2024-08-11
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By Di Yinjie
Editor/Yan Ruyi
Last year’s Chinese Valentine’s Day, I spent it with my colleague Miriam.
I still remember that day, we bought two cups of HEYTEA after get off work, and were the first group of people on the Internet to watch the famous love movie - "Burning Winter".
It was a memorable day, half because the film’s plot was so abstract;
The other half of the reason is that we both found that a cup of milk tea and a movie ticket were our entire spending for the day.
This is the Chinese Valentine's Day in which we spent the least in the past five years.
They said they could pick up bouquets on the roadside, but they didn't find any even after walking from the East Second Ring Road to the East Fourth Ring Road;
I said I wanted to check the trash cans to see if there were any discarded gifts, but I found that there were very few couples along the way.
“The Chinese New Year is becoming less and less festive” may be a false proposition, but this Chinese Valentine’s Day, there is indeed no flavor of “spending money to buy romance”.
Could it be that the young people today have evolved away from the Qixi Festival?
As a new media person who is familiar with the trend of the times, in the past, there were generally three major events on Chinese Valentine's Day:
First, we will persuade the separation team to send out police from all over the network, and we will separate every couple we can;
Second, a collection of ugly gifts that would make your girlfriend cry when she sees them.
Fluorescent lipsticks, roses with night lights attached, and blooming lipstick boxes are already a thing of the past, and complaining about them only makes you seem out of step with the times.
Only the "Sixth Anniversary Raffia" of that year could give people a little gift shock.
The third, which corresponds to giving gifts, is the “garbage picking team”.
The trash can is a trench, the downstairs of the company is a battlefield, and the front desk is a city fortress.
According to the guide, there are flowers, necklaces, and small cakes here.After all, the best destination for a second-hand rose is to be given to the next person who discovers the rose.
In that era, love wore its own price tag and lay quietly in the display cabinet, waiting for money to be turned into gifts and then into coupons for love.
Romance was in vogue and the price of romance was rising. For couples of that era, the most important thing when celebrating holidays was the sense of ritual.
However, from one day on, everyone suddenly discovered that the romance of Chinese Valentine's Day began to ebb.
There is no statutory holiday for Chinese Valentine's Day, and workers are exhausted just from working.
This year happens to be a Saturday, and sleeping until I wake up naturally is the best compliment to this day.
And some miserable editors have to work overtime on weekends.
In the display of the circle of friends, the most typical performance isThe popularity of flowers, which represent romance, is slowly fading.
After all, the main colors of the Chinese Valentine's Day in the past were black and red, with girls holding hundreds of red roses wrapped in black wrapping paper that they couldn't even hug. One post on Moments would fill up the entire screen, and the next four or five screens would be filled with similar content.
This year, those 999 flowers have disappeared and turned into "The first cup of milk tea in autumn is also on Chinese Valentine's Day", saving you 999 yuan immediately.
On social platforms, many flower shop owners are confused: What’s going on? Why is no one sending flowers on Valentine’s Day?
In contrast to the poor sales of flowers, prices have plummeted.
Red roses still symbolize love, but last year on Chinese Valentine's Day, the price of this symbol of love was only 10 yuan a bunch.
Many people were not surprised, after all, the decline in flower prices was expected.
On Valentine's Day in 2022, media reported that rose sales in a flower market in Zhengzhou hit a five-year low.
The 66 and 99 roses that once seemed impressive and grand are no longer so hot. Now 9 and 11 roses are being served on the table.
In this case, the first batch of flower shops that suffered setbacks in romance have learned their lesson.
A bunch of flowers that cost three or four hundred yuan is not easy to sell, so we split it into several small bouquets and decorate them with beautiful wrapping paper. This "small flower bag" is only sold for 19.9 yuan.
In addition to flower bags, there are also flower clusters, flower cups, and wreaths, with the main theme of "having the sense of ceremony of flowers but without the pain of doing it."
Another romantic representative,Chocolate is visibly on its way out.
