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[Vector]

This seems to be a general-purpose argument against celebrating things. Many people just like sharing their lives with others and throwing parties, and that's okay. Calling it a money-spending ritual implies that there is no purpose other than conspicuous consumption, and while it may understandably seem that way to you (a person who, presumably, does not like sharing your life with others), that's not at all how the people doing them see it.

I think that there is a money and ... self-publicizing aspect to it which becomes culturally grating or confusing sometimes. Kids fought over food when I was growing up; the same in my parents generation; the same in their parents' generation. The assumption of plenty and continued plenty is so strange to me. We do weddings as potlucks and don't normally have any of the other celebrations people have mentioned.

[Maximum Spin]

I think that there is a money and ... self-publicizing aspect to it which becomes culturally grating or confusing sometimes. Kids fought over food when I was growing up; the same in my parents generation; the same in their parents' generation. The assumption of plenty and continued plenty is so strange to me. We do weddings as potlucks and don't normally have any of the other celebrations people have mentioned.

The money thing, sure, but, well, that's the suburbs for you. That's all they have, really. However, I don't think it's really any more self-publicizing than any of the other things people do to connect with one another, like sending greeting cards or family newsletters or Facebook. While all of that is arguably self-publicizing, it seems unnecessarily harsh to pretend that's the point, when the actual goal is to maintain a sense of community.

[nenjin]

I think that there is a money and ... self-publicizing aspect to it which becomes culturally grating or confusing sometimes. Kids fought over food when I was growing up; the same in my parents generation; the same in their parents' generation. The assumption of plenty and continued plenty is so strange to me. We do weddings as potlucks and don't normally have any of the other celebrations people have mentioned.

The money thing, sure, but, well, that's the suburbs for you. That's all they have, really. However, I don't think it's really any more self-publicizing than any of the other things people do to connect with one another, like sending greeting cards or family newsletters or Facebook. While all of that is arguably self-publicizing, it seems unnecessarily harsh to pretend that's the point, when the actual goal is to maintain a sense of community.

Sorry, you're not going to convince me sending a greeting card and having a gender reveal party (some of them have run 5 figures) are even remotely on the same level of community building or intent. I think we've raised an era of people starving for validation and gender reveal parties are just another manifestation of that. It isn't enough to be happily married and fertile. No, it needs to be acknowledged in the grandest fashion possible as well.

[Dunamisdeos]

I think it's reasonably easy to find the line in most of these on a case-by-case basis. Joe McBro havin a BBQ with friends? This is normal, and socially healthy.

Bradley McWealthypot is having a gender reveal party with 1000$ plated dinners at an exclusive ski resort covered by all mass media outlets as a national holiday? I'm glad for your family but the entire planet does not care, Brad. Maybe someone else's child might not die of rickets if you donated some of that beef wellington money to a fucking food bank instead.

Joe McBro detonates 80lb of high explosives and irreparably damages the literal, physical foundations of his community's infrastructure? You are the villain of this story, Joe. Do you think you are the fucking Riddler? What is wrong with you? Even Brad didn't blast off half of the mountain in a vainglorious orgy of ice and fire. You know he wanted to, but his billion dollar event somehow had more restraint than yours. Just put the kid back before you try to launch it into space on a Cessna.

[Vector]

I mean, I don't see any of the things you've mentioned as favored ways to connect with others. But I've also never had a birthday party and wouldn't know what to do with one. I'm not trying to say that self-publicizing is the point, but that none of those events/aspects of culture are especially comfortable or familiar for me, and a lot of it has to do with norms about when it is OK to make yourself the center of public attention.

I don't even feel comfortable in situations at work when I'm leaving the organization and they get my boss to say something nice about me in front of other people. It's a nails on the chalkboard experience ... just let me hand you my keys and go ... I don't need to be recognized ... I'm already leaving!

[nenjin]

But I've also never had a birthday party and wouldn't know what to do with one.

Aw. Someone should throw you a birthday party. It's easy. You sit there, get embarrassed while everyone stares at you signing happy birthday, then you eat some cheap cake and open some gifts.

It's a nails on the chalkboard experience ... just let me hand you my keys and go ... I don't need to be recognized ... I'm already leaving!

I also cannot stand being the center of attention. Birthday parties are somewhat agonizing for me as well, but I realize they're just as much for my friends and family to connect with me as they are for me to feel celebrated. So I try to grin and bear it.

Do you think you are the fucking Riddler?

