Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Smantha.
Speaker 2: And welcome to Stuff. I've Never told you.
Speaker 3: Protection by Heart Radio, and today we were bringing back
Speaker 3: one that I.
Speaker 2: Had a lot of fun with. I think you had
Speaker 2: fun with, Samantha, but it was one we did.
Speaker 3: Admittedly I would not find this funny now, but we
Speaker 3: did about salty Valentines, this history of giving really mean
Speaker 3: cruel valencines.
Speaker 1: Oh, that was one of the first introductions to this show.
Speaker 1: I was I like this, let's go.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a very fascinating one. You can find
Speaker 3: a lot of images should you choose to do so,
Speaker 3: but we haven't reran it. So since we're getting into
Speaker 3: a Valentine's Day territory, we thought we would bring it back,
Speaker 3: So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie
Speaker 3: and Samantha and welcome to Stuff.
Speaker 2: I've Never told you.
Speaker 3: A production of Iheartmedia' is how stuff works. As this
Speaker 3: episode comes out, it is Valentine's Day surrounded by Singles
Speaker 3: Awareness Day, Galentine's Day, whatever you celebrate it, don't celebrate
Speaker 3: on February fourteenth Mistress Day. Apparently Mistress Day. That seems sexist,
Speaker 3: Yeah it does. We might get into that a little
Speaker 3: bit later. If you're listening to this today, it comes
Speaker 3: out Samantha and I are in LA and we might
Speaker 3: be doing our own sort of Galentine's Day.
Speaker 1: Though it's gonna be a full thing.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a full.
Speaker 4: The Gallantines and Valentine celebrating single, all of that thing.
Speaker 1: We're going to do all of them.
Speaker 5: Okay, perfect, Yes, all the boxes, all of the boxes,
Speaker 5: and hopefully we might have a coffee times with other
Speaker 5: gal yeah, or those who I did not ask.
Speaker 3: Come and celebrate or just what to hang with. Yeah,
Speaker 3: totally trigger warning. A brief mentions of violence against women
Speaker 3: in this one.
Speaker 2: And this one.
Speaker 3: Actually came to my mind because I learned about dating
Speaker 3: Sunday for the first time here in the United States
Speaker 3: at least, which is apparently a new Year's resolution post
Speaker 3: holiday breakup thing and maybe like you're still single, questions
Speaker 3: that you got over the holidays, or omg, Valentine's Day
Speaker 3: is coming around the corner one of those or a
Speaker 3: combination of those reasons that results in a bunch of
Speaker 3: people signing up for dating apps. The first Sunday of
Speaker 3: the new year is the busiest day of the year
Speaker 3: for dating apps.
Speaker 2: Do you know about this year.
Speaker 4: Yes, I did, and I purposely stayed away from January
Speaker 4: all the way through March when I was on the
Speaker 4: dating sites because of that.
Speaker 1: I will not be a statistic. You are so much
Speaker 1: more than a statistic to me, is amanth.
Speaker 4: I do know that there's also a tradition for New Year,
Speaker 4: or do you know how people do things that if
Speaker 4: you'll wear pink underwear that's supposed to usher your new
Speaker 4: lovers or something.
Speaker 2: I have not heard that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard that. Okay, well I did it.
Speaker 3: Sure you did it or didn't, It doesn't matter either way.
Speaker 3: Some apps see an increase of new users up to
Speaker 3: eighty percent. And one of the ways I learned about
Speaker 3: this is I got asked out a lot in January
Speaker 3: and it made me stop and think, something is happening here,
Speaker 3: Something is not right, And now I know it is.
Speaker 3: I was part of the statistics. You were in some ways,
Speaker 3: so you were on the apps, right, No, No, I was.
Speaker 2: Just getting asked out.
Speaker 3: As I've said before, I do have a very long
Speaker 3: history of dating people born on or near Valentine's State.
Speaker 2: That has also given me pause. And a lot of
Speaker 2: my friends.
Speaker 3: Are born around this time, right, I don't believe in astrology,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, huh, interesting.
Speaker 1: Those are the types of people. Huh.
Speaker 3: Yes, Samantha and I we were discussing what our schools
Speaker 3: used to do for Valentine's Day, like, you know, primary
Speaker 3: school and I was in elementary school. We would make
Speaker 3: these little decorated shoeboxes with slots for Valentine's cards, and
Speaker 3: you just would sort of sit around awkwardly and hope
Speaker 3: that you got one after you'd given years out. And
Speaker 3: I hope that the one you got wasn't mean, because
Speaker 3: I got some mean ones.
Speaker 1: Really, yes, I did. It's so weird.
Speaker 3: You didn't have this experience, no, geez, well I did.
Speaker 3: And we went to school nearish each.
Speaker 1: Other, nearish, different timeframes.
Speaker 2: That's true, But you'd think it would improve over time and.
