Valentine’s Day is here, but if you look around, there’s a different kind of feeling in the air. Giant spiders have replaced teddy bears as spooky springtime sweets, goth vibes, and a familiar horror movie theme permeate stores. No, you are not in The Twilight Zone; welcome to Valloween. This love child of two seemingly distinct holidays is spunky, gothic, sweet, and sour. Valloween, also lovingly called Ghoulentine’s Day, doesn’t give love a bad name but instead offers authenticity, symbolism, and inclusivity.
Valentine’s Day and Halloween walk into a bar…
Spooky aesthetics have slowly been creeping out from their seasonal home over the years. The love of “Summerween” is now surfacing during springtime with Valloween. Soft hearts with skulls, ghoulish Valentine’s cards, and haunted Ghoulentine’s Day Parties lay waiting. However, this holiday mash-up is not the product of a wild night in Vegas between Halloween and Valentine’s Day. Rather, it is a series of love letters between star-crossed lovers, doomed for celebration in different seasons.
There is also a sprig of rebellion within this spooky holiday mash-up. Traditional Valentine’s Day parties can be boring and one-dimensional due to the restrictive boundaries of celebration. By contrast, Valloween shakes things up by taking some creative liberties.
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There is something highly symbolic about the combination of the two holidays, with the intrinsic beauty of love and life paradoxically tied to death and destruction. Western culture sees opposites, even enemies, in life and death, whereas Eastern cultures honor life and death as unified parts of the whole.
The odd couple: a cultural history of life and death’s love story
In Hinduism, Shiva and Shakti provide powerful examples of life and death’s true relationship. The God of death and destruction and the Goddess of love and creation, respectively, cannot exist without each other. Shiva was in love with Shakti, but he could not have her because she was the Mother Goddess, causing him to fall into a deep depression. As the world likewise descended into disorder and destruction, Shakti recognized the impact of Shakti’s grief and created a version of herself to love him as he deserved. The result was a balanced world of harmony and peace, because life and death aren’t enemies; they’re lovers.
In Greek and Roman mythology, Hades and Persephone are the God of the Underworld and the Goddess of Springtime, respectively. Living in the darkness of the underworld surrounded by death, Hades fell in love with Persephone, who loved to be among the sun, flowers, and greenery. They both end up making sacrifices to be with one another. Hades gives up his Queen for six months at the beginning of the year, and Persephone gives up the sun and warmth of the world above for the next six. It is through their love and shared sacrifice that we get the seasons of Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring.
Numerous Eastern cultures and mythologies celebrate life and death as parts of the same whole. One cannot appreciate life without death nor light without darkness, which is reflected in the ancient stories of the Gods. Western culture has also long been uncomfortable with the connection and balance between the two forces, since death is seen as negative and ominous, and life and love are seen as divine, pure, and good. Valloween’s commitment to honoring dark and light brings back this enlightened view of the seemingly oppositional forces of the world.
When Goth met Rainbow… I’ll have what they’re having.
Goth is in right now, but contrary to popular conception, goth is not simply an all-black aesthetic. Goth styling is all about contrast and individuality. Pretty pastels and even psychedelic patterns are all part of the fun when the Goth aesthetic and rainbows get together. The combination of black and vivid colors further reflects Valloween’s love of opposites. Rainbow and goth are often treated as enemies of one another instead of the besties they are. In the world of Valloween, the one true pair for color combos is rainbow and black.
Despite what popular media will tell you, goth has more than one look. The most popular styles of goth in the spring tend to be pastel, cosmic, Victorian, romantic, and soft goth. These different forms of goth expression contain a mix of vibrant and bright colors with black and dark tones. Beyond the outfits and aesthetics there exists a very deep connection to principles of nonconformity and social justice. Goth culture strives to incite positive social change.
@taipeiqueen Is mainstream popularity a blessing or a curse for subcultures? 🖤 Video Description: Taipei is a drag queen, wearing dramatic goth inspired makeup, a black Victorian blouse, and jet black straight hair with pointed bangs. She describes the history of the Goth subculture, from its musical origins in postpunk, to the commodification of Goth by fast fashion brands. Photographs and screen grabs are shown as as evidence of her talking points. #goth #gothfashion #musichistory #gothaesthetic #fastfashionsucks ♬ Into The Night 2018 Goth Mix – Robert80z
Born out of hardship and difficult times, Goth culture is likewise a rejection of fascism. Goths have been on the front lines of social justice for longer than many of us have been alive. To be goth is to rebel against prevailing standards that tell you how to be and who to love. Thus, the inclusion of goth culture in Valloween or Ghoulentine’s Day makes perfect sense, as the very holiday represents a new iteration of a long-standing tradition.
