Valentine’s Day is the one holiday a year where you can smother your friends, family, or your partner with your love or appreciation through various shades of red-white-pink gifts. Through an anonymous survey on Instagram we asked teenagers about Valentine’s Day, as the majority of teenagers in this age, feel pressured on the holiday for not having a partner to spend it with romantically.

You can find a Valentine’s Day themed gift just about anywhere at any store. Themed gifts like candy, jewelry, clothes, and more can be found throughout the whole month of February. Valentine’s Day is VERY commercialized as the holiday is a way for big corporations such as Walmart or Target to make cheap gifts that provide good sales.

One surveyed teen agrees. “I think while it is commercialized, we also have to examine peoples’ values. I feel like it can be really meaningless; when people buy a gift for their partner out of obligation and the fact that there’s sort of an imposed consumerist mindset to it,” she shares.

Another anonymous teen added, “I do think Valentine’s Day is commercialized because Valentine’s Day is supposed to be for Saint Valentine, as every saint gets a holiday- and I don’t even know anything about the origin of the day as it’s so commercialized to be about gifts and love.”

As popular as Valentine’s Day is, you’d be surprised how many people- more so, students or teenagers in general, don’t celebrate the holiday as you’d think they would. Various medias such as movies or tv, depict teenagers crazy about the holiday. When in actuality, for some students  it puts pressure on them for not having a partner to spend with.

One anonymous student shared, “I personally do not celebrate it much. I think it can be fun to do something small with friends to commemorate friendships, however in the past I haven’t celebrated it with my partner, as we both believe the way you treat someone shouldn’t be based on what a holiday tells you.”

Being a teenager in this day and age is already scary enough, as social media is setting up new expectations for us every day. Feelings of dread, sadness, and disappointment can feel very amplified on Valentine’s Day when you don’t get a card or a gift, especially for teenagers.

Another teen added, “As a teenager, we have very idealized perceptions of love. We see this in books, movies, TV, and all other media. I feel like there’s a rush and obligation to get into relationships and experience the teen romance you see in media, when in reality there’s a lot more to being a teenager than having a date on Valentine’s Day.”

Valentine’s Day is not all-bad. It’s just not a holiday that everyone is rushing out to celebrate.