Speaker 1: Not get more. Right. Apparently y'all got meaner. I don't know.
Speaker 2: We mean.
Speaker 1: You have a picture of your face with a bunch
Speaker 1: of pimples on it.
Speaker 4: Wow, Oh my gosh, what Yes, that's elaborate.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm a main girl. Elaborate Stephen. I haven't forgotten
Speaker 1: Steven's but I got I got back.
Speaker 3: Later in high school, we had this thing where you
Speaker 3: could pay a dollar to send either white think our
Speaker 3: red rose anonymously. White represented friendship, Pink represented a crush.
Speaker 3: I think and read represented love. But of course my
Speaker 3: friends and I all hijacked it and we sent each
Speaker 3: other flowers from secreted miners.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 3: My mom would always make me these paper roses every
Speaker 3: year I have when I saved them. I'm a very
Speaker 3: sentimental person, and my dad would get me a chocolate
Speaker 3: from our local chocolate maker. So it was like a
Speaker 3: grab bag of some bad things but.
Speaker 2: Some good things.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: I guess you guys did a lot more. Maybe my
Speaker 4: school just did not care as much. We definitely did
Speaker 4: the bio ros whatever do with those things. It wasn't
Speaker 4: different colors to represent anything a b We were never mean.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think for our school we did the
Speaker 4: little dinky shoe boxes as well, but everybody brought everyone
Speaker 4: of Valentine and you won if there was a piece
Speaker 4: of candy on it. That's how you knew you were liked,
Speaker 4: kind of if you got more candy or whatever whatnot.
Speaker 4: Of course, we would also have the one where they
Speaker 4: would send deliveries individual kids and such, and I remember
Speaker 4: specifically that I had to have a boyfriend the third
Speaker 4: grade because for the like I'm never, I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm no. It was fifth grade and I was determined
Speaker 4: to have someone deliver something to me.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 4: I know I was very manipulative, but to be fair,
Speaker 4: I got him a really great thing too, And I'm
Speaker 4: sure I think included one of those pencils with the
Speaker 4: heart that breaks.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, be mine or whatever.
Speaker 4: Right, So, I mean we gave each other gifts, but yeah, no,
Speaker 4: never any mean ones I never saw. Maybe you were
Speaker 4: just nicer, or maybe I just never noticed.
Speaker 2: Yeah you things kind of been going on.
Speaker 4: Maybe I just didn't know my friends were nicer than
Speaker 4: your friends. I don't know, oh how friends. But I
Speaker 4: will say I also get a box of chocolates even
Speaker 4: to this day, every year from my father, and that's
Speaker 4: one of the things that he loves to do, is
Speaker 4: give my sister and I a box of chocolates, and
Speaker 4: even with me being not home, he mels.
Speaker 1: It and usually like prioritizes it.
Speaker 4: You know, that has to be one day shipping all
Speaker 4: these scenes something from Walmwater Target or something.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, well it should be coming any day.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm around, I'm available.
Speaker 1: Okay's just saying, okay, all right.
Speaker 3: Well we're doing a kind of basic, very brief history
Speaker 3: of Valentine's is actually fascinating. But before that overview, Valentine's
Speaker 3: Day is a holiday that takes place on February fourteenth,
Speaker 3: all about love and expressing your love, usually through things
Speaker 3: like cards, flowers, and candy.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is a big business.
Speaker 3: In twenty ten, people spent around eighteen point six billion
Speaker 3: dollars on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 4: And these days Valentine's Day is a great way for
Speaker 4: companies and corporations to perpetuate heterodating and gender stereotypes. Women
Speaker 4: love chocolate, right, No, but it wasn't always a holiday
Speaker 4: about love, No, it was so. With a brief history
Speaker 4: of Valentine's Day, No one's entirely sure where Valentine came from,
Speaker 4: but one popular theory goes all the way back to
Speaker 4: the ancient Roman celebration of Lupercalia from February thirteenth to
Speaker 4: the fifteenth. This festival call for men, who, surprise, were
Speaker 4: usually drunk and naked, to sacrifice a goat and a dog.
Speaker 4: How dare you? Then they would skin these animals and
Speaker 4: whip women with the skin. Delightful, What a great celebration.
Speaker 4: The women believed this ritual helped with fertility. There was
Speaker 4: a matchmaking aspect as well. Men would draw the names
Speaker 4: of women out of jars and the couple would go
Speaker 4: off and have lots of sex for the rest of
Speaker 4: the festival, and if they hit it off, they might
Speaker 4: even stay together.
Speaker 3: This sounds sort of like I just finished the Newest
Speaker 3: Thing of Sabrina, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I feel
Speaker 3: like a couple of seasons back they had this.
Speaker 4: They did they had the worship being whatever, and they
Speaker 4: paired with each other.
Speaker 3: You're supposed to have sex all night or something or something.
