By Jacob Lowe
What started as a day of honoring St. Valentine and romance has turned to huge feats of affection and romance. The internationally recognized holiday has become such a big part of our culture. But is it overrated?
According to history, the Roman Emperor Claudius II outlawed the marriages of young soldiers because in his mind, he thought that marriage affected the soldiers abilities to perform well. Pope Gelasius then replaced Lupricella, the festival about welcoming Spring, with St. Valentine’s Day. The holiday quickly became a day of love everyone knows.
It wasn’t until 1916 when Hallmark started selling their valentine’s Day cards. Since then we have seen the production of many different kinds of cards of the holiday, an increase in flower sales around this time, the candy that’s only around this time of year, and the countless other products. This has made Valentine’s day known as a “Hallmark Holiday”. This means that it’s a holiday made to sell products.
In my opinion Valentine’s Day is overrated. It is used to sell many different products and only a select group of people (couples) celebrate the day and to the rest of the population it is just a normal day. Before I had a girlfriend I just viewed the day as a normal day, but now this is the first year I have actually had to do something for the first time. Now I understand that not everybody doesn’t celebrate Christmas and that Christmas is used to sell merchandise too but, it still holds its religious meaning and is more special to everyone than Valentine’s day.
All in all, the gesture is sweet but I feel like the holiday is overhyped and a bit overdone. It has lost its meaning and only applies to couples when a good chunk of people don’t really care about it. And even sometimes, people after a while, don’t celebrate it anymore. The day is overhyped in our culture today.
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