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By The Numbers

Singles get all the Valentine’s love this year

Marketplace Contributor Feb 14, 2014

Valentine’s Day is usually seen as a day for the couples, the romantics, and the folks who are in love. But it seems more like Valentine’s Day 2014 is for the lovelorn and the currently single. Popular dating app Tinder even took home the “Best New Startup” award at this week’s Crunchies, an awards show honoring the best in the tech industry. Once thought to be an app just for the young, Tinder has seen their user base expand from being 90 percent in the 18-24 year-old demographic when they started, to only half of Tinderers being of the young-twenty-something persuasion now.

From quizzes, to twitter trends, Google’s doodle, and corporate promotions, Valentine’s Day this year seems to be as much a day about being in love as it is the timeless question… What is Love?

Buzzfeed, the online chronicler of human desires, isn’t just celebrating singleness, it’s downright advocating the down-with-love sentiment:

Brands were all over it – the branding, that is. Yet, they don’t seem to be encouraging much outside of playing with food…

… Literally:

Harvard Business Review took a dire look at how finding love is like a marketplace (as if singles needed to be reminded?).

“Creative” e-cards that don’t seem to inspire affection are popping up everywhere.

Vanity Fair even put together this list of valentines from TV villains.

And take a look at these uninspiring, but hilarious, valentines for singles:

Dating apps tell you to just get yourself out there…

…even though just 5 percent of Americans in a committed relationship say they met their significant other online (Pew Research).

The trending Valentine’s Day related hashtags on Twitter are quite unromantic:

#HarsherLoveSongs:

#FedValentines:

#RejectedCandyHearts:

And then Pope Francis urged young people to get married:

Policy wonks are writing pieces on “how to save marriage,” which should encourage concern in any person looking to get married for the first time (or again).

Finally, no one really knows if St. Valentine himself was married. There is little written about him in his lifetime, outside of reports of his acts to marry others.

So whether you’re looking for love, or doing just fine all by yourself, Valentine’s Day 2014 seems to be for the unattached. Here’s to you, single people: reclaiming Valentine’s Day one hashtag at a time.

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