It’s us, Hallmark
Yes, of course we invented Valentine’s Day.
So really you want to know? Is Valentine’s Day a corporate holiday invented by us, Hallmark, to sell cards and candy?
Yes. Of course.
Oh, you believed that old story about a “Saint” named “Valentine?” Here’s the truth: a chain of simple stationery stores out of Kansas City, Missouri, was never going to last. We needed a hook—and love was just waiting to be monetized with “romantic” junk. We knew the margins would be incredible! For millennia, mankind had been saying “I love you” just by saying, “I love you.” But after we invented Valentine’s Day, anyone could say it with a cheap Teddy Bear doomed to become a dog’s chew toy or a box of chocolates that expires immediately upon purchase.
And the lovesick purchasing public ate it up.
They say money can’t buy you love, but you know what money can buy? Heart-shaped candies branded with short catchphrases like “Be My Love Dove” and “U Up?”
While this market position seems obvious now, it wasn’t at first. Actually, Valentine’s Day was a wild pitch, made by a guy in our marketing department named Frank. He plowed into the office one day, rambling about greeting cards with pop culture puns and tiny plush pillows that serve no practical use.
“Let’s find the people who put the ‘fool’ in ‘fool for love,’” Frank said. And Valentine’s Day was born.
The market was massive: anyone who had a crush, was in love, or was in a relationship and no longer in love but was afraid of dying alone. They all flocked to us! Hallmark! The gold crown in our logo declared us king, lording over love and all its iterations.
But then Frank grew drunk with power. He became obsessed with Valentine’s Day and its bottom line. He expanded into licensing deals with Disney, national commercials, and speculated that we could create our own Michael Bolton in a lab. (We actually got pretty close.)
Even that wasn’t enough for Frank. He started working nights and weekends, sleeping at the office. His wife left him, and his relationship with his children disintegrated faster than a Hershey’s Kiss on your tongue. Utterly alone, Frank turned bitter; the inventor of Valentine’s Day became love’s biggest critic.
But Frank’s misery birthed new brilliance: Valentine’s Day could be for single people, too—the willfully single, the jaded, or anyone who made reading Eat, Pray, Love their entire personality. We’re talking Galentine’s Day. Palentine’s Day. The Self-Love Moment. Frank was behind it all.
Maybe you feel betrayed by this admission. That’s fine. We’ll be your capitalist scapegoat. But consider this: we stock the shelves, you’re the ones who clear them out. You’ve been sold. You’ve bought in. And now you’re about to purchase a coffee mug that says, “Love Conquers All. But Also, Coffee.”
It turns out that love does conquer all—except for Hallmark. We conquer love.
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