Speaker 3: It didn't happen that way, But not for Sabrina. Yeah,
Speaker 3: other people, who knows, not for Sabrina. As for the
Speaker 3: name Valentine's, during the third century CE, Roman emperor Claudius
Speaker 3: had two men named Valentine executed via decapitation on February
Speaker 3: fourteenth on two separate years, possibly because they were Christians.
Speaker 3: The first man, Father Valentinus, ended up arrested and in
Speaker 3: servitude of a well off man named Asterius. Father Valentinus
Speaker 3: kept espousing the power of Christianity and Hysterius told him, Look,
Speaker 3: if you can get rid of my foster daughter's blindness,
Speaker 3: you will make a believer out of me. So the
Speaker 3: father covered the girl's eyes with his hands and recited,
Speaker 3: Lord Jesus Christ, enlighten your handmaid, because you are God,
Speaker 3: the true light, and the legend goes.
Speaker 2: She regained her sight.
Speaker 3: Mysterius converted, along with his entire family, but getting wind
Speaker 3: of this, the emperor ordered them all to be executed.
Speaker 3: The second Valentine to be executed had an extremely similar story,
Speaker 3: and of so scholars suspect they're probably the same person,
Speaker 3: just with two different names and slightly different details. Nevertheless,
Speaker 3: the Catholic Church later honored their martyrdom with St.
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3: Several churches throughout Europe claim to have pieces of Saint
Speaker 3: Valentine's skull.
Speaker 2: One place even claims to have the whole thing.
Speaker 3: If you're curious about where this information comes from, because
Speaker 3: I was there was a I guess he was a priest.
Speaker 3: He went around collecting stories for all of these saints
Speaker 3: and compiled them into one book. So if you're ever
Speaker 3: curious about a saint, then check it out. In the
Speaker 3: eleventh century, a priest claiming to have Saint Valentine's head
Speaker 3: used it to cure a whole laundry list of things,
Speaker 3: including demonic possession and to prevent fires and epidemics.
Speaker 1: Oh we need that today, we do.
Speaker 2: I wonder where it is. I wonder that's the new Indiana.
Speaker 1: Jonas getting her bed.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on there.
Speaker 3: It is a lot of media has romanticized the story
Speaker 3: of Valentine, that he wrote love letters in jail or
Speaker 3: performed marriages in jail, but there's no real historical evidence.
Speaker 2: To back that up. What we have is on shaky
Speaker 2: enough ground.
Speaker 4: Speaking of the Catholic charge, in an attempt to due
Speaker 4: away with pagan festivals, they combined Valentine's Day with Librecalia
Speaker 4: in fifth century CE. But it was still pretty much
Speaker 4: a day about getting drunk and fertility, but now with
Speaker 4: clothes on, because you know Christians, right, that's the way
Speaker 4: you got to do it. In parallel, there was Gallanton's Day,
Speaker 4: a holiday observed by the Normans.
Speaker 1: Gallanton meant lover of women.
Speaker 4: Because the names are similar, It's likely they got combined
Speaker 4: at some point in time.
Speaker 3: Right, and then, with the help of artists like Shakespeare Ofhilia,
Speaker 3: describes herself as hamlets Valentine and Shaucer, who wrote a
Speaker 3: February as the seasoned birdsmate Tauru. Romantic Valentine's Day was
Speaker 3: romanticized and popularized throughout Europe. By the Middle Ages, handmade
Speaker 3: paper cards had become a part of this tradition. The
Speaker 3: French Duke of Orleans described his wife as his quote
Speaker 3: very gentle Valentine in a letter he wrote to her
Speaker 3: in February fourteen fifteen. Sweets became a part of it,
Speaker 3: to getting something sweet for someone you thought was sweet.
Speaker 1: Oh, so I need to get you something sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh you think I'm sweets?
Speaker 1: Oh you know I do. So.
Speaker 4: From Europe, this holiday spread, eventually making its way to
Speaker 4: the New World. Nineteenth century industrialization added mass produced, factory
Speaker 4: made cards to the mix, and in nineteen thirteen a
Speaker 4: little coupling you may have heard of, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 4: called Hallmark. Hallmark Cards started making cards in Kansas City, Missouri.
Speaker 3: Right and from there you can imagine, oh, the birth
Speaker 3: of cards. So yeah, well, they were very instrumental in
Speaker 3: popularizing a lot of the holidays we celebrate.
Speaker 1: Because that's their bread and butter.
Speaker 3: Why you gotta get a card for this holiday in
Speaker 3: the card exactly, but not all cards.
Speaker 1: We were nice.
Speaker 2: And we're going to get into that.
Speaker 3: But first we're gonna fall for a quick break for
Speaker 3: word from our sponsor. And we're back, Thank you, sponsor,
Speaker 3: And we're back with something I actually learned about. I
Speaker 3: remember the precise moment I learned about this over on
Speaker 3: our other show that my other show that I do
Speaker 3: is Samantha. You should just come along and be part
Speaker 3: of it. We Savor, which is all about food and drink.
