Valentine’s Day is just days away, and while love is in the air for some, straight up disgust is stanking up the place for others. To that I say, “Get over yourself Valentine Haters!”
You’re wrong and your negative energy is ruining it for the rest of us. Here are a few little Valentine’s Day tidbits to encourage you to buck up and love something, dammit!The biggest argument against Valentine’s Day can be summed up well with the words of Mad Men’s Don Draper, that love (and Valentine’s Day) were created by ad guys to sell nylons.
If this is the argument you’re going to make, think about how every holiday is utilized by companies in every retail sector to sell products. Forbes reported that 4th of July celebrations in 2010 brought in over $3 billion.
Does that mean we should extinguish each lit firework fuse in the name of celebrating patriotism without supporting capitalism? I’m guessing the 240 plus million drunk barbecuers would say “no, get your hands off my firework.”
The National Retail Federation estimates Halloween, the holiday that “Mean Girls” taught us we’re allowed to wear as little clothes as possible in the name of a costume, brought in $6.86 billion in 2011. Should we demand that those animal ear and lingerie wearing girls with their toga clad boys go back to their house and soberly think about their holiday consumerism? That is so not fetch.
Christmas, for Christ’s sake, is the biggest culprit of all. 2011 saw Jesus’s B-day bring in $469 billion. Does that mean we should go around smacking every tray of holiday cookies out of gift givers’ hands, knock over the millions of Christmas trees sprucing up people’s homes, and maniacally declare that Santa doesn’t exist during “Sesame Street” to every 4-year-old in America all in the name of making a stand against consumer holidays? You crazy, Mr. Grinch, because EVERY holiday is a consumer holiday.
So why give Valentine’s Day all this flack? The National Retail Federation reported that the holiday of love only brought in a measly $15.7 billion in 2011. If your problem is that people shouldn’t need a reminder to tell their loved ones that they love them, uh, yeah, they should. We’re busy freaking people with short attention spans.
If you’ve made it this far into the article you’re already ahead of the curve as to how long people will stick with one story. With the billions of texts, tweets, and TV shows we ingest each day, it’s nice to have a reminder to snap you back into the real world and tell somebody you love them.
And don’t forget, a significant other doesn’t have to be a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife. Who can forget that sweet little Valentine’s date between Carrie and Miranda on “Sex and the City?” What about that adorable bromance between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel in “I Love You, Man?” Ain’t nobody got time for your hate or your useless arguments against the holiday, so it’s about time you grabbed on to your nearest loved one, whether it’s your best friend, your dog, or your soul mate, and start to feel the love.
