It's not that marketing is targeting the same products to adults and teenagers. Adults and teenagers now have the same interests. Contemporary adults are eternal teenagers.
Seeing who liked the pic was quite a window into what these people are going to be thinking and feeling this weekend. Though, I can’t really blame them. It’s sad to feel like you’re falling behind on fake deadlines or if your friend has silently disappeared to Boyfriend Island, I feel like the uptick in Galentines marketing caters to these feelings becoming more of a norm.
I have been dating someone for 1.5 years who I (sadly) really believe is perhaps the only person to have ever actually liked me for who I am beneath all the benefits I could provide for them (laughs, pussy, new friends because I have many, etc). The way I described my experiences before him is “being dragged by the ear through the male loneliness epidemic”. Luckily for me, those who used to drag me are more or less exactly where I left them.
I haven’t read the slick link yet, but I can’t help but wonder if these studies are a byproduct of lower sales.. Will check after I press post lol
This observation about the growing prominence of "Galentine's Day" puts me in mind of Owen Cyclops' thoroughly vindicated observation that The Grinch and "Grinchmas" is gradually overtaking Santa as the most common mascot of the Christmas season: https://x.com/owenbroadcast/status/1735876419714953280 As well as the growing prominence of "Friendsgiving" in the discourse and marketing around Thanksgiving.
In each case it feels like we're entering a new stage of holiday simulacrum. In broad strokes, you used to have Pagan feast days, which were often coopted and systematized into Christian Holy Days, which were in turn in the 20th century commercialized into secular holidays. But even these holidays at least, under all the trappings, still pointed to the celebration of secular virtues - in the respective cases of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day those would be roughly "family togetherness", "generosity", "romance".
In the 21st century even the invocation of those values is too potentially burdensome for marketers to feel comfortable with, so we're starting to grow a parallel calendar of semi-ironic anti-holidays about "ew, why would I spend time with my family?" "ew, why would I get in the Christmas spirit?" "ew, why would I want to be in a relationship?". It's easier for retailers to target Atomized-Americans this way because every observance finally just becomes a free-floating aesthetic divorced from any lingering reminders about values (or obligations to anyone else) at all.
I had similar thoughts as I was writing this! For a second I almost wrote something like, "These Valentine's sweaters are the equivalent of wearing a shirt that says 'I Hate Christmas' in December," but then I realized that the grumpy Grinch sweaters sort of already convey that idea.
When I was young, I remember that Playboy occasionally surveyed College students about their sex lives. Perhaps those could be a fruitful topic for you to explore in the future?
I know readers would have to take the responses with a grain of salt, but I imagine seeing the changes over time could be quite fascinating
"Dump him" vs "dump her" reveals a double standard that should not come as a surprise. The degrading of men has a long history in popular culture and may, perhaps, be an inadequate but desperate reaction to male dominance in areas outside of personal relationships, i.e. in the public sphere where women continue to be underrepresented, undervalued, and underestimated.
Obviously, "dump her" and "dump him" are two sides of the same coin, of a culture that has largely lost its shared ethics paramaters. Our normative environment rewards the socially subversive and ridicules the chivalrous to the point where coming to the aid of a woman pushed into a snowbank may lead to instant execution.
Modern romance would be asking someone to be your Valentine via a snuff footage of a drone dropping a VOG-17 grenade on a Russian soldier (for the small price of 2 grand).
In all seriousness, the true solution to the infinite recursion of Valentine, anti-Valentine, Valentine-neutral, Valentine revivalist and anti-Valentine radicalist is to log the hell off. One of the most heteropessimist ladies I know (reinventing The Rules from first principles) basically retracts anything she flings into Instagram Stories the moment you talk to her about such topics in meatspace. It feels like kayfabe and shadowboxing.
