Certain practices, such as gifting chocolates, heart-shaped cards, or chocolate-covered strawberries, are indicative of Valentine’s Day but on a larger scale, romance itself. The modern conception of romance is as a series of specific actions that compose romantic relations between people. Romance is created and sustained by these codified actions, and it is this body of codified actions that determines which actions are romantic or not, defining the concept of romance.
This romantic code is thus established in the social body, but any type of social code requires a type of methodology of spreading it. The main method that should be emphasized (although there are undoubtedly other methods) is in the form of the spectacle, what theorist Guy Debord described as the absolute apparatus of modern media.
The spectacle differs from media in its imposing nature. It constantly says yes, it affirms and allows behaviors. Spectacular power engineers the actions of the viewer, thus making them nothing more than imitations of media representations; the human nature of the viewer is superseded by the dominance of the spectacle.
An example is when you see a couple on TV exchange chocolates for Valentine’s Day. The spectacle tells you that this action is permitted and encouraged in order to maintain a proper romantic relationship. In response, you give your significant other chocolates for Valentine’s Day, not out of an innate sense of romance, but its socially engineered construct.
However, this form of spectacle has a direct purpose. The people who put it on the screen and fund the media that comprise it are the capitalist media elite, the Disney’s, the CBS corporations, the Viacoms. It is in the best interest of these companies to engineer behaviors built around the consumption of products, to satisfy the marketing departments who fund their shows. It makes the exchange of commodities the most encouraged form of behavior, such as the purchasing of gifts and chocolates. This is only exacerbated in the instance of Valentine’s Day, which capitalizes on love, one of our most dominant emotions.
The capitalist spectacle engineers romantic behaviors to be centered around the exchange of commodities and consumption. The exchange of chocolates and jewelry seen on television is replicated, and romance under late capitalism becomes nothing more than buying expensive things. Romance, exemplified by the capitalist nature of holidays like Valentine’s Day, has become nothing more than a refraction of media representations in a series of commodity exchanges--all directed towards the benefit of the capitalist class.
This romantic code is thus established in the social body, but any type of social code requires a type of methodology of spreading it. The main method that should be emphasized (although there are undoubtedly other methods) is in the form of the spectacle, what theorist Guy Debord described as the absolute apparatus of modern media.
The spectacle differs from media in its imposing nature. It constantly says yes, it affirms and allows behaviors. Spectacular power engineers the actions of the viewer, thus making them nothing more than imitations of media representations; the human nature of the viewer is superseded by the dominance of the spectacle.
An example is when you see a couple on TV exchange chocolates for Valentine’s Day. The spectacle tells you that this action is permitted and encouraged in order to maintain a proper romantic relationship. In response, you give your significant other chocolates for Valentine’s Day, not out of an innate sense of romance, but its socially engineered construct.
However, this form of spectacle has a direct purpose. The people who put it on the screen and fund the media that comprise it are the capitalist media elite, the Disney’s, the CBS corporations, the Viacoms. It is in the best interest of these companies to engineer behaviors built around the consumption of products, to satisfy the marketing departments who fund their shows. It makes the exchange of commodities the most encouraged form of behavior, such as the purchasing of gifts and chocolates. This is only exacerbated in the instance of Valentine’s Day, which capitalizes on love, one of our most dominant emotions.
The capitalist spectacle engineers romantic behaviors to be centered around the exchange of commodities and consumption. The exchange of chocolates and jewelry seen on television is replicated, and romance under late capitalism becomes nothing more than buying expensive things. Romance, exemplified by the capitalist nature of holidays like Valentine’s Day, has become nothing more than a refraction of media representations in a series of commodity exchanges--all directed towards the benefit of the capitalist class.