Episode: 60 - Valentine’s Day Is Just Marketing (And We’re Over It)

Valentine’s Day is sold as the ultimate test of love, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly a marketing calendar wrapped in roses and guilt.

In this episode, we break down where Valentine’s Day actually came from, how it became a billion-dollar industry, and why so many people feel pressured, disappointed, or straight-up uncomfortable when February 14th rolls around.

We talk performative romance, overpriced expectations, social media pressure, and why consistent love beats one grand gesture every time. Whether you’re partnered, single, or happily ignoring the whole thing, this one’s for you.

No Hallmark fluff. No guilt spending. Just real talk.

Transcript

Coralie: [00:00:00] Valentine's Day, the one day a year where we're basically told that love is a receipt.

Amber: Roses, overpriced chocolate, marked up 300% reservations. Good luck unless you booked them before Halloween.

Vicki: And if you're single, congratulations. The world has decided you are emotionally bankrupt 

Coralie: But here's the truth. It's not love. It's all commercialism, baby.

Amber: And today we're breaking down the business behind the holiday of love. Why so many of us feel pressured by it and how not to let a marketing calendar define your worth.

Vicki: So grab a drink, grab your vibrator, grab the receipt for that $89 bouquet that just died in 24 hours, and let's talk.

Coralie: So let's start with where Valentine's Day actually came from and how capitalism just ate it all up. The mid 19th century marked the beginning of the commercialized Valentine's tea traditions that we all know of today.

Victorian men wooed [00:01:00] women with flowers. Richard Cadbury created the first heart shaped box of chocolates, like I love Cadbury. It's the best

Amber: So good.

Coralie: Um,

and the New England confectionary company or Neco began stamping out an early of conversation hearts. So.

Vicki: Fun.

Coralie: Dallas spent on Valentine's Day, but it wasn't originally about romance.

It was messy and political. It doesn't feel very heart shaped to me when you go into where it all started. It is likely based on a combination of two Valentines, who were executed on February 14th in different years by the Roman Emperor Claudius II in the third century, according to NPR and the Catholic Church may have established St.

Valentine's Day to honor these two martyrs. Right.

So the legend says, that one of these men, St. Valentine [00:02:00] attorney, had officiated weddings for Roman soldiers in secret, going against the emperor's wishes, making him seem as a proponent of love, kind of sounds like a cupid to me. another story involves the practice of writing love letters to your Valentine.

It said that St. Valentine wrote the first Valentine greeting. A young girl he tutored and fell in love with while he was imprisoned for the crimes outlined above. and then the 18 hundreds greeting card companies realized that they could monetize it, you know? And then we all of a sudden have, I love you, please buy paper every February 14th. And now, billions. Billions of spent annually making it one of the most profitable holidays.

And it's not even really a holiday. It's not a stat. No one gets paid off, paid. It's not a real holiday

 and then you have all of that. Because of all that, the emotional manipulation is baked in. If you really love them, you'll buy them this. Mm-hmm. Show your love with diamonds. Yeah.

An engagement ring has to be [00:03:00] three months salary.

All these

expectations that we put out there. And then what's sad is that all this marketing funnels, women implying that we're responsible for the romance 'cause why not? We're responsible for everything. And then what I think is funny about that too is because it's marketed towards women, even though for the most situations or the reasons this was marketed, it was for men to buy for their women.

So they're marketing it towards women to pressure their partner. I mean, it just seems like this house of freaking cards. I, yeah.

Vicki: Yep,

totally agree.

I think that there is just way too much bruhaha around the expectations and all of the things, and I have never been a Valentine's celebrator. Grab me something three weeks before if you really want to, better yet do it on the 15th. If you really need to feel like you're contributing to Valentine's Day

Coralie: so we've established that Valentine's Day is basically capitalistic hunger [00:04:00] games. Let's talk about what happens when the pressure kicks in and your wallet starts crying louder than you ever have.

