TheChocolateLifeLIVE – Valentine’s Day Retcon
![TheChocolateLifeLIVE – Valentine’s Day Retcon](/content/images/size/w2000/format/webp/2023/02/karsten-winegeart-9AGJA0Qlops-unsplash-Featured1920x1080.jpg)
Episode 91 of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE streams Friday, February 17th from 12:00~13:00.
Retroactive continuity, retcon for short, is, according to Wikipedia, “a literary device in which facts in the world of a fictional work which have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.”
While retconning is perhaps most closely associated with sci-fi / fantasy / YA novels and films and American politics, the modern-day Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday reboot/retcon. If there were ever a more successful retcon machine than is Hallmark, as evidenced by the relentless torrent of cards and movies it spews, I am unaware if it.
And all of that output has a single goal: to tug at the heartstrings with enough force to persuade millions to part with billions in hard-earned (for some of us; for others, ill-gotten) valuta.
Too cynical? That’s part of what I’ll be covering in this episode of TheChocolateLifeLIVE: the actual origins of the holiday, how Victorians viewed it, its mid-20th reboot, and the incentive to rampant consumerism – some it chocolate, much of that chocolate seriously awful – that it has become today.
Resources
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Antique_Valentine_1909_01.jpg)
![](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/01/10/USAT/be5a5ce6-8b4c-4c45-ba71-7515bd038866-GettyImages-1177913211.jpg?crop=1731,974,x0,y376&width=1731&height=974&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
![](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e19df7c4a5824fdf0aad4681866d7e2db710f02a/c=8-0-1912-1075/local/-/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2014/02/14/1392398199000-0214ym04.jpg?width=1904&height=1075&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/2021/01/jasmine-waheed-hQPLAFopuaE-1920x1080.jpg)
Rather than expressing love and affection, these cards were designed to offend.
History Channel
![](https://corporate.hallmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/HolidayOccassion-ValentinesDay.jpg)
![](https://www.bankrate.com/2022/02/11122007/Average-cost-valentines-day-1.jpg)
Livestream Links
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TheChocolateLife page on Facebook (live event)
Hashtags
#valentines #valentinesday #bemyvalentine
#chocolate #cacao #cocoa #cacau
#TheChocolateLife #LaVidaCocoa
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