At this festival, red is more than just a hair color – it’s an identity worth celebrating.
Thousands of people gathered in the city of tilburgin the Netherlands, this week to celebrate redheads and “redheads” at an annual summit, which included bonfires, photo booths, portrait painting, dancing, and even a skin cancer information session.
“Anything that makes you special, whether it’s red hair or a quality like introversion, is something you shouldn’t hide, but rather celebrate with pride and exuberance and make it your unique selling point,” the site reads. festival website, adding that the people from more than 80 countries have attended over the years.
According to a 2019 academic article, about 1 to 2 percent of people with European ancestry have red hairalthough the number may be higher in areas such as Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and depending on the definition of red hair.
Over the years, debates about bullying, discrimination, and “cultural stigma” against people with red hair have repeatedly come to the fore in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.
In Scotland, for example, a deputy leader of the Labor Party caused a scandal in 2010 when she called a senior coalition minister a “red-headed rodent”, an insult for which she later apologized. And a 2005 “South Park” episode titled “Ginger Kids” — in which the main character treats red hair as a disease — has been routinely cited as a cultural contagion for bullying redheads and repeatedly blamed for reported assaults. in the United States, United States. UK and Canada, where people took part in a viral movement to celebrate “Kick a Ginger Day”.
He Redhead Days Festival began informally in 2005, when its manager, a painter named Bart Rouwenhorst, placed a newspaper ad for 15 redheaded models and received registration information for 150. Because Rouwenhorst “had trouble saying no,” he asked all the models to gather for a photo. group, according to the festival website. The event then inspired him to begin formally organizing the event, which has a 2013 Guinness World Records entry for the largest gathering of natural redheads, with 1,672 of those people in one photo.
With slogans such as “A face without freckles is like a night without stars”, the festival unfolded over the weekend, with a huge crowd of redheads in redheads in matching T-shirts listening to music and bouncing floats over their heads or enjoying beers. and grilled meats on a lawn. Organizers told Reuters some 5,000 redheads attended.
The theme color for this year’s gathering was hibiscus rose, which organizers say “looks great on redheads.”
(c) The Washington Post
(with images from Reuters)
Keep reading:
World Redhead Day: curiosities, myths and why Messi only has a red beard
Redheads Day: how the Argentine group that vindicates 1.5% of the world population works
Source-www.infobae.com