SMS is probably the most preferred choices for sending Valentine's Day message. The traffic easily surpassed Christmas Day and the industry is expecting a 20-25% increase in usage this year. It makes sense because these Valentine’s messages are person-to-person in nature and can trigger an immediate response unlike sending a card. If there's a link to receive a gift by Tiffany is even better.
Not sure people remember the origin of Valentine's Day, it used to be called the “Festival of Love” and was one of the festivals of the pagan Romans, when paganism was the prevalent religion of the Romans more than 17 centuries ago. For them, it was an expression of "spiritual love". One of the myths was the Roman belief that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was suckled one day by a she-wolf, which gave him strength and wisdom. They celebrated this with a big festival and one of the rituals was the sacrifice of a dog and a goat. Two strong and muscular youths would daub the blood of the dog and goat onto their bodies, and then they would wash the blood away with milk.
After that there would be a great parade, with these two youths at its head, which would roam the streets. The two youths would have pieces of leather with which they would hit everyone who crossed their path, yes hit woman. The women welcomed these blows, because they believed that they could prevent or cure infertility. I think this is very entertaining and we should try to bring it back. A Valentine’s parade in NYC is a good idea. Instead of dog's blood, let's use chocolate instead please and giving out Viagra to whoever that cross their path.
The Catholic Church never liked the idea and later substituted the names of dead saints in place of those of flesh-and-blood girls to subvert the lusty Pagan practice.
Then there was the “love lottery”, Feb 14 was the day specially set aside for love lotteries in Pagan Rome. Young girls' names were written on slips of paper and thrown into jars to be picked out by the boys. They became partners for the duration of the Lupercalia festival and often such arbitrary pairings resulted in marriages. I think this is a good idea for a Valentine’s Day iPhone app. At least, you can do the lucky draw and find someone virtually and be your virtual lover for 24 hours. Sounds fun.
Valentine's Day doesn't have to be all about candle light dinners dark, overrated and overpriced restaurants and forking over “Blue” boxes. It's a day for celebrating all forms of love--caritas, agape, eros and even modern consumerism!
I never believe that love is blind, here’s my all time favorite quote “If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?” – Anonymous. That’s why we like Victoria Secret.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
