Commercialised Romance and the Struggle Between Heart and Wallet on Valentine’s Day.
The air is thick with anticipation during Valentine’s season. For many, it’s a time to celebrate affection, but in the pursuit of romantic gestures and declarations of love, couples often find themselves caught in the crosshairs of material expectations and societal pressures.
On one end lie the architects of commercialised romance: marketers, gifting companies, and Valentine service providers who peddle the notion that certain products and services are essential to expressing love. Through targeted campaigns and persuasive messaging, they shape the narrative surrounding Valentine’s Day, convincing consumers that their love is only as meaningful as the gifts they buy. At the other end of the spectrum are lovers grappling with the weight of material expectations. For them, Valentine’s Day becomes a battleground of sorts, as they navigate the quest for the perfect gift, the pressure to perform romance and meet societal standards, while still promoting and fostering genuine connection.
Raheem, a corp member in Lafia, Nasarawa state, sees nothing wrong with grand gestures on Valentine’s Day. “By all means, go all out for your loved one. What I take issue with is people who behave as though if you aren’t getting anything, you’re not loved by anyone at all.” For Raheem, love can be shown even with the smallest gestures, and it doesn’t only have to be on Valentine’s Day. “Back in school some time ago, everyone was receiving one or two gifts, the whole hostel was ablaze in constant streams of surprise packages. And then there was us, mere onlookers. I was happy for them, but it really makes you feel like if you’re not receiving something huge, your partner isn’t doing enough.”
Investigative reporter and fact-checker Tiwi Johnson,* who is in a ‘very unconventional relationship’ with her boyfriend, says their socially ascribed roles are reversed. “He loves to do chores, so I taught him to cook. I earn more than he does, so I spend more in the relationship.” Despite the fact that Tiwi and her partner exchange gifts regularly - “On a weekly basis, no matter how small” – she feels pressured to do ‘something’, or expect ‘something’ from her partner. “There’s also the unnecessary hike in stuff, just because it’s Valentine’s. I don’t like the fact that you have to present material things to your partner before they can be assured of your love for them.” Grand gifts and packages, dresses, and dinner dates do not appeal to Tiwi. “They don’t appeal to my partner either. He’s as unconventional as I am.” Yet sometimes, not doing all these things makes Tiwi feel pressured. “Like I’m not doing enough for my partner and my relationship.”
Yinka, a university student in Lagos, insists that men compensate for their lacklustre attitude towards romance every other day with expensive gifts on special occasions, especially Valentine’s. “A guy would be a miserable cheat but get you expensive gifts in the hopes that when you find out about his rendezvous, you won’t get angry.” Yinka’s ex didn’t ‘bomb’ her with gifts to compensate for his poor behaviour. “His own care wasn’t financial in that sense. It was deeply emotional. He ‘bombed’ me with a lot of care and affection and greatly helped me navigate my childhood trauma.” But all the while, Yinka says, “He was sleeping with my friend.”
Isadore Noir, a singer and voice actress, grew up with parents who always made a big deal out of Valentine’s Day. “But as I’ve gotten older, learning the historical context about Valentine’s Day and reworking my relationship with capitalism and consumerism has deterred me from just wanting to mindlessly spend and acquire things that have no value or just take up space.”
Social media also plays a role, says Isadore, “because there’s a stigma attached to having a low-key day or a day that’s not steeped in expensive products or services. No gift is good enough. An intimate night together is too cheap since people ‘get that every night’. All for a holiday manufactured by corporations.”
One of Isadore’s relationships has been affected by her reworking her relationship with capitalism and consumerism. “I expressed feeling ‘whatever’ about Valentine’s Day and my partner took it as me not being that interested in them. It became a problem.” Isadore is all for celebrating the holiday full out, but she’s just as much disinterested sometimes. “The whole thing made me extra cautious moving on. I have to ask partners about it pretty early on, ‘how important is celebrating Valentine’s Day to you’,” she says. “If a person understands the historical context and then decides to spend the day in the way that they see fit without comparison to other people, I can get down with that.”
