdfaerie, thank both of you for your contribution.
KAYLA: Hello! Welcome! Thank you!
SARAH: Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le — nope can’t read, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Sajmon, Jamie Jack, Jessica Shea, Ria Faustino, Daniel Walker, Livvy,
Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W , Savannah Cozart, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP — I always say it like that because I have it capitalized on the doc because I like saying it like that — Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Rory — Rory I’m sorry for what I just did to your name — Amberle Istar, Rachel, and Kate Costello. Our $10 patrons are Tessa, Arcnes who would like to prevent— Arcnes would not like to prevent the Trevor Project—
KAYLA: No. The opposite.
SARAH: Arcnes would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, anonymous who would like to promote spooky Halloween, Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra who would like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug Rice who would like to promote "Native" by Kaitlin Curtice, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote her dogs Leia, Minnie, and Max, H. Valdís, Purple Chickadee who would like to promote their blog which is ichliebevogel.wordpress.com, Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote the Biggest Book of Yes, Ashlynn Boedecker, who is @shlynnbo everywhere, The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia and Ari K. who is a new $10 patron who we did not message soon enough to get an answer for what you want to promote this week.
KAYLA: Sorry. I love you very much, I’m sorry I love you.
SARAH: We have shot you a message.
KAYLA: Ari would like to promote how much I love them.
SARAH: Sure. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Dia Chappell who would like to promote the Underrealm series by Garret Robinson, Andy A who would like to promote Being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote mental health, and Dragonfly who would like to promote forcing your friends to watch your favorite TV shows with you. Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.