Amber: I mean, the pressure to perform love and why it's total bs, right? Like there is so much pressure around it and to be fully transparent, and I don't know if anybody else feels this, that performance makes me so freaking uncomfortable.

Vicki: Yes, 

Amber: Like, don't do all these lovey-dovey weird things. I don't know how to accept it.

Vicki: correct.

Amber: it just, it feels weird. It feels so weird.

Vicki: Well, I would also prefer to just have some consistent, feelings of love or, actions of love just throughout. I don't need, I don't need you to come home with a bottle of champagne, a dozen roses, some chocolates, and what we're gonna stick some stake in. I, I, I just, I don't need any of that.

I just think that you're right, it's. Blown up 

Consistent gestures to one another throughout the year would be way more interesting to me than showing up with champagne and roses on Valentine's Day. You can hold onto that. Mm-hmm.[00:05:00] 

Amber: and I mean, Valentine's Day convinces people that affection must be expensive and grand gestures and how that affects your relationship. And it's the one night you definitely get sex like, 

Vicki: And how do you keep up with that? Like what if you're at a 20, 30, 40 year? What just no.

Amber: Could you imagine like going, above and above and above and above? Not a chance.

Vicki: That benchmark is wild. 

Coralie: could you imagine being in a relationship where the only day you showed love, like that was Valentine's Day, was one day a year? I did this on Valentine's Day. If you are only showing your partner that you care about them on Christmas, Valentine's, birthdays, anniversaries,

like that's, that is bare

minimum. 

Vicki: Also, can I just flip that script a little bit? If as the other partner you have expectations of that day, you're setting your partner up for failure because they're never gonna [00:06:00] reach it, right? And this is all gender roles are crossing here, so I just think that. That's a really important piece is that you really need to have, again, a conversation, set some expectations with one another.

What does this look like, and move forward. I was married once and on Valentine's Day, we often would get together with this other couple and we would go out and do something, whatever, like maybe we would just fondue at home or whatever. And it wasn't meant to be like this romantic space.

It was literally just. These were two people that we spent a lot of time with and we really enjoyed their company, and that's what we did together. And it was just sort of a nice, easy way to spend that day. And sometimes you can love one another in a group. That sounds terrible, but

you know what I mean.

Coralie: It's okay.

Vicki: Yeah, we were not, but I'm just saying, I just, for me it was just like, oh, that was kind of fun to do. I like that. It just changed it up and you still spent time with people and when the kids were small, we would drink from champagne flutes [00:07:00] and have dinner and do the things like, I don't know, it doesn't have to be grand.

And I think making it grand makes it dangerous.

Amber: Well, yeah, because if you're not showing love day to day in your relationship or affection,

Vicki: Yes.

Amber: the grandness on one day a year, like Coralie had said,

Coralie: Mm-hmm.

Vicki: thanks. Yeah, totally. Yep.

Amber: I mean, commercialism really does trick couples into competing. If you are not a couple who communicates with each other, like my husband and I, we will be getting up to Valentine's and we're like, at this point we don't even bother.

But before we would be like, we're not really doing anything right? Just set that expectation right away instead of let's check the price tag, who did it better? That's not a good relationship.

Vicki: Yeah, and I'm not saying don't acknowledge it at all because if you don't acknowledge it at all, I'm gonna feel like you really probably aren't. You're not checked 

Coralie: You should go listen to our Pro 

Vicki: it's, I'm not, yeah.

Amber: [00:08:00] Yeah. If you have friends and stuff too, like you're not just competing, you're competing against them. And then, oh, social media. It's not even just your freaking friends anymore. It's social media that has this huge highlight reel of this one person that went, whoa, you know? And now you look like shit.

Coralie: And a lot of times too, those are now. User generated content. So it's not even real, real things. It's where the brands will pay someone who just is generally good at social media to make a video and not even put it on that person's wall like that person might have, followers, but not enough where everyone's gonna know their name, but they just make good content, so they're gonna pay them. 

