Mea Marvin | Opinion Editor
February 14, 2024
Every year we see shelves ransacked and people gone mad with… love? Nope! This crazy holiday seems to promote materialism and shallowness, not what it was originally intended to be. The first Valentine’s Day started as a Christian feast day that honored the martyr named Valentine. This eventually evolved into a cultural and commercial holiday.
Asking someone what Valentine’s Day means to them is always met with an unclear and somewhat awkward answer. When questioned about her thoughts on the holiday, junior Elora Aguilar remarked that she’s “not really sure… it kind of just seems like a holiday for couples and it excludes everyone else.” Many are pressured to feel bad about not being someone’s ‘valentine’ through social media especially.
A lot of people resent this time of year because it causes more stress than joy. Couples are influenced to get their partner extravagant gifts. When something becomes so expected and standardized, it loses the thought behind the gift that makes it so special.
Singles, on the other hand, avoid all the ads TikToks and Instagram reels that harass them about the holiday, pestered to answer “do you have a valentine” about 100 times a day. Some even feel societal stress placed upon them to find a valentine to have company for this day, and therefore for the wrong reasons.
So much of this holiday is centered around peer pressure rather than genuine care.
Social media, for example, places so much emphasis on this vague holiday when, in reality, you can show love or care for your partner at any time during the year. At this point, the holiday just seems to be more about the title rather than the actual meaning. When something is popularized so much in the media it loses its value and becomes a meaningless day marked by empty gifts.
Although this doesn’t speak for everyone, there is a mass consensus that Valentine’s Day has become watered down.
February 14th has been turned into a profit for big companies. Just another opportunity to prey on consumers and get people to buy things they don’t necessarily need but feel like they need due to the bandwagon effect. Michelle Monier, a junior, pointed out the “huge drama over the Valentine’s Stanley cups. People were going crazy over those things just for a limited edition style!” This speaks to just how out of hand this holiday has gotten. People are hurting each other over a cup, and for what? It’s definitely not to show affection for the people who mean the most to you in life.
It is okay to enjoy Valentine’s Day, but take into consideration what it is truly meant to be about. Don’t get caught up in the capitalization of it, focus on the true importance. Food for thought.
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