A gender reveal video posted on TikTok by the Cuban Yusmani Céspedes (@yusmani.cspedes4) became one of the most talked-about clips on the platform this week, not for the creativity of the moment but for the controversial behavior of the father: instead of celebrating with his pregnant partner, he shot the reveal spray directly in her face.
The clip, lasting just 13 seconds, has already garnered over 15.6 million views, 844,400 likes, and nearly 70,000 shares since it was published last Saturday. The result of the gender reveal was that the couple is expecting a boy, although that fact took a backseat to the widespread outrage sparked by the father's gesture.
The phrase that best summarizes the feelings of those who watched the video is the one that went viral in the comments: "At that moment, I become a single mom."
Criticism quickly poured in. "What a lack of respect for her by spraying her in the face," wrote one user. Another comment, one of the most forceful, noted: "Nowadays, chivalry has been lost, and everything has turned into a lack of respect. That man didn’t consider his wife and, on top of that, disrespected her, and worse times will come."
Some users turned to humor to express their astonishment. One compared the spray to insecticide and wrote: "It looks like he's spraying Baygon (an insecticide), oh no, you should run away from there." Another pointed out that they didn't know what was more outrageous: "the guy sprayed that in his face, then the other one came out more excited, the color of the reveal."
That "other" person mentioned in the comment was another detail that didn’t go unnoticed: a man present at the scene reacted with significantly more emotion than the father himself upon learning the baby's gender, which sparked its own ironic comments among the onlookers. Although the Cuban who shared the video responded in the comments that it was the brother of the soon-to-be mother.
To top it off, the color of the spray did not convince everyone either. The comment with the most visible interactions on the video —85 likes— sarcastically asked, "But that color isn't blue. What gender is the color green or turquoise?" The chromatic confusion added an additional layer of comedy to a moment that had already gone off the rails.
Cuban gender reveals that go viral are a recurring trend on TikTok, featuring clips that have included everything from ink reveals that stain guests to moments set to the rhythm of the gathering or motorcycle reveals with an unexpected ending. In this case, what set the networks ablaze was not an accident or a surprise format, but the father's attitude, which drew all the attention—and all the criticism—towards him.
The video also reopened a debate that frequently arises on social media: the treatment of pregnant women and what many users describe as the disappearance of basic gestures of consideration during moments that should be shared celebrations.
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