Will you be my Valentine...

The 7th day from now is Valentine's Day, the holiday of love.

And also the holiday of Hallmark, cheesy advertising and broken hearts... Truly what Saint Valentine originially intended to happen in his name on his day, I'm sure. But what would love be worth anyways if it couldn't be exploited for marketing? In this world not much, right? In any case at least Saint Valentine, if he ever existed, can rest in peace since the Catholic church stripped him of his day back in 1969 and the 14th of february is now officially dedicated to dedicated only to Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius.

Marketing efforts in Japan and Korea have shown even more brilliance. Not only do they capitalise on love for Valentine's Day, they further argue that March 14th should be similary garantee extra profit and there for is presented as "White Day". Whereas concentrated marketing has given rise to the custom of women having to give gifts to men for Valentine, of course men should return the favor and boost sales of cards, chocolate, lingerie, etc. for a second day. After that Koreans thought it be nice to honour those who are single and were left out for two succesive days and on "Black Day", April 14th, those who didn't receive anything for Valentine's or White Day gather to eat Jajangmyeon, noodles in black sauce. Maybe singles are still feeling left out because obviously their Black Day only gives extra profit to Chinese food delivery and thus they cannot share in the feeling of being exploited by capitalism.

Of course, mostly it is those queers that don't fit into the mainstream and heterosexist advertising and marketing for what is commonly mistaken as "love" that are left out. While I feel that queer visibility is important, the more capitalistic and disgustingly cheesy Valentine becomes, the less I mourn about being queer and not seeing my kind of "love" reflexed in this day. In all honestly I have something against Valentine, something that probably started due to the fact that I never seem to get Valentine cards or presents.