Anti-Valentine's Day
71Hallmark Shmallmark! Think Valentine's Day is all about corporate greed? Forget chocolates and roses, throw an Anti-valentine's Day Party, this year!
I work as a Teen Programmer at my local library, and tend to surf the web to help me come up with new, creative program ideas that would be appealling to Teens. In an attempt to find a Valentine's Day program idea, I came across the movement of Anti-Valentine's day on the web, and LOVED it!
The idea behind Anti-Valentine's Day is basically this: Valentine's Day is a day for lovers, a day for couples, a day of industry for companies to make money off candy sales, flowers, jewelry, and all that jazz. An anti-Valentine's celebration instead could be for single people, gal pals, or anyone who "Damns the Man" and doesn't buy into that corporate greed nonsense. An Anti-Valentine's day party is a fun way to "spit in the face" of lovey dovey couples, big business, and even the idea that we need to be in a relationship to be happy. It is about having fun being independant, confident and single. Even if you aren't single or angry at anyone, an Anti-Valentine's theme is a lot of fun!
It turns out angsty Teens love this idea! I organized and ran my Anti-Valentine's Day Program for the Teens at my library last week, and it went very well! The Teens had a blast, and so did I! An Anti-Valentine's day Party is a great idea for adults as well as Teens. Read on for great ideas on how you can throw your own Anti-Valentine's Day party for any age!
Love Stinks! Anti-Valentine's Day party for Teens
- Make mixed tapes or cds of "Un-love songs" to play in the background.
- Serve broken heart shaped cookies or heart shaped cookies coloured black with black paste food colouring.
- Set up different "Stations" with tables, chairs and materials for activities.
- Activity Ideas #1- Make anti-valentines from black paper, scrapbooking and craft supplies. Find anti love quotes and provide them to your teens to use in their cards.
- Activity Ideas #2- Get some blank tank tops or t-shirts, fabric paint and fabric markers and have the kids decoarate the shirts with slogans that encourage independance.
- Activity Ideas #3- Set up a computer and log onto the site http://www.acme.com/heartmaker/ (there is also one at www.despair.com) and let the kids design their own angry candy heart message jpegs.
- Activity Ideas #4- Colour copy the covers of romance novels, mount them on cardboard and display them with markers for the teens to "vandelize." (Draw devil ears or moustaches, etc).
- Activity Ideas #5- Get some old faded flowers from a flower store and pour them out onto the floor. Let the teens jump on them and squish them with their feet. (Needless to say, not on carpet!)
- Activity Ideas #6- Make a heart shaped pinata and smash the heck out of it!
Anti-Valentine's Day Party Ideas For Adults
For an adult party, you can try some of the Teen Party ideas, but you can make them a little more "Adult" in content.
- Make an Anti-love song cd or tape to play as your soundtrack.
- Invite guests to wear black, decorate with wilted, dead or dried roses.
- Make funny "bad relationship name tags" and hand them out of the door when people come in. (Such as "Serial Dater", "Break-up Queen", "It's not me, It's you", "The other Woman", "Homewrecker", "Love Goddess", "Bad boyfriend", "The Jerk", you can be creative- pick names that represent inside jokes or their ridiculous relationship habits.)
- Find, scan and enlarge photos of famous exes and hang them around the room with jars of black markers for people to "vandalize" with devil tails/moustaches/etc. such as Brad and Jenn, Ben and J-lo, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Britney and K-Fed. (This can be especially fun if you are serving alcohol!)
- Play break-up scrabble- you can only use words that represent insulting names for exes (jerk, ho, asswipe, cheater, hater, etc.-be creative)
- Play the "Not Your Sweetheart Game." Place folded pieces of paper containing the following questions and instuctions. Pass the bowl around the table and have each person pick a paper and respond to what it says. These questions are examples, you can make up your own, too...
-Tell why you are happy to have broken up with your ex.
-Sing a few lines of "I will Survive" or another Anti-love song.-Share a funny inside joke about an ex.-Have you ever named an ex's "jewels"? Please share!-What kind of animal do you think would represent you and why?-Kiss a pillow.-What's the weirdest place you've ever "gotten it on"?-Make a toast to the single life.-Have you ever broken a heart?- Make "voodoo dolls" of ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, make yarn doll bodies and glue gun a photo of your ex on the head. (Do something funny with the dolls, like tossing them out the window, hang them from mini nooses, or throw them in the fireplace)
- Serve a black and red menu or just a killer menu- Fondue is good (skewer food and dip it in boiling hot cheese or chocolate), lots of garlic, onions and stinky cheeses, hot sauce and spicy stuff, bitter chocolate, skewered and grilled hearts like artichoke hearts or chicken hearts, cocktail bitters, broken heart cookies or a big broken heart cake (just make a heart cake and zig zag slice it up the middle), sour foods or candies. You can find lots of recipe ideas online at www.recipezaar.com, www.allrecipes.com, www.epicurious.com.
- Serve Bittersweets candies, like love hearts but with great anti-love slogans like "Tradin' you in" and "Kiss a Frog". http://www.despair.com/bittersweets.html
- Make your own fortune cookies and write funny anti-love fortunes (such as, "You will find true love... in a pair of shoes", "You will make friends with your remote", "Forget him.", etc.) Find a recipe for fortune cookies at: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fortune-Cookies-I/Detail.aspx
Other adult Anti-Valentine's Day ideas include a girls night with ice cream or fondue and chick flicks, toilet paper an exes' house (if he or she was a real jerk), go to a romantic movie in a theatre and heckle the love scenes, or celebrate Quirkyalone Day (www.quirkyalone.net).