Chiamaka Amaku, a luxury hair vendor who also runs a gifting company and curates Valentine packages, finds that romance can be easily bought. “Or the idea of romance in today’s world. Someone spends a couple of hundred dollars and you’re convinced that you’re loved, meanwhile they just had the money. I’m not saying that the person doesn’t love you, but that’s what I see everyday with romance,” she says. “For instance, people will send me like 500k, 800k to curate a package for their partners. I ask them questions to guide the curation. Does she like tea or coffee? Is it chocolates or cookies? What’s her favourite colour? Sometimes they can’t answer these questions. Some people don’t even think to address the card. You send a package of 800k and there’s no handwritten note, no single thought of your own that’s gone into it.” It’s been for Amaku to see romance through that lens. “Because it’s said that romance is better with finance, and I agree. But a lot of people don’t even know what romance is. They just have the funds that can buy a semblance of it.”
For Amaku, as an individual and as a business owner, Valentine is a capitalist holiday. “That’s the honest truth. It’s not the day of love that we think it is. Capitalism has made us think that way, and you just have to indulge.”
Esohe Iyare, an anthropologist with a masters in Media and Communication and many years spent in the branding and marketing industry, says that with the industrial revolution, many things are commodified. “Cultures, ideas, they all have symbols. Just as signing a letter ‘your Valentine’ became a cultural symbol of showing romantic love, then turned into Valentine cards and the buying and selling of them, and using the idea of romantic love to create more cultural symbols that you can commodify. Ideas are transformed into tangible commodities that can be sold. That’s what brands do. ‘If you give our products to the person that you love, it’s even deeper proof that you love them.’ Because it’s a kind of financial investment, and financial investment entails not only a sense of sacrifice, but your consideration of the worth of the other person.”
Commodification is heavy on emotions. “One of the reasons why Valentine’s, or the commodification that surrounds love is stronger is because human love is one of the strongest (positive) emotions,” Iyare says. “A big part of human love is romantic love. Human beings desire love and companionship, and it’s very easy to tap into. You can easily convince someone to buy a car for a person they love romantically, rather than someone who is just a friend. You wouldn’t ordinarily save to buy your friend a car. But you would for a spouse or lover. Brands understand the power and pull of romantic love, and they rely and push on that.”
However, Iyare insists, labelling Valentine’s a capitalist holiday is reductionist. “It overlooks its multifaceted nature and historical origins. Valentine, like Christmas, is not an intrinsically capitalist celebration. They have just now been taken to that extreme by capitalism. Just like now in popular culture, the tradition of Christmas is not exactly about the birth of Christ, but more about giving gifts to the people you love.”
Iyare further urges us to criticise marketing messages. “The sense of urgency should be detached from them. They are not to be taken at face value.” She adds that a lot of critical thinking is required about concepts, notions and performances if we are to challenge consumerist notions and marketing pressures. “Thankfully when it comes to generational differences, in my study, Gen-Z tend to be more reflective, to think deeper about trends that influence their lives, and tend to want to take more control over those things.”
Amaku cannot predict Valentine’s or the romance industry, and what the market will look like in the future. “The future is in the hearts of the people. But I know for sure that it’s a profitable season. It’ll never end,” she says, “no matter how many people wake up and realise or decide Valentine’s Day is crap, it means nothing, you can love and show love everyday and anytime.”
For Iyare, there’s no knowing if in the future Valentine’s season will be dominated by even greater degrees of consumer culture or reclaimed by genuine expressions of love. “What we do know is that just as we have a divide now, between people who are completely fine with consumerism and people who are actively trying to de-influence themselves from consumerism, there’ll be a divide even then.” Constant buying and gift-giving to prove happiness and show love, Iyare says, may not be the predominant language then. “In the future, we might be seeing more of a striving for balance. I should hope so.”
“The fact that Valentine’s Day is a thing is a thing,” says Amaku. “It’s never going to end, and I’m never going to stop capitalising on it as long as it exists.”