By Swill Mavua
Ah, Valentine’s Day — the one day a year when corporations kindly remind us that love is dead unless it comes with an expensive rose markup and a card that says exactly what Hallmark thinks your feelings should be.
It all started in ancient Rome with Lupercalia, a mid-February festival where men ran around naked, whipping women with goat hides for fertility (because nothing screams romance like animal sacrifice and public lashing).
The Church, ever the party pooper, later slapped a saint on it around the 3rd century — St. Valentine, a priest martyred for secretly marrying couples against some emperor’s (Claudius) decree, or maybe just one of several guys named Valentine who got executed for going against the emperor’s dictates.
Details are fuzzy; history doesn’t care about accuracy when branding opportunities arise.
By the Middle Ages, thanks to poets like Chaucer linking the day to birds mating (nature’s original PDA), it morphed into a courtly love thing. People scribbled notes, exchanged tokens — cute, low-pressure stuff.
Fast-forward through Victorian lace cards and mass-produced sentiment, and boom: enter the 20th-century commercialization juggernaut. Now it’s less about defying emperors or celebrating spring passion, more about proving your devotion via diamond-level debt, restaurant waitlists longer than therapy queues, and chocolate or gift items that costs more per gram than regret.
In today’s world, Valentine’s Day symbolizes eternal love… or at least the eternal triumph of marketing over monogamy. Hearts, Cupid (that chubby arrow-slinging toddler), red roses — they all scream “I care,” while quietly whispering “I spent enough to care.” Singles get the annual reminder they’re failing at life, couples get performance anxiety disguised as romance, and everyone gets lighter wallets.
So happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. May your love be as genuine as a “limited-time” heart-shaped pizza deal, and your February 14th as stress-free as ancient Romans dodging flying goat skins. 💔🤑
The Straight Talk
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