America's Secret Bunny Culture

The thing about being an outsider to a culture is you don't know everything. You might think you can research it all on the internet, but there are some things so dark and terrible that people don't discuss them on the internet.

America's bunny culture is one of those.

I thought I knew about American Easter habits. I'd seen children with baskets of little chocolate eggs* in American films. But then the Sketchy Bunny site appeared. The core of this site is photographs of children sitting with an adult dressed in a creepy bunny costume. It's like having your picture taken with Father Christmas, except the children are terrified. Bunny-phobia-inducing terrified.

At first, I assumed this was a new thing. Until my critique partner admitted he had a photo of himself with a scary Easter bunny**. Apparently, this has been going on for decades, but no one's been talking about it. I have a few theories about why...

• Americans assume everyone traumatises their children with scary Easter bunnies, so it wasn't worth mentioning.
• The trauma was so great, people have blanked it from their memories.
• It's like fight club. You're not allowed to have your picture taken with the bunny unless you agree not to talk about the bunny.
• Secretly, people are worried the bunnies are watching them. Talk about the bunnies and they'll find you. And they'll be angry, angry bunnies.

Either way, this is definitely an Americanism I hope doesn't catch on in the UK. Americans can keep their scary bunnies. I'll take the cute fluffy ones.

Happy Easter!

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* It's possible other people in the UK did this when I was a child, but my family didn't. We had big eggs, not a collection of little ones in a basket. Now that I'm an adult, we have collections of little eggs, because I like little eggs. But it wasn't part of my childhood Easter culture.

** I've demanded that he find it and scan it!

# Pictures are from Sketchy Bunnies and Daily Squee