Valentine’s Day: Is it overrated?

JAMIE DIEDRICH
STAFF WRITER

2/9/2026

Valentine’s Day is overrated. While the holiday is meant to center around love and purposeful connections, it presently represents a day of material possessions, gifts, and, for a lot of people, loneliness. 

Not every person wants to be bombarded by the back corner of Target starting in December with the copious shelves of chocolate soon to be half-off. The corner of the store riddled with chocolate to celebrate relationships is bound to amuse the pessimist. 

As someone who loves Christmas, it feels hypocritical to bang the drum of consumerism when much of Christmas revolves around gift-giving. But Christmas has another purpose, and I highly doubt anyone aware of Valentine’s Day knows or cares about the history. 

Unless you’re in a relationship, what’s the point of Valentine’s Day? Even if you are, gifts from one’s significant other matter any day they are given, so why is there a day for that? Having it be as celebrated as it is just cements that the people who are chronically alone have to look at it. 

I also believe it’s overrated from both sides, the gift giver and the gift receiver. When buying for people, there’s an obligation, and the amount of stuff produced for this holiday just goes to show that we’ve lost the plot. Nobody needs plushies for every specific holiday or a 20 dollar box of chocolates.

For people not buying things and not with anyone this holiday, having this holiday to remind them that they don’t have someone who loves them when we just had Christmas for that, is unfair.  Christmas is also stressed as a time of love and family, so if someone has to be alone for that, following that up by being alone on a holiday pandering specifically to couple is a double-blow.

Social media plays a big part in Valentine’s Day being overrated, because every holiday, someone is no doubt bragging about the piles of soon-to-be garbage their significant other gifted them, which will sit in a landfill until the end of time. Surely there is a better way to show your love than a stuffed bear.

The people who tend to champion this holiday on social media can also open that space for people who judge others based on what they were gifted. I don’t want to see that, and it’s everywhere, inescapable and prominent. God help the average Pinterest user in February when “everyone and their mother” has a Valentine’s Day inspo board. 

Sure, there are plenty of happy couples who love Valentine’s Day for the excuse to have a nice date night, or people who just love each other so much that they want a day to celebrate it. My concern is that entire holiday for it ropes people in who may not want to be involved. Staring up at a stuffed PB & J that says ‘you’re my better half’ is not how I want to spend a Saturday.

The holiday season is centered around family, warmth and forgiveness, and encompasses the warm feelings of the season, which is why Thanksgiving and Christmas should get a pass for being the popular holidays that they are. Valentine’s Day does not have the same core that draws individuals in. 

The silver lining of the holiday, it’s important to remember that Valentine’s Day doesn’t just have to be about romance; it can also be about platonic love or just love in general. Self-love has also become the goal of both taken and single individuals.

Please take care of your mental health this Valentine’s Day, and remember that if you feel bitter or hurt, you aren’t alone, even if it feels like it.