Jude Magnotti ‘26
EE Co-Managing Editor
For the past 600 years, Valentine’s Day has been almost universally recognized around the world as a day of peace, prosperity, and love.
First celebrated sometime in the 14th century by Roman Catholics, the holiday commemorates the memory of St. Valentine, a religious figure martyred by the Roman Empire somewhere around 268 AD. In the wake of Emperor Claudius’s II ban on marriage for young soldiers, Valentine became renowned and adored for secretly authorizing and performing marriages between young soldiers and their soon to be wives. Consequently, he was executed for his actions and was from there on viewed as a martyr and righteous defender of the freedom of love.
Because of Valentine’s actions and his further commemoration leading up to the present day, the holiday has been invariably associated with the characteristics of love and romanticism. Couples go out on dates and celebrate their unionship. Lone wolves come out of their caverns searching for companionship. And the universal boundaries of love and affection are celebrated and appreciated for their role in human existence.
With that being said, the role of Valentine’s Day in both American and worldwide culture has slowly diminished and withered away over time. Originally, the holiday celebrated all types of love, not just the typical romantic love in which you associate the holiday with. However, over time, the holiday has slowly shifted away from the celebration of gratitude and equilibrium it once was to a heavily commercialized and forgotten event which peaks in prominence at the elementary school level.
Every year, less and less couples and families celebrate Valentine’s Day and more and more people forget its existence all together. So why has the significance of the nostalgic holiday we once all so beloved in elementary school so inexplicably vanished from the lives of everyday people?
Well, for starters, the biggest problem with Valentine’s day is that it is represented TOO MUCH. Every year, stores deck out their aisles with endless Valentine’s Day themed gifts, foods, and items to reap as much profit from the holiday as possible. Unfortunately, due to the growing distrust between people and corporations, Valentine’s Day has begun to develop a negative connotation as a gratuitous, over-done, corporate cash-grab not worth acknowledging.
While this is true to a certain extent, this unnecessary over-commercialization has transformed the perception of Valentine’s Day from a quiet, intimate little event, to an in-your-face, non-stop bombardment of heart shaped chocolates and pink teddy bears.
A second major factor in VD’s downfall is that it has not preserved its relevance across ages. As previously mentioned, Valentine’s Day is still highly appreciated within elementary schools, with students writing and drawing sweet cards and projects to give to their peers. Although this is a good thing, many students have grown out of this appreciation as they have gotten older having begun to associate it as a childish custom rather than a real tradition.
Finally, and most importantly, Valentine’s Day has started to become counter-productive to the messages of love and affection it has preached for centuries upon centuries. With images of happy couples, gummy bears, and hugs and kisses shoved in their faces, many individuals (both in a relationship and single) have started to feel isolated and left out because of all the jovial faces they see around them.
Studies have shown that in more recent years, people (especially those between the ages of 16-26) have reported feeling more depressed and lonely around Valentine’s Day.
In trying to proliferate the importance of romanticism and intimacy, Valentine’s Day has created unrealistic comparisons and expectations for individuals to feel like they have to live up to. In trying to do so, they invariably fall short of these lofty ideals and end up feeling even worse about themselves than they did before. Even those in committed relationships can feel secluded in the way that they can’t help compare the image of their union to the image that is presented to them by the media.
With people left feeling more depressed than ever and others becoming increasingly distasteful of the bittersweet flavor of Valentine’s Day, the once revered celebration is now a shallow shell of what it once used to be. In a perfect world, corporations would stop selling out the integrity and importance of the anniversary for a quick buck. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and I fear that unless people start to find an intimate and productive solution to hold on to Valentine’s Day in their own way, it will continue to remain inextricably tied to the shackles of commercialization and isolation that the modern world has imposed on it.
Image by Gerd Altmann from pixabay.com