Valentine's History

As Valentine's Day makes its swift approach, Sean Glover, writer for The Scroll, shares his two cents once again-- for no reason in particular.

Beloved Hallmark Holiday

by Sean Glover

You think you were going to get through a holiday without me writing an article on how messed up I can make that specific holiday sound? Well, here we go, because I’m going to take a dive off the deep-end and share with you exhausted and overwhelmed Scroll readers the history of this romantic holiday and why, for some reason, we celebrate the fact that some of us have enough money to buy chocolates and teddy bears for someone we will probably forget the name of in a few years.

LEGENDS OF ORIGIN

Before Hallmark capitalized the holiday with pieces of thick, foldable paper (that are somehow up to six or seven dollars now), this holiday was originally named St. Valentine’s Day because some random Christian martyr way back when, that bore the same name, decided to secretly marry a bunch of couples together so the husband’s of those couples didn’t have to be forced into war-- which is a pretty baller move when you think about it. If I weren’t such a theatre nerd, I’d say it’s just an interesting tidbit of history, but I’m pretty sure William Shakespeare thought it was a pretty baller move, too, when writing Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, this backstory is merely just a legend, but it sounds much cooler than some random priest slipping a note to some chick that reads “From your Valentine.”

Even if the cooler version of the legend is true, “From your Valentine” became a significant phrase between the 1500’s and 1700’s once commercially printed cards were being used to make formal messages of love and companionship for couples to give to one another. This spiraled the holiday into popularity, where it became tradition to express your love with gifts and cards to someone, and the large retail companies didn’t mind at all because, y’know, they were making a lot of dough off of it. The first Valentines even depicted Cupid, the Roman god of love, which became another lasting tradition of the holiday. Because everyone enjoys seeing drawings of half naked babies with wings on a fancy card, don’t they?

HALLMARK'S INFLUENCE

Here’s where the story get’s juicy. Hallmark took advantage of this small, commonly-known tradition in 1913, and turned it into this massive world-wide holiday where people are now FORCED to buy each other stuff because, if they don’t, it’s a sign that the person doesn’t care about their companion-- and next thing they know, they’re sitting on the couch alone in a dimly lit room eating Cheetos to hide their sorrows and watching cheesy, romantic movies, which-- UH OH-- were also made by Hallmark. This gigantic company took advantage of people’s feelings, traditions, and money in every way possible and now makes bank every single year for about a few weeks. But don’t forget, they also make birthday cards, Christmas cards, Halloween cards (for some strange reason), and literally any other holiday you can think of, so they are constantly making it rain.

Even though I just bashed a mega-corporation for a few minutes, I have to give some mad respect for the people behind this-- and the consumers who are actually aware of this, but still turn over the dough either way to make their wife happy. But I guess they wouldn’t mind anyway, because it really doesn’t add up very much when just buying a box of chocolates and a card. Not for them, at least. For Hallmark, the numbers stack higher and higher every year. It’s calculated that, in just 2014, Hallmark grossed over 4.1 billion dollars in Valentine’s Day supplies alone. Going to 2016, just a couple of years later, the average American spent an average of $146.84, with total sales reaching a height of $19.7 billion. If that wasn’t enough, in 2020 it was calculated that 58 million pounds of chocolate is purchased in the seven days leading up to February 14th. My heart raced and my blood flow spiked just reading that number of sugar and caffeine totaled up.

I think it’s safe to say that Valentine’s Day is a crazily unhealthy holiday for both spending and eating, so maybe we should just celebrate the Chinese “Singles’ Day” (originally called Bachelors’ Day, which I think is just coolest name for a holiday that I’ve ever heard of), which lands on November 11th instead. At least then we can be inclusive to everyone, and I won’t have to spend my Valentine's Day in a dimly lit room by myself, sitting on my couch and eating Cheetos.

DISCLAIMER: The author of this article is just salty about this holiday because he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Thank you for your patience, Scroll readers, and enjoy your time on The Scroll.

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