Statistics show that the annual per capita consumption of chocolate in my country is only RMB 15/0.1 kg. Even though festivals are almost the only time for people to buy them, the price has been declining year by year.
After all, now is the era of sugar control for all. When I gave Crush a piece of chocolate 10 years ago, what came to my mind was the sweet and silky indulgence, Amber Kuo’s sweet smile, and my hands running through your black hair;
If you send crush again this year, I'm afraid you will only get one reply: "It's too sweet, don't you think it's too sweet?"
The hardest hit area for straight men to be complained about isBeauty。
In the romantic economy, as long as a domestic beauty brand launches a gift box called "The Perfect Match" during the Chinese Valentine's Day, straight men will be willing to buy it even if it is sold for 1,314 yuan;
As long as they dare to call it "Chinese Valentine's Day Limited Edition", even if it's just small things like blush, loose powder, and eye shadow, they dare to mark it at 600 yuan on this day, and even the sales volume can reach 40,000 orders.
Last year on Chinese Valentine's Day, the beauty media Fbeauty wrote: Chinese Valentine's Day consumption has obviously declined, and gift boxes priced between 500 and 800 yuan are obviously more popular now.
The Chinese Valentine's Day used to be the Qiqiao Festival and Valentine's Day, but eventually it became a shopping festival.
In that era, gifts were the flowers in the love, and romance also had its own place. But now the times have changed.
For ordinary people, giving up the "romantic consumption" on Valentine's Day may only take a moment.
Since the shopping festival came into being, every day worth marking in bold on the calendar has a price marked on it.
The shirt cost nine pounds fifteen pence, but romance was much more expensive.
In that era when romance was the ultimate curse, romance was taxed heavily.
For 200 yuan, you might get a lipstick with the words "every girl needs one" from the merchant;
For 400 yuan, you will get a set of knock-off big-brand suits that the merchants say are "full of substance, all-inclusive, and will make girls cry when they see them";
If you are willing to spend a huge sum of 1314, then congratulations, you will get a rose + jewelry set "from an unknown brand, and the texture of the stone is invisible"!
The money is paid in full, the sense of ceremony is something only you can achieve, and the items are recommended by the merchant.
However, in the midst of the beauty blind box siege, the boyfriend who gave the gift could only get a puzzled complaint:
"My boyfriend spent so much money, why can he only buy this kind of thing?!"
With just a little bit of packaging and labeling it as "Chinese Valentine's Day Limited", everything can be sold to those who are willing to pay for romance.
The bigger the banana, the bigger the peel; the higher the budget, the higher the IQ tax.
Lao Zhou, who often gives gifts to her boyfriend, told me that she has the same problem.
It is said that the gift-giving rule for girls is to avoid handmade items, scarves, and desktop items. As long as you max out your budget on personal care, electronic products, and online games, the other party will not dislike anything you give them.
"In fact, do you know which game he wants to play? Does he want the deluxe version of Black Goku? Does he want an Xbox or a PS5? Does he prefer a green or brown keyboard?
If you grit your teeth and buy him a 4080, but he was planning to change to a 4090 directly, he will not be happy at all. He will just think about it for several days and then think about how to ask you to return it without hurting your feelings.
It's better to spend so much money and have a good meal together."
Linguist Noam Chomsky once said: “Consumerism excites every nerve in the human body, keeps it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, stretches every human desire to its limit, and creates as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible.”
Buying gifts is not consumerism, buying gifts for the sake of buying gifts is a consumer trap.
Romantic consumption is like a piece of cake. When it was first invented, countless people advertised it as soft, sweet, and symbolic, which attracted a large number of people.
It tastes good at first, but once you take too much, you will find that it is not only inconsistent with the advertised taste, but also tastes like chewing wax.
It is not the incarnation of love, but just a bubble of atmosphere.
What's more, under the general trend of rational consumption, people are increasingly concerned about the "investment-output ratio" and "cost-effectiveness" of gift giving.