Speaker 3: We did an episode for Valentine's Day on Sweethearts, the
Speaker 3: candy yes, with the messages, and I somehow found this
Speaker 3: thing about giving people mean sweethearts. And from there I
Speaker 3: found this old tradition of giving people vinegar Valentine.
Speaker 4: And you told me about this, and I had no
Speaker 4: clue that was a thing. I'm still kind of baffled. Oh,
Speaker 4: even though we've been researching it, I'm still baffled.
Speaker 3: Oh it's baffling. Actually, it makes perfect sense in a
Speaker 3: weird way.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to bring it all together to.
Speaker 4: Be fair, though I feel like I would be. This
Speaker 4: is probably my type of Valentine anyway, Lord.
Speaker 3: It probably is so This is something that I'm i
Speaker 3: is hilarious, but I'm also really glad it's a thing of.
Speaker 2: The past because they're pretty mean, and we're going to
Speaker 2: do some examples.
Speaker 3: But so vinegar Valentine's were previously called mocking insulting. Our
Speaker 3: comic vinegar is actually something that we call them modernly.
Speaker 3: That's not what they were called back then. And this
Speaker 3: was the practice from about the eighteen forties to nineteen
Speaker 3: forties that was particularly popular in the United States and
Speaker 3: the UK of giving people a mean or cool card,
Speaker 3: usually with a crude caricature, almost always anonymously. Oh even
Speaker 3: when folks made their own Valentines before there was a
Speaker 3: commercialization of cards, they made these vinegar versions.
Speaker 2: They made homemade vinegar versions.
Speaker 3: I guess that's what I was getting in elementary school.
Speaker 3: But the commercialization of cards took that and ran with it.
Speaker 2: They made them.
Speaker 3: People would buy these cards for about a penny or
Speaker 3: sometimes more for a fancy one, and they could get
Speaker 3: pretty fancy and send them through the mail, again anonymously
Speaker 3: to add insult to in the person receiving the vinegar
Speaker 3: valentine usually had.
Speaker 1: To pay for postage.
Speaker 3: They had to pay for it It could be someone
Speaker 3: you secretly despise, or it could be a not so
Speaker 3: nice way to tell a suitor you were not that
Speaker 3: into them.
Speaker 2: That was a really popular one. We should do these,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 3: You could send one to a couple you didn't like,
Speaker 3: or if they were doing PDA you didn't like, you
Speaker 3: could send that. You could strongly advise them to change
Speaker 3: their behavior. There A lot of them are threatening in nature,
Speaker 3: like change your ways or else. Millions of these millions
Speaker 3: were printed. If you think about it as I have,
Speaker 3: they were sort of an early example of trolling.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 3: It's like we complain about social media today and how
Speaker 3: terrible people are, but we've been terrible apparently as long
Speaker 3: as we.
Speaker 2: Can be anonymous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Because if you didn't want to say something to
Speaker 3: someone's face.
Speaker 2: Here here was a great way to do it.
Speaker 3: And you could get them for just about anything or anyone.
Speaker 2: They get so specific.
Speaker 3: At one time, these cards accounted for half of all
Speaker 3: Valentine's sales, not just cards sales in the United States.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the power of anonymity, I guess. Yes.
Speaker 3: So we do want to have we want to go
Speaker 3: through some examples.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, these are fine.
Speaker 4: So there's one this image that shows a woman handing
Speaker 4: a man a lemon, and the caption reads, to my Valentine,
Speaker 4: 'tis a limon I hand you? Now skadoo? Because I
Speaker 4: love another there's no chance for you. Also, I would
Speaker 4: like to say all of these have great words that
Speaker 4: we never use anymore, such as skadoo, and I think
Speaker 4: I would need to bring them back.
Speaker 1: You need the chance Atlantic accent. Oh yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I don't do that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 3: There's one of a woman dumping a bucket of water
Speaker 3: on a man's head that reads, here's a pretty cool reception.
Speaker 3: At least you'll say, there's no exception. It's just as
Speaker 3: plain as it can say, old fellow, you best step away.
Speaker 1: That may be something you should do now, I know.
Speaker 4: Another one shows a snake in a suit on and
Speaker 4: a top hat, and then there's a woman looking on
Speaker 4: in the fear in the background, and the caption goes,
Speaker 4: I'm not attracted by your glitter for well, I know
Speaker 4: how very bitter my life would be if I should
Speaker 4: take you for my spouse.
Speaker 1: A rattlesnake.
Speaker 4: Oh no, I'd not accept the ring or evermore twould
Speaker 4: prove us sting.
Speaker 3: Oh also, I think that snake had a monocle. Just
Speaker 3: want to add that in That.