Is it just confirmation bias, or do gender reveal parties seem to bring out the extra crazy in some people? You hear about parties, birthday parties getting out of hand.....but who the fuck brings explosives to a party about an unborn fetus? How badly do some people need to toot their own horns? (And the horns of every car with a car alarm within a 3 mile radius.)

[Dunamisdeos]

I don't even feel comfortable in situations at work when I'm leaving the organization and they get my boss to say something nice about me in front of other people. It's a nails on the chalkboard experience ... just let me hand you my keys and go ... I don't need to be recognized ... I'm already leaving!

Yo if that's who you want to be, that is totally ok. It just doesn't follow that other people who do like those sorts of things are being self-absorbed. A good party is as much for the enjoyment of the attendees as it is the object/person in question.

How badly do some people need to toot their own horns?

Those people are absolutely self absorbed dicks. It doesn't matter what you're doing, but if it progresses to property damage as a means of celebration, you've crossed the line in bounds.

I think gender reveal parties are especially bizarre examples, and are therefore reported on. When I think baby party, I think of baby, which means quiet, and wholesomeness, and nurturing. It's somehow more intrinsically inappropriate to have an over-the-top adult megaparty for a being that A) isn't born yet B) you need to tiptoe around for the first year of its life to prevent disturbing it.

[Maximum Spin]

I don't even feel comfortable in situations at work when I'm leaving the organization and they get my boss to say something nice about me in front of other people. It's a nails on the chalkboard experience ... just let me hand you my keys and go ... I don't need to be recognized ... I'm already leaving!

Yo if that's who you want to be, that is totally ok. It just doesn't follow that other people who do like those sorts of things are being self-absorbed. A good party is as much for the enjoyment of the attendees as it is the object/person in question.

Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at. Your (Vector's, I mean) position is perfectly valid, and even the one I tend to agree with more, but it's too easy to think - and I'm not suggesting that you do, only that what you said trends that way - that other people who enjoy something different do so out of a moral failing rather than just having different preferences.

Separately, I think the thing here is that, because a few particular "gender"-reveal (which totally should be sex-reveal) parties of obscene Hollywood-style excess have been reported on (usually after causing some kind of disaster or killing somebody), people associate the concept with excess, but there are plenty of people having perfectly reasonable and sedate "gender"-reveal parties with family and friends and no explosions. It does seem, to me, like kind of a trivial thing to celebrate, and it does smack of that weird suburban obsession with gender stereotypes, but I can't begrudge someone an excuse to throw a party. When nenjin says,

Sorry, you're not going to convince me sending a greeting card and having a gender reveal party (some of them have run 5 figures) are even remotely on the same level of community building or intent. I think we've raised an era of people starving for validation and gender reveal parties are just another manifestation of that. It isn't enough to be happily married and fertile. No, it needs to be acknowledged in the grandest fashion possible as well.

, sure, a five-figure gender reveal party might suggest an unhealthy level of cultural obsession with spectacle, but it's only by virtue of the way things are reported in the media that that is the central idea of a gender-reveal (oh, I guess I got tired of the scare quotes, just mentally insert them) party for most people. The party itself isn't the problem here, it's the way people are celebrating it. Well, I think that's kind of mean-spirited too, but at least I understand the principle behind complaining about people spending too much money on a frivolous party, even if it does sound like pearl-clutching (I mean, would you prefer they just hoarded the money instead?); but I don't understand at all wanting to tell people no, you can't have a party about this at all.

[Starver]

If I'm not invited to the Conception Party, I'm not particularly interested.

[nenjin]

but I don't understand at all wanting to tell people no, you can't have a party about this at all.

Good thing I don't have to explain it to you since I never said that no one should be allowed to have one. Who is digging for pearls to clutch now? In fact, I started my gripe with "It's a sign I don't need to know them" rather than "Draft a bill so communist storm troopers can arrest everyone at the party and also take der guns too."

Sign of the times I guess. Having a negative opinion about someone's inappropriate, consumerist self-aggrandizement is tantamount to Cancel Culture. I'd certainly prefer if people would stop acting as though their whole goddamn life needs to be Instagrammable, but it only really counts if they have the decency to do it themselves.

[None]

The 'gender reveal' for my niece was just a chance to get the family all together in one house, and then we ate cupcakes with colored frosting inside to specify the sex. Fortunately nowadays it's more likely just to be a bit of fun than determining future or lineage, and with how, I dunno, de-tribalized families are nowadays, it's a little joyous blip to share together a feature that lets you know a little more about child-to-be.