And then that's

circulating. And sometimes you can't really tell is that an ad or. Is this real? And that's what they want you to think. 

They want you to think it's real.

Amber: These big gesture, performances of proposals. Man, I've been seeing them a lot lately. It's probably 'cause I stop and I kind of watch [00:09:00] it. But I would never want that.

Vicki: No,

Amber: You better talk to your partner and know that they would like 

Coralie: Yeah.

I think it's so much more personal if it's like intimate and I could see maybe having a photographer hiding. 'cause you might wanna have those

memories. But, and you know what, different strokes for different folks. Like some people are extra and you wanna be extra and that's totally cool.

But I think a lot of times stuff is done performatively. It's not the genuine feeling. It is what they want to

Vicki: Yeah,

and that goes back to setting the tone, and I think that's.

Amber: Mm-hmm.

Vicki: I feel embarrassed for other people sometimes. And tho those big performative engagements where, it's on the jumbotron or it's here what, whatever it, I have secondhand embarrassment. I don't know why. It just happens to me. 'cause I just, because I wouldn't want that.

Right.

It just makes me feel like, is that, was that okay with 

Coralie: about five years ago, maybe longer, I saw this video. It was an engagement video. It went viral. You guys have probably seen it too. And it was, this guy took his [00:10:00] fiance to the movies and he like created this whole movie.

And the movie ended up being like their engagement and her family and everyone was in there. And I watched it and I thought it was great, but I thought it was so performative. Anyways, that was Justin Baldoni. Who wants to be a director.

Right.

So perfect lines up the performativness.

Vicki: Uh, Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Not a fan. Not a fan.

Amber: Now there are healthy alternatives to the Hallmark holiday, micro moments of connection all year round. Shared experiences over overpriced products, and I am on this one, 100%. I am all about the shared experiences with everybody, not just my partner. And conversations about expectations instead of assumptions.

Don't just assume that you're doing this big grand gesture, or that they're gonna do a big grand gesture. And then you're sitting there super disappointed. You need to talk with your partner and make sure that, you're both on the same page.

Coralie: I think [00:11:00] another

thing is that if you. Are just thinking whether you are man, woman, whatever. If you are thinking you want to give your partner a

big grand gesture and it is genuine about the big, it's not about the performance. It's the big grand gesture. One reason you wanna really make sure that's what they want is because if you wanna do that's probably 'cause that's what you want.

Right. And they might not be the same, and that's why that C word comes in so handy, you know? So if you want to do that for someone else, that's a really good indicator that that's something that you want is some sort of acknowledgement. So 

Vicki: Yep.

Coralie: it's a good little way to get the ball rolling when you don't really know how you

Amber: Yeah.

Coralie: Mm-hmm.

Vicki: It's so true.

Amber: Now when it comes to this Valentine's commercialism, it gets way messier when you're not coupled up. Because if couples are pressured to overspend, single people get hit with the, your life is incomplete. [00:12:00] Marketing bs, right? Vicki?

Vicki: Yeah, being single on Valentine's Day, I mean, because I'm not married to Valentine's Day, it's not really super impactful to me. I am really surrounded by love, in my friendships and, and I'm cool, right? In my family, my friendships. It's fine. But commercialism does treat single people as, a problem that's there to be fixed.

And we need to know how to reclaim that day without buying into the narrative and the bullshit, right? Some of the marketing that, as a single you receive, the, this is the messaging at least, is find love fast. He, you can quickly get into a relationship and we just talked about apps recently, and that's another whole thing, right? Don't eat dinner alone tonight. I love eating dinner alone, but it makes it feel like it's a bad thing.

Treat yourself because no one else will. What? That's.

Amber: Well, and I think that, correct me if I'm [00:13:00] wrong, but I feel like this marketing message, I could feel it when I was maybe in my twenties.

Vicki: Sure.