Valentine’s Day: caught in a bad romance
It feels like we’ve collectively been trapped in an unhealthy relationship: told to love a certain way, within certain restrictive boundaries. But that’s not how love works. Valloween offers an escape from bigoted expectations based on white supremacy, purity culture, homo- and transphobia, and ableism. There is a serious lack of queer, disabled, and POC representation in Valentine’s Day, which largely lacks bodies that are plus-size or visibly disabled and instead features mainly cisgender, straight people. Ghoulentine’s Day challenges this notion by foregrounding POC, disabled, and queer people in holiday content.
@dhbowzeryournonbinarydad #valentinesday #cisgender #heterosexual #heteronormativity #lgbtqia ♬ original sound – 💙💖🤍DhBowzerYourNonbinaryDad
Furthermore, Valentine’s Day tends to reinforce traditional stereotypes about gender, bodies, and relationships. Men are portrayed as stoic and emotionless, while women are skinny and hyper sexualized. Ghoulentine’s Day imagery rejects these toxic, exclusionary ideas in favor of greater inclusivity. Men and women in pin-up art are depicted as equally soft and vulnerable, breaking down harmful gender stereotypes. This art celebrates bodies of all sizes, both with and without mobility aids, including individuals that are traditionally excluded by traditional Valentine’s Day fare.
Valloween calls to people who have been othered by society, be they queer, goth, able-bodied or not, femme or masc, All are welcome here. The hybrid holiday encourages body positivity regardless of ability, size, aesthetics, or gender. This constitutes a new era of love and softness, carving distance from trends that diminish authenticity.
And IIIIIIIIIII will always love ghoul…
The undead figure prominently in Valloween content, but this display is more than just for scares and spooks. The dead offer symbolism in romantic contexts, such as unfinished business and emotional regret. After all, the best way to love is by leaving nothing unsaid. Among the most common regrets people face at the end of their lives are not saying what they wanted to say, failing to secure closure, or letting go of somebody they genuinely loved. Western culture often misses this facet of romance and relationships, shifting the focus away from intimacy and toward complacency.
Ghouls epitomize the messy and the broken while still finding the beauty in each one of us. These creatures may be decaying and falling apart, but they are moved by instinct. They serve to remind us that we do not exist in a vacuum and that things can always change and move on to the next phase. Learning to accept the unknown in both life and love is crucial to finding contentment with the realities that we cannot control.
Monsters implore us to see perfection in the imperfect. This conscious rejection of purity derails oppressive systems and pushes us to think critically. Tales of monsters and humans falling in love speak to the loneliness of otherness in society and the comfort of feeling understood. Oppressive systems profit from the normalization of cruelty, expecting people to bend to the devastation. These stories prove that we have the power to look past perceived flaws to the human nature living within all of us.
The Gen Z urge to love the broken, the beaten, and the damned…
Loving the unloved is somewhat of a theme with Gen Z. They see past the societal impulse to uphold the abuse and neglect of those who are deemed unworthy. Celebrating rejected members of our society comes naturally to young people, especially individuals who experienced it firsthand in their own lives. This is why it makes so much sense that they are adding inclusivity to a holiday that used to pride itself on the opposite.
People who love the unloved can see the value in everything the world has to offer. They see past what society tells us to value and rally around the people and things that have been left out. The ghoulish, the deathly, the messy, the weird, the queer, the broken, and the damned all have a place at the table.
Gen Z’s move to make Valentine’s Day “spooky” isn’t just about Halloween vibes, or black clothes, or making something sickeningly sweet into something spicy. It’s not about ghouls, or ghosts, or sexy pinups of men and women. Nor is it purely an effort to value the parts of society that have been neglected by the greater pop culture. It’s about joining a fight against the compulsive conformity and fascism that threaten us all. It is a commitment to free expression of self and love for all people.
Spook! In the name of love…
Valloween is the love child of two holidays that couldn’t be more different yet somehow still work together. Interpolations of goth and horror imagery within the context of love transcend mere springtime spooks. The toxicity of V-Day expectations and restrictions have been replaced with the expressive and exploratory adventures of Valloween vibes. We love the mix of love and life with death and destruction because it is fundamentally human.
Ghoulentine’s Day investigates what it means to exist as a human in an uncontrollable and chaotic world. By relinquishing the restrictions we’ve put on ourselves, we step closer to something authentic and far more beautiful. If we ask ourselves what we want instead of what others expect, we can enjoy a life of experience rather than obligation.
Valentine’s Day is changing, but it isn’t all that scary, now is it? In fact, it might just be what we’ve been looking for our whole lives. Pick up that scary movie, eat some candy, and wear your best black outfit; Valloween is here to stay. Release your inhibitions, and feel the rain on your skin. Just make sure it is rain, and not blood!