Party Resources
Anti-Valentine's Day/Anti-Love Quotes
- "We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies."-- Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset
- "Love is exclusivity, selection."-- Jose Ortega y Gasset
- "Love is like a rose. It may look beautiful, but it's got thorns."-- Anonymous
- "Nobody loves me/it's true"-- Portishead
- "I can't make you love me, if you don't"-- Bonnie Raitt
- "Love stinks."-- J. Geils Band
T-shirt Slogan Idea
- Cupid is stupid
- Love Stinks!
- I Love being Single
- Back off, Hallmark
- This heart is not for sale
- I don't do Valentine's Day
- Kiss Off!
- Cupid works for the bad guys
- Happy shallow, fake love day
- No chocolate? No thank you.
- Back off, you lovey dovey freak
- Get a room.
Anti-Love Song Ideas
- "I Will Survive"- Gloria Gaynor
- "Love Stinks"- Adam Sandler
- "Foolish Games"- Jewel
- "Goodbye to You"- Michelle Branch
- "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra or Jessica Simpson
- "Since U Been Gone"- Kelly Clarkson
- "I Don't Want to Think About You"- Simple Plan
- "Leave (Get Out)"- JoJo
- "Cheating on You"- Franz Ferdinand
- "Only"- Nine Inch Nails
- "Heartache Tonight"-The Eagles
- "Hungry Heat"-Bruce Springsteen
- "You don't want me"- Human League
- "I Just Need Myself"-The Cure
- "Anti-Love Song"-Lenny Kravitz
- "Song For the Dumped"- Ben Folds Five
- "I Don't Care Anymore"-Phil Collins
- "Change the Locks"- Lucinda Williams or Tom Petty
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
Now this has possibilities and could be quite popular with a corporate spinoff all its own.
interesting!
It's not really about anger toward couples, it is all in fun! Any "anger" is directed towards Exes. And when I say "Exes" I don't mean those cute ones that you are still friends with, I mean XXXes-the ones that deserve no respect, we all have them!
Being a Valentines baby myself I love the attention and the candy and the cards, it give my spouse a day to make me feel appreciated and loved. When I was a child I loved it more because it was "Sweets Day" not just my birthday. I see nothing wrong in capitalizing on a sentimental day. Why would anyone want to get teens to go against it? They have enough hate and anger in there music today. Too many of them feel alone and unloved and g on hate sprees of all sorts. I am sorry but I am one who doesnt think this is a good idea.
It is not about Anti-Love, it is about Anti-establishment. If you ask me, the desire and ability to question the status quo is something that barely exists anymore and something Teens REALLY need right now.
Retro
I have a lot of experience with Young Adults who are all single, I know they would love these ideas! They are so creative and really funny too. I know for a single teen Valentines Day is just another reminder that they are alone. I am with you with the thought that it is way too comercialized. I made my hubby promise that if he were to remember me for Valentines Day, it better be the day after when he can get the roses half off. lol
Hmmm am still not clear what you are against? Love or commercialization? If its just commercialization, then no point calling it Anti-Valentine Day Activity. Rather call it Anti-commercializing activity of love. In that am with you. Stop all those Hallmarks n Archies n roses. But if you are against love, am sorry. It needs to be spread more than hatred now.
Again, I am not against love, I am against the IDEA and commercialization of Valentine's Day, I also did some historical reasearch on the Holiday and nothing about it came from very kind origins. There is a lot of law-breaking/sacrifices/beheading/etc involved.
And no I am not against love. Please read my other post about celebrating love for your partner everyday instead of just on Valentine's Day at http://hubpages.com/hub/Every-Day-Valentines-Day
This is the time in the past 4 years that I haven't been with someone on Valentine's day (and for only living for less than a quarter of a century, that's pretty significant). You can say I'm one of those "angry, hateful" teens, but in all actuality there are plenty of people out there who despise this fake holiday in everything it symbolizes. Even when I did have a Valentine, I still hated the thought of only devoting 1 out of 365 days of the year to show someone how much they mean to you just because society says you need to.
WAY TO GO RETRO MAMA I whole-heartedly agree with you.
haha! Cool ideas for the Valentine grouch. It's an interesting read actually.
Wow, the "vandalizing" idea is super creative. Thanks for writing this hub. I never in a million years would have come up with an anti-valentine's day idea like this.
nice idea
Yaas, and I love anything to do with retro cause that's where I'm usually at. And I say the same for Christmas, baa humbug. My kids are thankfully out of their teens but I enjoyed your topic so much I couldn't stop reading. I sawe your name at Rajasekharazn's blog by the way, I couldn't resist the retro!
Good job and thank you
solarcaptain (mike)
woo honey you got it with a vengeance!! the problem is you will get a cult following and then follow the stickers, tshirts etc. kinda like forrest gump SOMEBODY if not YOU will cash in. you will be the anti establishment establishment. damn. Hallmark will be selling Retro Mama valentines and cleaning up.
This is the most fantastic idea and i am soooo doing it!Thanks for all the tips!
This is totally AWESOME! I'm going to throw an Anti-VD party.
Being an angst-ridden teen myself, these tips are great!
Rock on, Retro Mama!!
Retro Mama, I totally agree with you. Awesome tips! I'm adding this to my favourites so I can use them next week. To heck with Hallmark and candy!
This is a great idea i luv the idea of an anti valentines day !!!Me and my freinds will certanily be trying this!
Stacie Naczelnik says:
2 years ago
Interesting idea. I think I would like it more without the "anger" towards couples. Independence is wonderful and important, but so is the ability to be in a healthy relationship.
I love the nametags for the adult party--that would be so funny.