Amber: Right. I mean, and I'm not single, and I haven't been single in a really long time, can you kind of relate to that? Where maybe when you were younger and everybody was kind of hooking up and things were happening, but now you're like,

fuck that noise. 

Vicki: For sure. So, you know, when you're younger , it is about the grand gestures and it is about the demeaning something and it is about receiving external validation. And as you get older that external validation is, it just melts away. We're not looking for external validation in our fifties, and if we are, then we need more therapy. So I just think that, we are definitely in a space where we're owning it. We're owning, I'm owning the day. It doesn't matter to me. It comes, it goes. It's like any other day to me. I don't know. I don't think about it. I tell my friends I love them all the time and I tell them I'm Valentine's too. So I do agree with you that there is a lot of that performative nature that comes around when you're younger and that does certainly go away. It's [00:14:00] like everything else. Recently we were within a group of women in their fifties and older and we were dancing and there were some young women and we pulled them onto the dance floor with us and they were like, oh my gosh, you guys are so fun.

And we literally said to them. Just wait, girls just hang, just hold onto one another. You're gonna get here. It's gonna be okay. Like it was so important to us to let them know that. So yeah, totally agree. So of course remember that the industry itself is profiting off of, your loneliness or the suggesting that you're lonely,

Coralie: They're saying whatever

they think they need to say to get.

Vicki: to sell you some. A hundred percent. Singles awareness products, right. Anti Valentine's events, so,

Amber: That whole Valentine's Day popped up. You 

Coralie: Which is cute, but now

it's like they're trying to do the same thing.

Amber: Yeah. Now they're making a whole other holiday

Vicki: Right. 

Amber: Around Valentine's Day for single 

Vicki: know what, and I mean, if you're gonna Galentine's great. [00:15:00] Have a potluck.

Amber: Yeah. 

Vicki: Have a poll. Everybody bring their best charcuterie and a bottle of wine and hang out and do something really inexpensive. But, share something you love about each other and just do the things like there's way too much planning and, spending around Valentine's in certainly my opinion. And of course you get targeted ads. From the dating apps on social media, there's always something that is just being hammered at us and just don't swallow it. I have a friend who tells me when we go to Costco, don't let Costco tell you what to buy. Marketing is marketing.

Coralie: tell me what I need.

Vicki: I sure does. And when I let Costco tell me what I need to buy, I am spending 

Coralie: Okay. I just wanna say I went there last week. I only spent 2 25

Vicki: That's ridiculous.

So marketing reinforces the idea that being single is undesirable, but the truth is that single isn't a waiting room. We're not [00:16:00] just hanging out hoping that Mr. Wright is gonna show up. It's also not a temporary flaw. Some people may choose to stay single for the rest of their lives, and that's totally cool.

And they don't have to buy into this, and they need to though, have a little bit of a crust on them in order to get through it sometimes, because you're just being puked on with the marketing. And being single's not a failure, just is not you. In fact, in my opinion, I'm winning right now. I'm just winning. Ways that you can reclaim the day, of course, is you celebrate those friendships. As I said, have a potluck, do something together. Self care without guilt. Do whatever you please. Please do whatever you want. Buy yourself flowers whenever you want to. But also on Valentine's, if you so choose, I would not, I don't wanna spend triple the price. Also don't do it because somebody says you deserve it. You do deserve it every day. Every damn day. Or you can opt out completely, which is pretty much what I do, and that's valid too. I just don't play. You're not defined by your relationship status [00:17:00] or your participation in some crazy corporate holiday unnecessary. So whether you're single, you're partnered awkwardly, situation shipped, or it's just complicated. Commercialism has tricked us all at some point.

Coralie: Well, Valentine's Day wasn't born out of a celebration of love. It became one because companies saw opportunity.

Amber: And the pressure to spend manufactured the perfect romantic day, sold to you. Your worth, absolutely not determined by what happens on February 14th.

Vicki: Whether you go all out or you keep it low key or pretend the day doesn't exist at all, it doesn't define your relationship, your self-worth, or your ability to love.