The new trend for ‘gender reveal’ parties sums up the mood of the past decade

OMG, the end of the decade is almost here, which means it’s time to start reflecting on what on earth has been going on. Yes, there was #Brexit and #Trump, but I’d like to suggest an alternative story which I feel also captures the prevailing mood of the past ten years.

It is about a party that went wrong. Badly wrong. In October, a couple in Iowa set about celebrating the imminent arrival of their baby with what is known as a ‘gender reveal party’. They welded a metal cylinder to a stand, packed it full of coloured powder and gunpowder, taped over the top and detonated it.

They’d used explosives in the hope of making a dramatic video for social media of the powder being sprayed into the air, which would announce the gender of their baby. Instead, the device exploded like a pipe bomb, killing a family member who was standing nearby.