Don’t complain if you get a day off
February 14th is my birthday so of course I hate Valentine’s Day, I can’t hang out with my friends 'cause they’re hanging with their girlfriends, and if I’m in a relationship I have to go buy flowers and stuff the day of my birthday instead of just chillinh and playing videogames which I honestly prefer. And don’t get me started on people assuming I like everything heart shaped and stuff…
If these two events were a separate thing I’d probably be OK with Valentine’s Day TBH.
I just decided your birthday is June 5, if you want to use it
I’ll accept it but you’ll have to send me a happy birthday message.
To be fair, I find all of them equally stupid. Only ones I like are those that give a free day at work, and only for that reason.
In the civilised world, it’s not called a holiday unless you get a day off work
Heh yea same, I don’t really care if it’s Leif Erikson Day or Give Mr. Krabs All Your Money Day, I just need to know if it’s a day off or not LMAO
Though some are fun, like Valentine’s Day often serves as a perfect excuse to have a date night with my SO (though we often tend to actually do it a couple days after or before to avoid everyone else doing Valentine’s Day date nights lolol (unless there’s a good deal ofc))
(unless there’s a good deal ofc)
There is not. Handing out discounts on one of the biggest consumersim-fueled dates in the year is just not maximizing profit and hence not fit for capitalistic environment.
What if they come with blowing shit up? (we Statesians love our holidays)
I do call all holidays dumb but I’ll still use it as an excuse to take a day off or do something. I teach at an all girls university and they are 100% on board having Friday off in the name of Valentine’s Day. Lol
(Oh and before you say “everyone would say yes to that” you haven’t met the kids who take college seriously)
Made up CORPORATE holiday, just like Sweetest Day. We don’t even get it off!
I love you, @fartswithanaccent, ever since I saw you call out Sweetest Day
Aw shucks lol
True. I’ve find the Easter Bunny last spring in the wild.
Best free chocolate ever.
If green you can actually eat them as a survival tactic.
I like Arbor Day, nobody can agree what day it is, but everyone likes the idea of picking a day in spring to plant a few trees
We’re supposed to "plant* them!? I’ve been cutting them down! I dry the wood, then carve a thoughtful memorial to trees…
Here we see the spawning grounds of the Pagan holidays, where a young holiday is learning to walk. But wait, in comes it’s natural predator the Christian holiday. The Holiday struggles for a bit, but it is in vain…
I dont understand why people celebrate Valentines day in my country
There is already a national holiday for that, we dont need to steal from the USA
Here in Brazil we have Dia dos Namorados (day of the romantic partners) which is the same as Valentine’s Day, but in June.
Well, they probably largely aren’t. American companies push our culture everywhere to encourage consumerist spending. Our media is systematically complicit with this. Aside from the obvious like commercials and product placement, our media also glorifies acquisition as both goal and reward. Not sure how to solve a problem? Buy a solution. Just “solved” a problem with consumption? Better reward yourself with a little treat (and some more consumption.)
Everyone should get a day off just to eat chocolate and fuck.
I got to fuck chocolate and eat.
During summer festivals couples used to go to search for a mythical fern flower, that was only flowering during the summer solstice. Of course they went searching at night. If you found one, it was supposed to make you rich and successful. So in reality, it was just an excuse for couples / young people to go into the woods and fuck all night.
The celebrations also included: bathing, dancing, decorating with flowers, lighting fires, jumping through the fire and chasing away witches. People also got married. Sometimes they plowed the village roads, so a dude could find a “match” (i.e. get to plow someone else). They’d also figuratively roast people for being dicks / immoral.
It’s legit. I get depression and chest pain every Valentine’s Day.
They are all dumb made up holidays to make you spend money you don’t have to buy shit you don’t need for people you hate in the name of equally dumb and made up traditions that people keep following because they are sheep and don’t question anything. It was never about family or love or whatever argument the rich use these days to convince you to give them your hard earned money so they can buy the 10th yacht of the week.
Yeah but that’s also why nobody likes you so you’ve got to decide if this is really a hill worth dying on. Ya Scrooge
Where in the world is Valentine’s Day a holiday?
What do you mean?
Holiday implies a public holiday, as in people get the day off from work and school. Otherwise I wouldn’t call it a holiday.
Yeah I suppose, I guess I consider it a holiday myself simply because it’s a day that I celebrate
Woildn’t the fact that the phrase “public holiday” is widely used imply the exact opposite of what you said?
What does holiday mean if not to take a break?
Okay, I looked this up. It’s mostly used in Australia and UK to mean a day off from work. In America you use it to mean celebration.
My grandpa used to break up with my grandma to avoid having to buy gifts for her, then get back together after lol
Smart guy.
You sure he was actually your grandpa? Cause if I go back nine months from your parent’s birthday…
Kinda a false equivalency, no? There’s a lot more history and tradition steeped in something like Christmas/Yule than Valentine’s Day, unless you’re suggesting we should call it a feast day in honor of the St Valentine or w/e.
You can celebrate some holidays in a traditional, non-commercialized manner. There’s not really a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day without consumerism.
Don’t be so cynical, and the value you put on tradition is an entirely personal thing. Valentines day has been celebrated for hundreds of years as well so it’s by definition a tradition.
We spread out days throughout the year to put emphasis on the people who are dear to us, ofcourse we should show them every single day, but it’s not a bad thing to highlight a day of the year.
