Valentine's Day: Another marketing ploy?

Livvy Mason-Myhill, Deputy Editor, tells us her thoughts on the true meaning of Valentine's Day

ONCE again, we find ourselves circling back to 14th February, or Valentine’s Day as most people more commonly recognise it. This is a day of celebration, particularly for those in romantic relationships who get to prove their love to their partner by showering them with heart-shaped gifts, chocolates or teddy bears. However, it is also a day that is dreaded by all singletons, having to watch adorable couples float past them, then realising that they have a crippling fear of possibly being alone forever. These singletons will then depressingly decide to spend the entire day devouring chocolates from a heartshaped chocolate box they bought for themselves, whilst crying to emotional rom-coms.

THESE SINGLETONS WILL THEN DEPRESSINGLY DECIDE TO SPEND THE ENTIRE DAY DEVOURING CHOCOLATES FROM A HEART-SHAPED CHOCOLATE BOX

The history of Valentine’s Day hasn’t always been clear. We do know that Valentine's Day has its roots in both Christian and ancient Roman culture, and that February has long been regarded as the month of love. Through later folk traditions, it evolved from its origins as a Christian feast day honouring one or two early Christian martyrs by the name of Saint Valentine to become a promi- nent cultural, religious, and commercial festival of romance and love in many parts of the world. Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for companies to market their products to couples to gain their own profits. They make their products more appealing by strategi cally making every thing pink, red, or covering everything in hearts. These products are mostly rather tacky and only the truly enamoured cou ples would buy them.

The classic gift for the most cringey of couples is, of course, a present from Pandora. Getting Pandora jewellery from your boyfriend, girlfriend or partner either means they haven't got the best taste, or they completely forgot it was Valentine’s Day, so they rushed into the queue with all the other stressed partners.

Despite my view of companies using Valentine’s as a marketing ploy, I find certain gifts to be rather adorable. For example, a simple bouquet of flowers, a small Lego set or an adorable jellycat teddy bear are gifts that I think are so sweet. Yet, despite it being known as a day to celebrate love, do we really need to have one single day to show love to someone special? Surely, we should show our love for someone every day even if it's not quite as extravagant as some people do during Valentine's Day. I have always had the view that Valentine’s Day should be a day for people to reveal how they romantically feel about someone. It may come across as corny, but I always envisioned Valentine's with people giving each other notes that are from their secret admirer.