February Issue
Melissa Çevikel
February
Heart-shaped EVERYTHING, red, pink and white dominating the isles and “Galentine's Day” wine-tasting workshops for middle-aged white women. It's the season of Valentine's Day sales, advertisements and the ‘10 best things to buy your partner for Valentine’s Day’ videos flooding social media timelines. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, industries have been waiting for February to come around to be able to profit off of either your love for your partner or the dreadful loneliness you might be feeling against their absence.
It’s assumed that Valentine's Day was originally celebrated as the Roman festival Lupercalia, held to celebrate the coming of spring. Though the theme doesn’t necessarily align with what we know as the holiday today, it included matchmaking for men and women —though this celebration was banned by the end of the fifth century. The day gets its name from one of the several priests and martyrs named Valentine, the exact identity of whom no one is quite sure about. According to the legend, the day is associated with love because St. Valentine went against the emperor's orders and wed couples to help the husbands escape war. Declarations of love on Valentine’s Day used to consist of valentines themselves, which are greeting cards that contain words of affection towards one's Valentine— the loved one with whom one chose to spend Valentine's Day.
While during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the commercial aspect of Valentine's Day was limited to the Valentine cards, the 21st century offers a much larger consumerist approach to the holiday. This raises the question: how does this consumerist shift affect our attitudes toward love?
In her book “All About Love: New Visions”, the author, theorist, professor and activist Bell Hooks wrote: “Consumer culture, in particular, encourages lies. Advertising is one of the cultural mediums that has the most sanctioned lying. Keeping people in a constant state of lack, in perpetual desire, strengthens the marketplace economy. Lovelessness is a boon to consumerism.” In a market economy, we are meant to be able to get exactly what we want and have access to products as niche as we desire them to be. This, in turn, feeds the hyper-individualism that has been brewing since the late 20th century and extends our overconsumption. During Valentine’s Day, one has access to any product they desire— with a side of red packaging and hearts for 10% more of the price.
As Hooks explained, since we are kept in a “constant state of lack, in perpetual desire” by large corporations, we expect those we love to feed us our material needs during holidays, birthdays and especially Valentine's Day. Think about the number of stuffed animals purchased each year on Valentine’s Day. They aren’t bought because they’re believed to be one's partner's favorite animal or because they hold any sentimental value, but solely out of the traditionalness of this gift. In no way does this mean that the gift is not valuable, but it does highlight how it’s driven by consumerist culture rather than love itself. Through this, we can make a broader observation that the desire to celebrate Valentine's Day in such a way is also driven by consumerist culture rather than a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Undeniably, a relatively new yet striking force in our interpretation of love has become technology and social media. Dating apps like Hinge now have paid-for premium options, and such options are targeted toward those who are “shy and afraid to make the first move”. This essentially materializes one's accessibility to “love” or to the opportunity to meet someone with whom you can bond on any level. But what is wrong with meeting a partner in college, at work or bumping into each other on the street the Carrie Bradshaw way? Are these environments not as safe as they were before, back when most older people had stories of meeting as such or of being set up by friends? And is the situation so critical that we’re willing to pay up to $49.99 monthly?
Technology and love are also more and more interconnected in mainstream media. Most books that have romantic plot lines —especially young adult (YA) romance books— offer conversation scenes via texts or emails. Sally Rooney's books are especially rich in this sense since they all feature very long email conversations and declarations of love. While in a sense this keeps the books realistic and relevant, YA romance books take this to a completely other level offering storytelling solely through text conversation screenshots. Not only does this raise the question of privacy, but also sets the standard for previously fabricated conversations rather than spontaneous interactions. With technology, and especially texting, becoming the biggest means of communication while getting to know someone or while in a situationship, it has become easier to be deceived by someone’s “online” personality.
A good example of this deception can be seen in the book “The Idiot” by Elif Batuman. The story is set in the mid-90s at the very beginning of the rise of email culture at Harvard. The main character, Selin, feels awkward talking to her love interest so ends up sending him very long philosophical emails and they talk in a prolonged email stream. Finally, when Selin confesses her love to Ivan via email, he replies by saying that he is in love with her emails and not her. It’s much easier to come up with intelligent things to say and topics of conversation when one has time to formulate responses, and now more than ever— with attention spans drastically minimizing— being able to converse spontaneously is a highly valued skill.
Another newly emerging “genre” of media concerned with love is self-help books and online personalities. The most famous example of this would be Dolly Alderton’s book “Everything I Know About Love.” While originally published in 2018, this book became very popular on social media after 2020 for being “life-changing” and helping many change their outlook on love. The book tells the story of the author’s coming of age and how both her romantic and platonic relationships changed as she grew into her 30s. While many of the themes previously covered in this article are mentioned, the author mainly emphasizes the role of her friendships in finding love both for herself and others. A notable—and viral—quote from the book is “Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”
While we all grow from our mistakes, someone you love getting hurt is a much stronger learning experience. It’s not as easy to notice the faults in a relationship you’re very invested in and are trying to make work as observing these as a third person. Being hurt firsthand will make it more difficult for one to trust someone again, whereas seeing someone getting hurt will teach one to look out for red flags. This isn’t the only dimension of Alderton’s quote, but it also underlines the importance of the platonic love bonds we create with our friends in understanding how to love and what it means to be loved.
On the contrary, the famous self-help YouTuber Thewizzardliz argues otherwise. Her take on love— and generally on becoming successful in any other situation— focuses on hyperindividualism. One of her most famous preachings is “You don’t owe anyone anything,” including kindness or respect. This is very different from Bell Hooks’ outlook on life, where she instead preaches that complete forgiveness and openness can be the only ways of fully being invested in love.
While noting that there is a time gap of more than 20 years between the two, both highlight how alienated we are progressively becoming from our communities. Both ideas are on the extremes, with Bell Hooks urging people to forgive their abusers to feel “true love” and Thewizardliz urging people to be self-absorbed and borderline rude. However, a middle ground could be the strong bond with a certain group of people which allows one to be both a part of a safe community and to not be a victim of narcissism, as Alderton discusses.
As everything is slowly becoming 15% off for Valentine’s Day, and everyone seems to be in a rush to buy matching socks with their partner, it’s important to look back and reflect on how this affects our perceptions of love overall. As technology is now almost completely interlocked with our love lives, and we’re constantly being encouraged to be more hyper-individualistic and consume more, it’s difficult to take a moment and focus on what actually is meant to be celebrated. Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be a day for exchanging gifts or being sad over the fact that there’s no one with whom you can participate in this overconsumption crisis. Love, in all its forms, can be cherished without engaging in its distorted, capitalized forms and by remembering we are a part of a community that can grow stronger if we stop associating love with discounts and advertisements.
Photo credits: Magnus Hagdorn, 2020