And since you’ve decided it’s only about consumerism, let me give you a few ways to go above and beyond for you partner without having to resort to consumerism:
- Learning a skill related to your SO
- Revisiting a place or activity you enjoyed together, maybe throw in a well prepared picnic
- Growing your own flowers in advance
- Cooking a meal which is difficult and high effort to make
The amount of value placed in a day like today depends on relationship, but saying it’s only about consumerism is such a big cop-out.
Edit: As many are trying to point out,
Just to be clear, by “many” you mean two. Two people replied to you… now it’s three.
Hey do you want to believe in a world where your post gets more traction and more people comment, or do you wanna believe in a world where those two are the only ones who would comment on it going forward?
Valentines day has a quiet a bit of history too though.
Some people believe that Valentine’s day only came to be because of lupercalia, witch was a festival.
Look, if people wanna start sacrificing goats again and doing feasts, I’m all in. Hell yea, sounds great. The problems I have with Valentine’s Day are with the commercialization of love, which is how it’s been celebrated for hundreds of years. If you wanna celebrate in a non-traditional way, I’ve no real beef with you, because you’re not really celebrating the problematic parts.
Oh I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, I was just pointing out it has quite a bit of history. Though having a big feast in the middle of February sounds kinda fun I might start doing that.
Some other user mentioned going with their SO to a potluck with friends as their celebration, and that sounds like such a better way to celebrate than all our overcommercialized bullshit. I think our ancestors were right, big February feast is the way forward.
Me and my partner are going to a potluck with friends because our love should be shared with people we hold dear but that’s just us I guess.
At some point in history it was known as feast of Saint Valentines, so pot luck is probably a pretty solid way to celebrate.
Hey, that’s a cool way to celebrate, and technically the most traditional. It’s not the way people typically refer to Valentines Day, but I hope you can keep that tradition going.
I disagree with your last sentence, but not the rest of the comment. Plenty of ways to celebrate your SO without spending. It’s easier to celebrate without consumerism than Christmas or New Years for that matter.
I would argue that you should be celebrating your SO daily, so for most of my relationships the only way to go beyond and make a day special is to involve gifts/going out.
Couldn’t you make the same argument for any holiday?
You can’t celebrate Christmas without gifts because you should be spending all your time with your family so getting together and spending time together doesn’t count.
Seems like you’re just redrawing the lines to protect your argument, all holidays can be celebrated in a fairly noncommercial way because the theme of them is basically “spend time together”.
I don’t know about you, but Yule is typically when I spend time with my extended family, who I do not see every day. We all bring a meal to a communal potluck, and spend time hanging out and catching up on how people have been doing for the past year. Probably the most consumerist part is that we put the same movie on the center TV every year to have in the background.
So no, I’d argue you can’t make the same argument for a lot of holidays.
we put the same movie on the center TV every year to have in the background.
Is it The Big Lebowski? If I had a big extended family I’d totally put that on.
Nah, it’s A Christmas Story because we’re a bunch of Indiana yokels, and the grandparents like how it reminds them of their childhood. I’ve always wanted to do like a Lord of the Rings marathon, but I don’t host so not my choice.
Fair enough then :)
I can think of quite a few ways to show love w my S.O. without consumerism.
Also, I don’t see any false equivalence, just because it’s been around longer doesn’t make Christmass any less made up.
There’s a clear difference between the longstanding traditions behind Christmas/Yule and the capitalism-driven Valentine’s Day sales event. And we all know it.
The basic point was that all holidays are made up. To suggest that xmass is less of a cash grab consumer fest than valentine’s day is insane.
You dont see valentine’s day advertised in January, around here xmass starts the day after Halloween.
There’s a clear difference between the longstanding traditions behind Christmas/Yule and the capitalism-driven Valentine’s Day sales event. And we all know it.
Yes, like jolly old Santa Claus dressed up in his red and white suit as popularized by… Coca Cola in the ‘30s. You’re right, Christmas is totally different than Valentine’s Day.
It was celebrated for hundreds (or even thousands) of years before coke existed. Valentines day wasn’t.
Tell you what, how about you go google “The Feast of St. Valentine” and then we’ll pick this conversation back up. Sound good?
Hey, sounds good. Firstly I’d like to say there’s no real need to be so snarky. Even if we disagree, we should be able to have an engaging chat online without being rude. I don’t think anything I said was rude in that way, and if it seemed so I apologize. I’m easygoing, but if you want to convince people of your perspective, they might not always want to listen to what you have to say if you treat them like idiots.
Secondly, I did Google it. And according to that, around 500AD Valentines day was originally established to honor the Saint, and then over the middle ages evolved into a more general celebration of romance. So, I’ll give it to you that it wasn’t just recently invented by Hallmark.
However, I still maintain that I was correct. Obviously Christmas is now a nightmare of capitalism too, but a Christmas/Yule/Saturnalia/whatever celebration is both older, more steeped in real tradition, and has more meaning than the modern concept of Valentines, which is literally just about selling cards and flowers and jewelry.
Secondly, I did Google it. And according to that, around 500AD Valentines day was originally established to honor the Saint
Yes. So your claim that Christmas has been “celebrated for hundreds (or even thousands) of years before coke existed. Valentine’s Day wasn’t.” is incorrect. We’re done here.
Wanna know how I know you didn’t read that? Because it agrees with me. Coca Cola popularized the modern depiction of Santa Claus.
But at best what Coca-Cola popularized was an image they borrowed, not one they created.
Notice how I didn’t say they created it, nor did I say they invented it? Because I already knew they didn’t. Go figure, huh?
