Yes, of course it is!
Love of card sales. And actually, sales of almost anything else you can imagine!
Try booking a table for two in a popular restaurant, especially if Valentine’s Day falls on a Friday, a Saturday or, like this year, a Sunday. You can find special Valentine screenings of Love Story or some other appropriately sentimental melodrama. Our local chocolate shop is full of it – and hopes to be empty of it I suppose come next Monday. The kiddies’ clothes shop idem ditto although the relevance eludes me. The trendy silver jewellery shop has gone absolutely heart-shaped; cardiac I suppose you could say.
And I’m not even going to mention the florists!
It seems to have gone full cycle, so to speak. The exchange of small, hand-written notes of several centuries ago has been replaced by a commercial free-for-all.
And does anyone know anything about Saint Valentine anyway? Google him and you’ll discover that actually nobody knows anything very much at all. Once established, the idea just seems to have gained in popularity in certain countries. I say “just” but everyone seems to be agreed that the saint lived some seventeen hundred years ago. Oh well!
And it’s not an entirely English-speaking thing either, although the US, the UK and Canada and Australia seem to be the greatest exponents of the art. France and the Benelux got on the bandwagon some years ago as well and it’s a growing feature in the card-makers calendar in many parts of Europe and beyond these days.
It now seems to be one of those commercial hypes that you not only can’t avoid, but you sort of derive some pleasure in going along with. Although it is commercial, unnecessary, irritating, aggravating and even depressing all at the same time, and probably a whole lot of other things with double consonants in them as well, it’s still rather endearing and comforting and any number of single-consonant warm, cuddly things, too.
So is it all about love? Yeah, deep down!
Author: Guest Writer – Chris MacAdie
Technorati Tags: commercialisation, consumers, Saint Valentine, valentines day
About Keith Watson
Hi - I am Keith Watson.
This blog is dedicated to Banger - a teacher from my teenage years who - at least once a week - insisted upon cracking the hilarious - and I have to say - never heard before line "What's on Watson?".
I would smile demurely - the rest of the class would fall about with sides aching - and life would go on for another week.
'Wats-on My Mind' I have decided will assist me personally as well as be of interest to others (I hope) who share my challenges. It will help keep me organised and document my activities so that I know what I did yesterday.
You think I am joking!!
I have been in the website development game since 1993 and have been involved with over 2000 website builds (with the help of my fantastic team of freelance programmers)
It was only in the last two years though that I have moved over to making money for myself on line and in particular linking up with an amazing talent called Adam Eason to produce and distribute self help and hypnotherapy products.
As a result of looking to promote these products I have downloaded hundreds of internet marketing articles and e-books, studied countless reports, tested list building tactics, butterflied, boot-camped, buzzed, adsensed, affiliated, met a jerk, jv'ed, plr given-awayed, and generally suffered from information overload.
My computer - presumably in a fit of pique or simply demanding a holiday has given up the ghost on at least two occassions - causing me even more stress.
Oh this simple business of making money online.
BUT the great news is that it is all working and our list has grown - I have found some gurus I have complete faith in - and Adam and I are actually making money from our endeavours.
Some way to go but I am more relaxed and can spot a phoney over hyped, sexed up, must have latest product which you must either buy or if not, simply fade into oblivion. There’s not room on this Internet for the two of us.
This ramble of an introduction is really to set the scene for I am sure an interesting journey which I invite you to join. In fact I want you to help me find the right tools, scripts, plugins etc. etc, that will catapult me into the stratosphere of success. I hope you will be there with me.
I don't just consider success in a monetary sense. I so want to help some friends of mine who are involved in Christian missionary work in some pretty harrowing parts of this world. If I can bring any help to their missions that will give me more satisfaction than anything else.
I really, really do love this web stuff and the people you meet. I am convinced that this powerful technology can be harnessed to do some good.