Speaker 1: Probably sounds about right.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Another depicts a man about to kiss a donkey with
Speaker 3: the message, Hey, lover boy, the place for you is
Speaker 3: home upon the shelf, because the only one who'd kiss
Speaker 3: you is.
Speaker 1: A jackass like yourself.
Speaker 3: Or this titled bald Head, Your bright shining pate is
Speaker 3: seen at all shows and invariably down in the bald
Speaker 3: headed rose, where you make conspicuous by your tender care.
Speaker 2: Your true ardent love for one onesome hair.
Speaker 1: Oh so mean, no one's superman.
Speaker 4: So several were moral based about PDA or alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Or this one called television bug.
Speaker 4: It says at faces that are televised all day and night,
Speaker 4: you stare, but if.
Speaker 1: They saw your stupid mug, they'd all go off the air.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I love the rhyme. Not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: The rhymes are fun. Yeah uh. And these cars got down.
Speaker 1: To the occupation specific.
Speaker 3: If you had a sales lady you didn't like, there's
Speaker 3: a vinegar valentine that had you covered like this one.
Speaker 3: Saleslady as you wait upon the women with discuss upon
Speaker 3: your face. The way you snap and bark at them,
Speaker 3: one would think you owned the place. Oho, if you
Speaker 3: weren't a fan of your physician. There was a character
Speaker 3: named doctor Shirdeath. You could even send one to the
Speaker 3: postman who delivered the note. They were very big during
Speaker 3: the Civil War. TiO one shows a woman with a
Speaker 3: large skull for a head carrying a chainsaw. The caption
Speaker 3: reads to the surgeon, ho, ho old saw bones, here
Speaker 3: you come. Yes, when the rebels whack as you are
Speaker 3: always ready with your traps to mangle saw and hack us.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: There was a whole category of cars meant to masculate
Speaker 4: men who had babies on their lap as being hen pecked,
Speaker 4: which is also a great word, but not good.
Speaker 1: No, But at the same time it's an old school word.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then the old maid from eighteen ninety four, 'tis
Speaker 4: all in vain your simpering looks. You never can incline
Speaker 4: with all of your bustles, stay in curls to find
Speaker 4: a Valentine.
Speaker 3: And this one she's caught a poor cat and a bird,
Speaker 3: but she can't snare a man. So we've heard see
Speaker 3: old maid's sad fate to lose out on a mate
Speaker 3: and take tea.
Speaker 2: But sh not a.
Speaker 3: Word or this one. You've got more curves than a
Speaker 3: roller coaster. Your clothes fit like a glove. There's one
Speaker 3: thing wrong, glamour puss. You've a face only a mother
Speaker 3: would love.
Speaker 4: So many depicted women in unfeminine ways, miss nosy and
Speaker 4: image of a woman with a large nose that reads
Speaker 4: on account of your talk of others affairs at most dances,
Speaker 4: you sit warming the chairs because of the k you
Speaker 4: take to attend to all others business.
Speaker 3: You have a a friend and speaking of unfeminine women's
Speaker 3: suffrage ushered in a whole new wave of vinegar Valentine's
Speaker 3: aimed at women fighting for the right to vote, Like this,
Speaker 3: your vote for me, you will not get. I don't
Speaker 3: want a preaching suffragette. These cards typically portrayed suffragettes as
Speaker 3: ugly and often violent. Some women sent Valentine's to a
Speaker 3: sure would be suitors that they weren't like those suffragists
Speaker 3: reading in these wild days of suffragette dreys. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you'd never overlook a girl who can't be militant. But
Speaker 3: simply loves to cook, okay, but there were pro suffragette
Speaker 3: Valentine's as well, So you.
Speaker 4: Know, it's kind of like the feminists and anti feminists today,
Speaker 4: and it's just in Twitter.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: These cards, while popular, were certainly not universally well liked,
Speaker 3: and it's hard to say how many were jokes how
Speaker 3: many were totally serious. An eighteen ninety five article from
Speaker 3: the Kindergarten Primary magazine lamented the detrimental effects these cars
Speaker 3: had on children, calling on teachers to quote make it
Speaker 3: a day for kind remembrance than a day for wrecking revenge.
Speaker 3: One post office in Chicago held over twenty five thousand Valentines,
Speaker 3: deeming some of the cards to Vulgart to send. But
Speaker 3: there are historical examples of people getting murdered or taking
Speaker 3: their own lives over vinegar Valentine.
Speaker 1: So it's a bullying tactic.
Speaker 2: It is. It absolutely is.
Speaker 4: Again, these are funny to read right now, but plenty
Speaker 4: were super sexist and racist and fat phobic, and some
Speaker 4: advise people to kill themselves. Really, if you think of
Speaker 4: comment boards and Twitter fees, you doue comments. In some
Speaker 4: ways this is still going on, actually in a lot
Speaker 4: of ways. Yeah, going on, and people have always been terrible.
Speaker 4: And again, the world is burning.
