Despite the unknown origins of Valentine’s Day celebrations, historical tradition looks nothing like today’s commodity extravaganza, and we can blame the Hallmark company for that. In 1913, it pioneered the commercialisation of Valentine’s Day with its Valentine’s cards industry, which was later followed by the chocolate, flower, and jewellery industries in the mid-80s.
While some local variations persist, globalised cultural exports have impacted how Valentine’s Day is celebrated today. It is argued that our perspective on romantic relationships is changing due to this phenomenon and that the ways we express love across cultures fade in favour of Western and patriarchal ‘norms’.
With digitalisation, dating has begun to take a different shape, and young people are opening up to ideas of fluidity, non-restrictive commitments, and open communication.
But while some struggle to reform relationships to be more equal and inclusive, some are very upset about it; blaming these changing standards for their loneliness.
Lovelessness and growing resentment have produced a toxic online culture based on misogyny, where feminists are perceived as being the ultimate problem. We talk love, incels, and why this couldn’t be any more wrong with today’s guests.
Faris Cuchi Gezahgen is an intersectional LGBTQIA* activist, performance artist, and Ethiopian Queer knowledge and culture producer. They are the co-founder of House of Guramayle and the vice-chair of Afro Rainbow Austria; the first organisation established by and for African LGBTQI+ communities in Austria.
Carin Franzen has been a professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University since 2020. In her research, she investigates the history of subjectivity in premodern as well as modern and contemporary European literature and deals with formations of subjectivity. She has published on mediaeval and early modern female writers’ appropriations of subject positions in the tradition of courtly love.
Leah Jule Ritterfeld is a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, doing her research on Love-less Lives, Isolated Minds: The Epistemic Fallout of Incels. She works on radicalisation, resentment and love from an epistemic perspective.
We meet with them at the Erste Foundation Library in Vienna.
Creative team
Réka Kinga Papp, editor-in-chief
Merve Akyel, art director
Szilvia Pintér, producer
Zsófia Gabriella Papp, executive producer
Salma Shaka, writer-editor
Priyanka Hutschenreiter, project assistant
Management
Hermann Riessner managing director
Judit Csikós project manager
Csilla Nagyné Kardos, office administration
OKTO Crew
Senad Hergić producer
Leah Hochedlinger video recording
Marlena Stolze video recording
Clemens Schmiedbauer video recording
Richard Brusek sound recording
Video Crew Budapest
Nóra Ruszkai, sound engineering
Gergely Áron Pápai, photography
László Halász, photography
Postproduction
Nóra Ruszkai, lead video editor
István Nagy, video editor
Milán Golovics, conversation editor
Art
Victor Maria Lima, animation
Cornelia Frischauf, theme music
Captions and subtitles
Julia Sobota closed captions, Polish and French subtitles; language versions management
Farah Ayyash Arabic subtitles
Mia Belén Soriano Spanish subtitles
Marta Ferdebar Croatian subtitles
Lídia Nádori German subtitles
Katalin Szlukovényi Hungarian subtitles
Daniela Univazo German subtitles
Olena Yermakova Ukrainian subtitles
Aida Yermekbayeva Russian subtitles
Mars Zaslavsky Italian subtitles
Hosted by the Erste Foundation Library in Vienna.
Sources
Valentine’s Day: How Did It Start and Become Popular in the U.S.? by Amber C. Snider, Teen Vogue.
Is Valentine’s Day Just a Capitalist Holiday? By Grace Proctor, Exepose.
Valentine’s Day: A Global Perspective by Markus Giesler, Huffpost.
Love (and business) unlimited: Valentine’s Day has gone global by Chris Jackson, Ipsos.
Gen Z-ers and Love: Flutter, Then Land by Hermine Donceel & Dino Subašić, Euranet Plus News Agency.
Related reads
Iris Murdoch and the Epistemic Significance of Love by Cathy Mason
The Reasons of Love by Harry Frankfurt.
Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism by Eva Illouz.
Disclosure
This talk show is a Display Europe production: a ground-breaking media platform anchored in public values.
This programme is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the European Cultural Foundation.
Importantly, the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and speakers only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.