The whole 'family' thing is hard to start on one's own, so I don't hold it against people to want people around to share in the experience or just get extra goodies to cope. My experience, however, is wholly mundane and not newsworthy. That we have a line of news articles about massive pompous gender reveal parties that destroy the environment is wretched indeed, I'm not sure how cultural one-upmanship has attached to this event in particular but I hate it. There'll always be something, though- keeping up with the Joneses, new cars, prom-posals, it's dumb.

Nationally, we are not well acquainted with the idea of 'enough' and sure do squabble a lot about keeping those with less from having enough while though with enough squabble for more.

[MrRoboto75]

"It's a sign I don't need to know them" rather than "Draft a bill so communist storm troopers can arrest everyone at the party and also take der guns too."

In Soviet Russia, Gender party reveals YOU

[Dunamisdeos]

Having a negative opinion about someone's inappropriate, consumerist self-aggrandizement is tantamount to Cancel Culture

This right here is why people are currently confused about you thinking people should/shouldn't have parties. Either you like consumerist self-aggrandizement, or you don't think people should engage in consumerist self-aggrandizement behavior.

Who is digging for pearls to clutch now?

"Draft a bill so communist storm troopers can arrest everyone at the party and also take der guns too."

stop acting as though their whole goddamn life needs to be Instagrammable

It's you. It is definitely you.

If I'm not invited to the Conception Party, I'm not particularly interested.

This right here made me choke on my cola, thank you for this :>

The 'gender reveal' for my niece was just a chance to get the family all together in one house, and then we ate cupcakes with colored frosting inside to specify the sex. Fortunately nowadays it's more likely just to be a bit of fun than determining future or lineage, and with how, I dunno, de-tribalized families are nowadays, it's a little joyous blip to share together a feature that lets you know a little more about child-to-be.

The whole 'family' thing is hard to start on one's own, so I don't hold it against people to want people around to share in the experience or just get extra goodies to cope. My experience, however, is wholly mundane and not newsworthy. That we have a line of news articles about massive pompous gender reveal parties that destroy the environment is wretched indeed, I'm not sure how cultural one-upmanship has attached to this event in particular but I hate it. There'll always be something, though- keeping up with the Joneses, new cars, prom-posals, it's dumb.

Nationally, we are not well acquainted with the idea of 'enough' and sure do squabble a lot about keeping those with less from having enough while though with enough squabble for more.

+1

[nenjin]

This right here is why people are currently confused about you thinking people should/shouldn't have parties. Either you like consumerist self-aggrandizement, or you don't think people should engage in consumerist self-aggrandizement behavior.

What I would prefer people do and what they're going to do are two separate things. That should be pretty obvious. When people start saying things like "Shouldn't be allowed to" is where it starts getting murky:

but I don't understand at all wanting to tell people no, you can't have a party about this at all.

[Maximum Spin]

This right here is why people are currently confused about you thinking people should/shouldn't have parties. Either you like consumerist self-aggrandizement, or you don't think people should engage in consumerist self-aggrandizement behavior.

What I would prefer people do and what they're going to do are two separate things. That should be pretty obvious. When people start saying things like "Shouldn't be allowed to" is where it starts getting murky:

but I don't understand at all wanting to tell people no, you can't have a party about this at all.

You misunderstood what I mean; I don't mean that you're saying people shouldn't be allowed to, just that you're saying that people shouldn't. The fact that you can't stop them, or even whether you would if you could, is irrelevant. You're still doing the "quit having fun, guys!" thing. When I say that you're "tell[ing] people 'no, you can't have a party about this at all'", I mean this in the same way that the modern Catholic church tells people they can't use birth control - by declaring it verboten, not by trying to forcibly prevent it.

ETA and conclude more fully: I imagine you wouldn't deny that that is in fact your position, that people shouldn't do this. I don't think that this position is wrong as such, but I do stand by saying that it's mean-spirited. It seems unhealthy to be that bothered by what other people do for fun. Still, you are entitled to dislike it and I didn't mean to come off quite so... combative. Certainly, I think people are allowed to be mean-spirited from time to time. "Having a negative opinion about someone's inappropriate, consumerist self-aggrandizement", further, isn't cancel culture: it's just puritanism. As long as you're willing to be honest that that is in fact what it is, I don't have a problem with that.