Speaker 2: Sminty, the world is burning.
Speaker 1: That's our tackling.
Speaker 4: Oh so wow, yeah, Vinegar Valentine's I never knew it
Speaker 4: was such a thing.
Speaker 3: I would recommend looking it up just to see the
Speaker 3: imagery in a lot of them.
Speaker 4: Oh god, oh my, that sounds disheartening. Yes, but maybe
Speaker 4: we should go on to a bitter better We're not bitter, yes,
Speaker 4: better topics.
Speaker 1: Such as Gallentine's Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the actual name and celebration was first on Parks
Speaker 4: and rec episode that aired on February eleventh, twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Also should be noted that it was written by a man.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, so.
Speaker 4: In the episode, we see one of my faves, Amy Poehler,
Speaker 4: celebrating with her gal pals with brunch and plenty of
Speaker 4: kitschy presents and gifts, and as Leslie explained it, every
Speaker 4: February thirteenth, my lady friends and I leave our husbands
Speaker 4: and our boyfriends at home and we just come and
Speaker 4: kick it breakfast style ladies celebrating ladies. It's like the
Speaker 4: Lilith Fair minus the eighths plus for tatas and waffles.
Speaker 1: And waffles, of course the waffles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as defined by Urban Dictionary, February thirteenth, The other
Speaker 3: half of Valentine's Day, when you celebrate your love for
Speaker 3: your lady friends single r. No, Hey, Judy, you're such
Speaker 3: a great friend to me, and I want to celebrate
Speaker 3: our friend love, not only my sexy love with my
Speaker 3: boyfriend Marvin tomorrow. So let's have a dinner and get
Speaker 3: together the day before Valentine's Day. Gallantine's Day, sexy love,
Speaker 3: sexy love, yes, friend love and sexy love yeah.
Speaker 1: No, you got to differentiate.
Speaker 4: So if you have seen the show, and most likely
Speaker 4: if a friend of yours have seen the show, then
Speaker 4: you know that, yes, this is a maid of holiday.
Speaker 4: But the success of it has made some great commercial success,
Speaker 4: whether from different products being marketed towards the holiday or
Speaker 4: from the sheer amount of publicity written in reference to
Speaker 4: said holiday.
Speaker 3: Yes, one thing as part of our jobs. And you
Speaker 3: might not get this a lot yet, Samanthah, but you
Speaker 3: will is cold emails from pr companies, and I have
Speaker 3: probably gotten at least thirty about Galentine's Day and what
Speaker 3: I should be doing on Galentine's Day and what I
Speaker 3: should buy my gal Pal friends. So definitely companies have
Speaker 3: capitalized on it. And also, as I said before, it
Speaker 3: wasn't an official day.
Speaker 2: But I feel like a lot of.
Speaker 3: Us we've been doing something like this right for a
Speaker 3: long time. We just didn't call it this, and we
Speaker 3: didn't have all the kind of traditions. Even though it's new,
Speaker 3: there's kind of a set here's what you do exactly.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Spreading wide enough, it has spawned books, articles both arguing
Speaker 3: for and against. As New York Post writer Haley Eber
Speaker 3: stated in her twenty seventeen column celebrating female friendship is great,
Speaker 3: but tying it to Valentine's Day reeks of an opportunistic
Speaker 3: marketing ploy, stating she felt it was being used as
Speaker 3: only a marketing ploy, in that February thirteenth had once
Speaker 3: been referred to as Mistress Day, again for cheeters to
Speaker 3: take their side pieces, as she states, out for private celebration.
Speaker 4: Perhaps it could be stated that Valentines was the answer
Speaker 4: to the long appropriated idea that Valentine's was single awareness day.
Speaker 4: Side note, there seems to be a whole lot of feelings,
Speaker 4: whether it's love, loneliness, or defensiveness, just a whole lot
Speaker 4: of emotion around this month, right, And again speaking of
Speaker 4: a single Awareness Day, this was created in two thousand
Speaker 4: and five with the idea that for too long, February
Speaker 4: fourteenth was SAD, which is the acronym for Single Awareness
Speaker 4: Day in a negative and so taking it back and
Speaker 4: celebrating being single and being aware of that day, I
Speaker 4: guess is on the fifties to celebrate one's own singleness
Speaker 4: if you happen to be single.
Speaker 3: Right, And when I was in college, me and a
Speaker 3: big group of my female friends would do Single Awareness
Speaker 3: Day SAD, but we would kind of do it like ironically,
Speaker 3: like we were single, right, but we weren't sad.
Speaker 2: We were super happy. We would kind of joke about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a celebration of I don't need no persons.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and then we would always like, really do
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 2: It was really fun.
Speaker 3: And of course it should be noted that there are
Speaker 3: several other days created before Gallentine's Day, such as International
Speaker 3: Day of Friendship, created by the UN and World Friendship
Speaker 3: Crusade in nineteen fifty eight and celebrated on July thirtieth,
Speaker 3: although most countries celebrate on the first Sunday, in August.
