TheChocolateLifeLIVE – Valentine’s Day Retcon

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

My LinkedIn profile
TheChocolateLife page on Facebook (live event)

Hashtags

#valentines #valentinesday #bemyvalentine
#chocolate #cacao #cocoa #cacau
#TheChocolateLife #LaVidaCocoa