There was a time when a celebrity baby reveal felt like a cultural moment — a pause in the noise, a collective sigh, a shared smile across the timelines. Netizens would gather on Instagram, and gossip blogs waiting for that first grainy picture, that first adorable smile, that first name drop.
It didn’t matter whether you liked the star or not; babies, universally, have that warm-and-fuzzy effect. They soften the cynicism. They make people kinder, at least temporarily.
But not every baby reveal lands. And the recent Wa Jesus family unveiling of their newborn’s face — first to ‘close friends’ and then to the public — is a case study in how a trend can flop when there is no genuine public appetite for the moment, no emotional sincerity, and no cultural curiosity to sustain it.
In simpler words: the reveal revealed nothing. Not emotion. Not excitement. Not relevance.Nothing.
The Wa Jesus family has built a formidable digital brand. For years, their content sat in that sweet spot between faith-infused messaging, aspirational lifestyle, and relatable marital banter.
But with longevity comes a challenge that every influencer eventually faces: the pressure to stay relevant.
That pressure becomes even more suffocating in an era where trends move at lightning speed, attention spans are shrinking, and audiences can smell inauthenticity from a mile away.
Baby reveals, when they work, operate on one ingredient: anticipation. People must want to see your child.People must be curious about the baby’s name. People must be engaged enough to care about the moment.
If there is no anticipation, the reveal loses all emotional weight — no matter how professionally shot the video is, how soft the lighting is, or how many violin tracks are layered in the background.
Here, the Wa Jesus family miscalculated. Spectacularly.
This is not the first time the Wa Jesus family has been accused of performative behaviour. They have, in the past, shed tears over the most inconsequential things — a misplaced item, a small disagreement, a mildly emotional anecdote turned into a seven-minute YouTube confessional.
So when they executed the baby face reveal in two phases — first to friends, then later to the public — the move felt less like an intimate family moment and more like previously failed reveals. A content calendar item. A scripted beat in a long-running series.
The oddest part? The two-phase reveal did not even make sense.
If these were truly close friends, they would have surely visited the family earlier and seen the baby naturally. The ‘exclusive’ reveal to friends felt manufactured — almost as if the couple was trying to generate an emotional crescendo that simply did not exist.
By the time the public reveal followed, the moment was already way past stale. The audience wasn’t waiting with bated breath. There was no suspense to resolve. No tension to break.
Kenyans were not waiting on the edge of their seats for this reveal. No curiosity was brewing. No mystery was building. The newborn’s name was not a national riddle. And in the absence of public suspense, even a beautifully shot video becomes just another post.
A reveal is only impactful when there is something to reveal.
Before any influencer jumps onto a trend, they must confront an uncomfortable truth: Trends only work if you are relevant enough for them to matter.
Baby face reveals have worked for: global icons like Rihanna, local entertainment heavyweights, rare personalities with massive cultural pull.
Those reveals explode because the public is genuinely curious not because the creator demands curiosity.
Some trends are overdue by the time certain influencers attempt them. By then, the moment has passed, the novelty is gone, and only the genuinely interesting personalities can extract value from what’s left.
The Wa Jesus family is not irrelevant — they still command a loyal audience. But loyalty does not automatically translate into cultural impact. Kenya’s creator economy has expanded. Newer, fresher, more culturally in-sync personalities have emerged. The noise has grown louder, the competition harsher.
In the very least,treat kenyans like serious content consumers that they are.
Perhaps the most telling part of the entire reveal was the public’s emotional response — or lack thereof. A baby’s face should naturally pull at heartstrings. It should soften timelines, even briefly.
The audiences are increasingly fatigued by influencer content that feels repetitive, staged, or overly polished. The days of ‘family channels’ dominating timelines are fading. As consumers, we’ve seen enough pregnancy announcements, enough gender reveals, enough faux-drama vlogs, enough staged reconciliations, enough monetised family milestones.
People now crave: authenticity, personality, unpredictability, substance, unpolished moments
Not every intimate moment needs to be turned into content. Not every milestone needs a sponsor. Not every family experience must be exploited for views.
Influencers who fail to evolve with this shift find themselves losing not just relevance, but resonance. And a break is ever so important when experiencing content crisis.
With all due respect to the Wa Jesus family, maybe this is the moment to rethink their content direction. Not every influencer excels in all content categories. And that’s perfectly okay.
But if the baby reveal is added to the growing list of content that simply doesn’t land — the staged pranks, the emotional monologues, the sponsored-by-God vlogs — then perhaps the pivot is overdue.
Brand endorsements still work for them. Their influence in the Christian-lifestyle niche is still viable. Their public image is still intact.
But family-based emotional content? That well has run dry.