Speaker 2: And by the way, in nineteen ninety eight, Winnie.
Speaker 3: The Pooh but you didn't know apparently I didn't know,
Speaker 3: was appointed as the Ambassador of Friendship by the UN.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Also of note, National Friendship Day was created by Hallmark
Speaker 3: in nineteen nineteen, but apparently went away in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 2: I guess they didn't sell enough card maybe not, maybe not.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I actually I had a brain freeze and
Speaker 3: forgot who Winny of the Woo was.
Speaker 1: It's all okay, I did know who you were.
Speaker 2: Now you know, Now I know.
Speaker 3: And we did want to talk about some traditions around
Speaker 3: the world. But first we're going to pause for one
Speaker 3: more quick pick for a word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 3: we're back.
Speaker 2: Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 3: And yeah, we did want to talk about some traditions
Speaker 3: from elsewhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, we would love to hear about
Speaker 4: traditions from other countries. So please let us know if
Speaker 4: you're in a different country, or even if you have
Speaker 4: different types of traditions, let us know. Because apparently in
Speaker 4: Denmark men give women something called a joking letter.
Speaker 1: Traditionally. I'm as assuming anyone can do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the letter has a funny joke or rhyme signed
Speaker 4: only with a series of dots like dot dot dot.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think maybe I was thinking Morse code.
Speaker 2: But see this is.
Speaker 4: So if the receiver can figure out who the author is,
Speaker 4: they get an easter egg when the holiday rolls around.
Speaker 1: What Yeah, huh, I wonder if that's really true?
Speaker 4: Please write it so you get an easter egg if
Speaker 4: you Yeah, but you have to wait, you have that
Speaker 4: long to figure out who it is. Probably is Morse code,
Speaker 4: because I wouldn't imagine what an asterisk would be a
Speaker 4: hint of sorts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do feel like I could be totally wrong.
Speaker 4: So I feel like this tradition, we're gonna need to
Speaker 4: know some answer we need we.
Speaker 2: Have questions that need answer.
Speaker 3: At one time, the French participated in something called the
Speaker 3: more drawing for love.
Speaker 2: It sort of.
Speaker 3: Sounds like choosing a kickball team or something. Men and
Speaker 3: women would separate and then call each other's names out
Speaker 3: and they would couple up. The men, of course, could
Speaker 3: choose another woman if they didn't like the one who
Speaker 3: they ended up with, and the unmatched women would go
Speaker 3: have a bonfire together, hurling insults and swears to men
Speaker 3: who had wrong them, burning the pictures of those men.
Speaker 3: This holiday got so out of hand the French government
Speaker 3: stepped in and banned it. In England, there used to
Speaker 3: be a tradition of women putting bay leaves under their
Speaker 3: bed the night before Valentine's Day, one at each corner
Speaker 3: and the center to dream of their future husbands. You
Speaker 3: can check out the episode we did on bay leaves
Speaker 3: ever at Savor for more on that, and we also
Speaker 3: talked about South Korea's Black Day on April fourteenth, which
Speaker 3: is a day where singles eat black foods.
Speaker 2: Too mourned their single status. But being single is great, y'all.
Speaker 2: It's all good.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'll eat food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I from what I understand again, listeners right in.
Speaker 3: It's also sort of ironic, like I don't think I
Speaker 3: don't think.
Speaker 2: People are really upset about it, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 3: So we would love to hear from anybody who knows
Speaker 3: there are black food.
Speaker 2: So we did it.
Speaker 3: And in our Savor episode we talked about we were
Speaker 3: talking about cuttlefish ink and so things just.
Speaker 2: Die like it could be anything. Noodles.
Speaker 3: I think noodles is traditional, but like the outside of
Speaker 3: tumblings or cupcakes all.
Speaker 4: Ridings or kin have the black Hamburger or whatever, and.
Speaker 2: We also talked about that.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, yes, so I need to go listen to
Speaker 4: that episode right now.
Speaker 3: You do, you'll learn a lot and we would love
Speaker 3: to learn a lot from you listeners, as we always do,
Speaker 3: and we do have some listener male for this one,
Speaker 3: starting with Mikhayla. She wrote, Hey, y'all, I loved your
Speaker 3: two parter on female revengers, particularly because I'm currently in
Speaker 3: a production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, featuring one of the
Speaker 3: most intense here's my bias showing female revengers to more
Speaker 3: at Queen of the Gow. Yes, as an actor, villains
Speaker 3: are forever juicy to play, but Tamora Tamora has been
Speaker 3: a mind job and a challenge unlike anything I face
Speaker 3: to date the story if you're not savvy. After losing
Speaker 3: a ten year war against Rome, she her three sons,
Speaker 3: and a mercenary, her secret lover Aaron the More are
Speaker 3: dragged to Rome as trophies. Her firstborn son is chosen
Speaker 3: for sacrifice by way of a right by the titular
Speaker 3: character Titus. She begs she appeals to him as a
Speaker 3: parent but he does not relent, and her son is
Speaker 3: needlessly buy us again slaughtered. By this, she is forever
Speaker 3: altered and irreversibly damaged, and bent on revenge. Of epic proportions,
Speaker 3: she is elevated to Empress Yes in the same scene,
Speaker 3: her son was murdered, and she reclaims a status that
Speaker 3: will assist her in gaining vengeance, and.