Therefore, in today's Chinese Valentine's Day, amid a sea of low consumer willingness, the only two things that bucked the trend and rose were:
Gold, and hotels.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Civil Affairs just released data showing that 3.43 million couples registered for marriage nationwide in the first half of 2024.
Compared with last year, this figure has decreased by 498,000 pairs, hitting a new low in recent years.
Since 2014, the marriage rate has entered a "declining decade". Although it has rebounded in 2023, data from the first half of this year show that:
Marriageable men and women no longer want to get married.
It's not just the consumption on the Chinese Valentine's Day, many industries related to "love" and "marriage" have entered an awkward period.
Sister Zhang probably didn’t expect that after she said, “Those below one carat are all broken diamonds (smile), worthless,” our ordinary people’s interpretation of love has become completely different:
According to data, in 2023, the size of the domestic diamond market decreased by 27% year-on-year.
Diamond imports fell 29.55% year-on-year and 39.6% compared to 2021, and are almost on par with 2017.
The DR diamond ring brand we are all familiar with, which was said to be "only one custom-made for each man in his lifetime" and was later revealed to be able to buy as many diamonds as one wanted by borrowing an ID card, has quietly closed 27 stores in half a year.
The token of love cannot be sold.
By searching for keywords like #Young people who don’t get married are hit hard#, I opened the door to a new world:
Because young people don’t give wedding gifts, the candy industry has lost its left and right arms;
Because young people don't hold wedding banquets, half of the liquor industry has collapsed;
The decline of the romantic economy on Chinese Valentine’s Day is just a small aspect of this broader vision.
The B-side of the romantic economy’s downturn is the booming single economy.
Single men who are not married or in a relationship are starting to learn to spend money on themselves.
Sales in traditional electronics, outdoor sports, and gaming sectors have increased year by year;
Even in areas that male consumers rarely entered before, the scale of the industry has gradually expanded.
The size of China's men's skin care products market reached RMB 19 billion in 2022 and is expected to exceed RMB 30 billion by 2025.
In the field of male beauty products, Chinese men's spending on skin care products, perfume and shaving increased by more than 35% year-on-year.
Last year, masculine jackets were very popular, whether they were bird, mouse, elephant or camel, there were a large number of male consumers.
Lululemon, a yoga brand originally targeting women, has also been aggressively courting male consumers this year, launching related products and stepping up publicity.
Now, men without lemons and without birds can no longer hold their heads up and speak in the middle-class consumer circle.
The man who spent half a night in the red ocean of consumerism last year finally realized that it is time to turn back and finally learned to love himself. For the first time, his spending power has exceeded that of a pet dog, which is cause for celebration.
Although their purchasing power is still not as high as that of cats, this undoubtedly shows that men's consumption concepts have changed and their potential cannot be underestimated.
Keith, who used to spend lavishly on Chinese Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day and May 20, said that this year he plans to spend all his budget on buying a BMW:
“Because if you give women gifts, they will leave you, but if you invest in yourself, someone will always love you.”
On the B side of the record, women also gave a new interpretation to "Chinese Valentine's Day consumption".
For women who have a certain financial ability but no longer celebrate Chinese Valentine's Day, the money can be spent on other things, such as pets, family, and games.
Even on this year's Chinese Valentine's Day, many women paid for a date called "commission".
Pay a same-sex cosplayer to dress up as your favorite 2D character and go on a sweet date with you for a day as a couple - even if you are single, you can still have a sweet day.
The gifts originally given to boyfriends are discounted and turned into wages for "today's boyfriend";
All the romantic things you used to do, such as coffee, movies, handcrafts, etc., can now be spent with your new love partner.
Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, since it is meaningless to spend money on others, you might as well spend your own money to buy happiness.
Because whether you love others or yourself, the purpose is to live a rich and wonderful life.
The business of love is declining, and consumption in a new era is thriving.
The first batch of young people who don’t celebrate Qixi Festival have already come to a sudden realization:
"To put it bluntly, the origin of Qixi Festival is a story about a gangster who stole the clothes of the Weaver Girl. How can it symbolize love in the new century?"
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