I think a guy wearing a "Dump Her" shirt would get a distinctly cool reaction from everybody, don't you? (EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying this is some great injustice, just that it's assymmetrical)
It's not that marketing is targeting the same products to adults and teenagers. Adults and teenagers now have the same interests. Contemporary adults are eternal teenagers.
yes, as I said, the expectations and attitudes of adults and teenagers are now one in the same
Sorry if this comment comes off as aimless and long winded haha but this post is coinciding with me seeing someone repost an image on IG yesterday from the deviant art page called Anti-Romance https://www.instagram.com/p/DUjFgOtiQMP/?img_index=3&igsh=MWRjNnU4dnh1ZHd6cA==
Seeing who liked the pic was quite a window into what these people are going to be thinking and feeling this weekend. Though, I can’t really blame them. It’s sad to feel like you’re falling behind on fake deadlines or if your friend has silently disappeared to Boyfriend Island, I feel like the uptick in Galentines marketing caters to these feelings becoming more of a norm.
I have been dating someone for 1.5 years who I (sadly) really believe is perhaps the only person to have ever actually liked me for who I am beneath all the benefits I could provide for them (laughs, pussy, new friends because I have many, etc). The way I described my experiences before him is “being dragged by the ear through the male loneliness epidemic”. Luckily for me, those who used to drag me are more or less exactly where I left them.
I haven’t read the slick link yet, but I can’t help but wonder if these studies are a byproduct of lower sales.. Will check after I press post lol
This observation about the growing prominence of "Galentine's Day" puts me in mind of Owen Cyclops' thoroughly vindicated observation that The Grinch and "Grinchmas" is gradually overtaking Santa as the most common mascot of the Christmas season: https://x.com/owenbroadcast/status/1735876419714953280 As well as the growing prominence of "Friendsgiving" in the discourse and marketing around Thanksgiving.
In each case it feels like we're entering a new stage of holiday simulacrum. In broad strokes, you used to have Pagan feast days, which were often coopted and systematized into Christian Holy Days, which were in turn in the 20th century commercialized into secular holidays. But even these holidays at least, under all the trappings, still pointed to the celebration of secular virtues - in the respective cases of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day those would be roughly "family togetherness", "generosity", "romance".
In the 21st century even the invocation of those values is too potentially burdensome for marketers to feel comfortable with, so we're starting to grow a parallel calendar of semi-ironic anti-holidays about "ew, why would I spend time with my family?" "ew, why would I get in the Christmas spirit?" "ew, why would I want to be in a relationship?". It's easier for retailers to target Atomized-Americans this way because every observance finally just becomes a free-floating aesthetic divorced from any lingering reminders about values (or obligations to anyone else) at all.
I had similar thoughts as I was writing this! For a second I almost wrote something like, "These Valentine's sweaters are the equivalent of wearing a shirt that says 'I Hate Christmas' in December," but then I realized that the grumpy Grinch sweaters sort of already convey that idea.
When I was young, I remember that Playboy occasionally surveyed College students about their sex lives. Perhaps those could be a fruitful topic for you to explore in the future?
I know readers would have to take the responses with a grain of salt, but I imagine seeing the changes over time could be quite fascinating
it’s actually on our list of things to pursue for the fall!
"Dump him" vs "dump her" reveals a double standard that should not come as a surprise. The degrading of men has a long history in popular culture and may, perhaps, be an inadequate but desperate reaction to male dominance in areas outside of personal relationships, i.e. in the public sphere where women continue to be underrepresented, undervalued, and underestimated.
Obviously, "dump her" and "dump him" are two sides of the same coin, of a culture that has largely lost its shared ethics paramaters. Our normative environment rewards the socially subversive and ridicules the chivalrous to the point where coming to the aid of a woman pushed into a snowbank may lead to instant execution.
Best of luck to you and your father, of course!
Who hurt you?
Modern romance would be asking someone to be your Valentine via a snuff footage of a drone dropping a VOG-17 grenade on a Russian soldier (for the small price of 2 grand).
In all seriousness, the true solution to the infinite recursion of Valentine, anti-Valentine, Valentine-neutral, Valentine revivalist and anti-Valentine radicalist is to log the hell off. One of the most heteropessimist ladies I know (reinventing The Rules from first principles) basically retracts anything she flings into Instagram Stories the moment you talk to her about such topics in meatspace. It feels like kayfabe and shadowboxing.
I think a guy wearing a "Dump Her" shirt would get a distinctly cool reaction from everybody, don't you? (EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying this is some great injustice, just that it's assymmetrical)
So you’re jerking off furiously to an Onlyfans Artiste, smh. Get some dignity, self respect and real pussy while you’re at it.