Speaker 2: Boy howdy does she.
Speaker 3: She aids and abets the mutilation and rape of Titus's daughter,
Speaker 3: as well as the murder of the daughter's new husband,
Speaker 3: frames two of his sons for said murder, and attempts
Speaker 3: to drive Titus and sane with grief. The thing is,
Speaker 3: he's already pretty insane. Forty years of war will do
Speaker 3: that someone. But he's the victor of war and so
Speaker 3: lauded for a service to Rome, so his wild behavior
Speaker 3: is mostly allowed, even when he kills one of his
Speaker 3: own sons.
Speaker 2: But I digress.
Speaker 3: In the end, she loses her mind and believes she
Speaker 3: has trick Titus into something that will finish him and
Speaker 3: his remaining family. However, he hasn't actually bought the farm,
Speaker 3: and her sons are captured, murdered, and baked into a pie,
Speaker 3: which she eats at a banquet. She is then killed
Speaker 3: by Titus, and it is pronounced that her body will
Speaker 3: be tossed to the animals to feast on as it rots,
Speaker 3: because having lived beastly, she will be food for beast
Speaker 3: Tamora is a woman in a man's world who, when
Speaker 3: she behaves like a man I e. Aggressively, is deemed barbarous,
Speaker 3: without womanhood and without grace. Though when Titus and every
Speaker 3: other man in the play behaving kind, no eyebrow gets raised,
Speaker 3: her sexual prowess is often discussed as a negative, either
Speaker 3: as a tool of manipulation or further evidence of her barbarism. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Titus has begotten twenty six sons of one would have
Speaker 3: to imagine twenty six separate women delivered to him upon
Speaker 3: his returns from war, because you know, dude's gotta let
Speaker 3: off some steam after all that warring. Furthermore, Lavinia, Titus's daughter,
Speaker 3: exists to service her father and her husband, and is
Speaker 3: literally referred to as an object or property throughout the play.
Speaker 3: They are the only two women in the play, and
Speaker 3: so the Madonna and the horror dynamic is omnipresent. I
Speaker 3: have so much more to say, but I've already said
Speaker 3: more than I thought I would, and I hear the
Speaker 3: atro music spelling. Just want to make sure my favorite
Speaker 3: Shakespearean lady villain got her due.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: I saw that.
Speaker 3: I saw the movie, yeah, when I was a kid
Speaker 3: in its.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that could be a little bit horrifying. The pie
Speaker 1: the pies.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Whitney wrote, I thought of you both while watching
Speaker 3: a movie recently, and how appropriate considering you ass listeners
Speaker 3: for movie recommendations. There's a movie out of China called
Speaker 3: The Widowed Witch about a woman who survives a factory
Speaker 3: explosion which kills her husband. While recovering from this trauma,
Speaker 3: she endured in other trauma. She ends up becoming a
Speaker 3: traveling shaman. This movie seems to tick off both categories
Speaker 3: of somewhat revenge film as well as witch film. Is
Speaker 3: also a non white depiction of women practicing magic, perfect, perfect,
Speaker 3: well less love recommendations. Yes, we're definitely gonna check that out.
Speaker 1: So we need to know. How are you going to
Speaker 1: celebrate February fourteenth or not? You don't have to, I
Speaker 1: don't blame you.
Speaker 4: Do you have a unique tradition or how is it
Speaker 4: celebrated in your neck of the Woods. If you don't
Speaker 4: do Valentine's Day, is there an equivalent.
Speaker 2: Or any of those friendship days?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yes, I definitely had a Galentine's tradition for a while.
Speaker 3: Yes, as did I. You can send your stories answers
Speaker 3: to our questions. We had many in this episode. Yes,
Speaker 3: please don't seen vinegar Valentines unless they're funny.
Speaker 4: Unless I actually would appreciate a good funny one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a good funny one, that's okay.
Speaker 3: You can email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
Speaker 3: iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Instagram at
Speaker 3: stuff I Never Told You and on Twitter at mom
Speaker 3: Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our super producer Andrew Howard,
Speaker 3: and also.
Speaker 1: Be part of the Galanines.
Speaker 3: We'll allow it, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff
Speaker 3: I Never Told You's a protection of iHeartRadio is how
Speaker 3: stuff works for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visits iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.