Is this the world's 'worst ever' gender reveal?

If you never thought you'd see the words gender reveal and hippo in the same sentence, you're most definitely not alone.

Proving the world of gender reveals has well and truly gotten out of hand (even the supposed creator of the craze agrees) you only need to look at this totally bonkers story from the US, where an expectant couple fed a watermelon filled with coloured jelly to a hippopotamus and waited for the animal to bite down on the fruit.

When the blue jelly emerged from the punctured watermelon - indicating a boy baby - dad-to-be Jonathan Joseph exclaims "YES! YES! Thank god!" before embracing his pregnant partner Bridgette.

His exuberance over their male progeny, along with the use of an animal for a public display of a private matter, has prompted comments of disgust from people on social media.

The video was posted on Twitter by film maker Ana Bretón along with the caption, "I did it. I found the worst gender reveal."

Of course concern for the animal should always take precedence over what bits a baby-to-be will be born with.

The backlash was swift, predictably.

A presumably "younger millennial" posted tactfully, "Older millennials are horrible."

Another wrote, "When he said 'thank god' I was even more disgusted. Throw the whole couple away, also is the hippo okay?"

They just kept coming.

"That person's baby is not remotely important enough to feed a hippo 10 pounds of food colouring."

"I didn't realise this was a gender reveal thing and I thought they were just extremely happy the hippo ate the melon."

"Let's pump another animal full of man made dyes to prove my virility. Yes, very logical and necessary."

Others think they've seen way worse gender reveals.

This dad be like, "Hold my beer..."

The one that's widely regarded as the world's worst however, is the gender reveal which sparked a 47,000-acre wildfire in Arizona in April 2017, with the couple fined $306,000 for their efforts. 

The fire "... cost an estimated $8.2 million to extinguish, [and was] started when expectant father Dennis Dickey shot an explosive target containing Tenorite."

Ana later posted an update saying she had been in touch with hippo couple, which gives a little context to the situation.