Every year, Valentine's day decor dominates store aisles for a good portion of February, creating endless opportunities to spend money on partners and loved ones. Since the holiday is so commercialized, giving presents and spending money is typically expected and welcomed during Valentine’s Day. While the holiday centers around love and appreciation, the constant pressure of gift giving can create deep rooted expectations and norms during the Valentine's Day season that remove celebrators from the true nature of the holiday. Valentine's Day reinforces antiquated expectations for consumers that aren’t sustainable or accessible for many, generating lots of anxiety.
Over time, gift giving has become engrained into the culture of Valentine’s Day. With constant opportunities for purchasing various items during the holiday, showing love through purchases has become expected. This leads to people believing that there is a direct correlation between the price of the gift they receive and how much they matter to someone. This poses a problem, because most people, especially teens, don’t have a stable income to support extravagant purchases for every holiday. With so much intense marketing focused on perfect relationships, spending large amounts of money feels like the only way to show love and appreciation. Lucy Graham, a Berkeley High School sophomore, reflected on maximalist valentines day gift giving as an expectation that shouldn’t feel so mandatory. “It's very sweet to get someone a lot of presents, if that's in your means, and if that's what you want to do, but if you're feeling outside pressure and you can't afford it … I feel like you shouldn't be villainized for not being able to do that,” Graham said. Having so much consumerism present in the mainstream during the holiday can create added stress and anxiety for shoppers.
Additionally, many Valentine’s day gifts are detrimental to the environment. For example, buying flowers and bouquets is a common ritual during early February and Valentine’s day. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, flowers are bought more frequently in the U.S. on Valentine’s day than any other holiday, accumulating 30 percent of yearly purchases. However, around 80 percent of these flowers are imported from other countries, such as Ecuador and Colombia. In order to keep these flowers fresh, lots of pesticides, fertilizers, and water is needed. When taking into account the large amount of traveling needed to transport them, flowers end up having a very large carbon footprint. Given how quickly the holiday comes and goes, Valentine's Day has become disposable in its nature, prioritizing convenience and mass production over ethical purchases.
While problematic at times, Valentine's day can offer love and comfort in a bleak time of year. The holiday has become a symbol of warmth, adding a bright patch into an otherwise difficult month. Even though its presence can spread joy, the holiday has become overly commercialized, setting very high expectations that spread more stress and anxiety than love. “I think that social media has normalized it a ton … It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, and now I think, like, there's more of an expectation of getting something really extravagant,” Graham said.
Focusing on expressing love through alternative ways can show just as much if not more appreciation. Additionally, gifting homemade items can be much more accessible on a low budget. Gifting cards, baked goods, and other handmade items are great examples of sustainable valentines day presents that are greatly appreciated and don't break the bank. Sabrina Rahm, a BHS sophomore, views the value of a gift as more subjective than a simple price tag. “ I think perspective matters more. If you have the money to get something expensive, then that's fine, but it's the same value as not having money and making something homemade … It all depends on how much you have to spend and how much you're willing to spend on your partner,” Rahm said.
In order to stay relevant, Valentine’s Day’s marketing in the media needs to pivot, and leave behind its unsustainable and product-based focus. Focusing on expressing love in the way that feels most accessible is an integral part of enjoying Valentine’s Day. This weakens the intense expectations in the media around how to celebrate, and makes the holiday less emotionally and financially strenuous.