Let’s just begin with one of the weirdest parts about Valentine’s Day: the so-called historical significance. Celebrated on the 14th of February, it is an annual holiday that supposedly honors a martyred saint named Valentine of Rome. He was said to be jailed for performing secret illegal weddings for soldiers and young lovers who weren’t allowed to marry. However, straight from the ever-reliable Wikipedia page, “There is no evidence of any link between St. Valentine's Day and the rites of the ancient Roman festival, despite many claims by many authors. The celebration of Saint Valentine did not have any romantic connotations until Chaucer’s poetry about "Valentines" in the 14th century.” But Romans did have a strange pagan holiday around the same time called Lupercalia, which was a kind of violent Pagan feast and crude matchmaking ceremony—which accidentally got combined with another day that honored the death of two different Saint Valentines, which resulted in the contemporary Valentine’s Day we have today. That isn’t to say I disagree with the notion of a historically skewed holiday, as long as it ends up favorably complementing modern society.
The part that’s concerning is the materialism of modern V-Day. Everyone assesses how much their significant other loves them by seeing how much money has been spent on gifts and surprises for them. Whether it’s roses or champagne or diamond jewelry or cutesy greeting cards or expensive dinners, Valentine’s Day has become a holiday associated with spending. Spending and mass consumption. Mass consumption of flowers that’ll wilt in a few days, cards that’ll be trashed before the week is done, and teddy bears that’ll be forgotten and chewed up by your dog soon enough. And so the mass consumption ends in mass dumping pretty soon after the holiday.
And the reason for all of this is the continued commercialization of the holiday, reminding you that Hallmark controls your life (Valentine’s Day is the second biggest season for the sale of greeting cards after Christmas!) and you’re not good enough if you don’t spend on something extravagant. Dinner reservations are impossible to get, the inflation rates for flowers and candy are off the charts, and practically everything in every store you walk into has some sort of Valentine’s Day limited edition, overpriced junk. Rational people ransack the joints, and leave with packages of third world manufactured festivity supplies that will tomorrow find their way to third world landfills. Sentiments, probably born in some gray cubicle, are expressed in cards written by someone else, somewhere else. Everything is festooned with festive decorations and special Valentine’s Day offers and discounts that only encourage you to spend more—also tricking you into thinking it’s okay to spend more on this day. And it’s all a scam, for huge corporations to rack up the profits and squeeze every sincere romantic notion and gesture for all the dinero it’s worth.
It may sound like a stretch, but think about it: Valentine’s Day materialism just furthers inequality. It's paternalistic companies telling the middle and lower class to buy to treat their significant other, to spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need. We’ve been conditioned into thinking that we need to purchase things for gratification and romantic validation. And that’s a fact, because Valentine’s Day spending last year totaled almost 19 billion dollars.
I don’t disagree with the romantic notions of a holiday that celebrates love and emotion and all that. I don't hate love either, I just think it's important to be mindful of the way we go about it. By all means, go ahead and celebrate that. But you don’t need to spend money to show someone you love them and validate the predatory marketing tactics of capitalism. Just do something sincere that you’ve put thought into. And by all means, don’t force yourself to pile all your affection into one day and just ignore it the other 364 days—do something whenever and however—don’t let norms dictate how you express love.
Other weird stuff about V-Day:
- Society basically tells you that if someone isn’t showering you with stuff and you aren’t in a relationship, you’re kind of irrelevant today.
- Everything is geared towards heteronormativity and traditional couples, and doesn’t really have much room and acknowledge for more unconventional relationships.
- Everything is pink and red and heart-shaped, and there are definitely some gender norms hidden in that. Also, hearts don’t actually look like that, the two-lobed symbol we see everywhere might originate from an African plant.
And TL;DR:
"Valentine's Day is just a capitalist scam, designed to make people currently in a relationship spend unnecessary money in a fruitless attempt to ensure undying love and devotion. For those of us not in a relationship, Valentine's Day is simply added pressure to identify ourselves within the context of a romantic relationship, whipping us into a frenzy that only the presence of our soulmates can relieve.” - Heather Hepler from "Love? Maybe."
