Valentine’s Day Wasn’t Invented by Hallmark — Here’s the Real, Surprising History

Archer's Line Podcast · Feb 14, 2026 · 6m

Every February, right on cue, the same line makes the rounds: Valentine’s Day was invented by greeting card companies to make us feel inadequate and spend money.

The joke was immortalized in the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, when Jim Carrey’s character says that the holiday was created “to make people feel like crap.”

It’s a good line. It’s also wrong.

Valentine’s Day predates Hallmark by centuries. In fact, it predates commercial greeting cards by hundreds of years — and its origins are far stranger, murkier, and more interesting than the cynical version suggests.

It’s a…