Today, a little trip back in time to Valentine’s Days past. Which turns out to be a lot weirder than you might have expected, at least if the Valentine’s Day cards our ancestors gave each other are any indication.
So let’s take a look at a little over two dozen vintage Valentine’s Day cards that are creepy, threatening, or otherwise completely inappropriate for any occasion.
Let’s start with some cards that bungle the relatively straightforward concept of consent.
And while we’re talking about people beating each other with clubs, here’s a card that portrays domestic violence as more cute than scary.
Well that accelerated quickly:
Some of these cards are just weirdly ominous.
And there are so many guns!
And knives:
And swords:
And ropes?
These give off a real stalkerish vibe.
For some reason there’s a lot of cannibalism going on.
Now, not all of the cards I found were as unnerving as the ones above. Some were just suggestive. Very weirdly suggestive.
And then there’s this card, designed specifically for Rudy Giuliani.
I hope I haven’t ruined anyone’s Valentine’s Day with that last one.
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@Demonhype:
…no, we aren’t going to find out his dad was secretly an emperor or anything else, and anything he gets in life is the result of his own actions and not as a gift of noble birth.
That was the message The Last Jedi implied about Rey, and I’m never going to forgive the way The Rise of Skywalker undid it: just kidding! She belonged to a Select Dynasty of the Special after all—just a different one.
What time period are these even from.
@Elaine
If I had to guess, based on the art style I’d say most of these are from the first half of the 20th century. Maybe a few from the late 19th.
I was going to say that it’s weird to see Valentine cards infantilising romance, but then I recalled that the one time in my life I’ve sent a Valentine card was early in primary (elementary) school, where it was a class exercise. Gotta encourage conformity early, I guess.
@Masse_Mysteria
Guinea pigs have an “I’ll eat you up I love you so” effect on me.
Apparently this is a recognized response called “cuteness aggression.”
I honestly can’t see the “pants pen-wiping” one as anything but an enthusiastic invitation to anal sex. Possibly involving bestiality, or golf.
@SpecialFFrog: that made me laugh.
“That [animal] is so cute I want to nom on it” is said often around these here intarwebs. I may or may not have nommed sans teeth on a kitten in my time.
@ allandrel
There’s a Tagalog word for it, Gigil.
You have to admire a people who find they need a word for that. Or maybe there’s just some especially cute animals in the Philippines?
@Dave Bates – The ones I remember were super cheesy, with lines like “sealed with a kiss” next to a picture of the animal kind of seal, and not “I want to kidnap you!” or “Love me or I’ll drown myself!”
But the mouse/cat bondage one amused me. Also “screwtinize” (probably not the double meaning the author intended…unless they did and were just trying to Get Crap Past the Radar, as TV Tropes says.)
Like the knife thrower and the girl with the bat, the one with the girl feeding the monkey has a grommet at the neck, so the head can move and the girl can shove the banana in its mouth. So even creepier than it first appears, what with the monkey looking like an old man.
Valentine’s Day already s.ucks, so this only made it better
Except cannibalism is gross
…
Wait, I’m agreeing with you on another thing