Who doesn’t love a long day of looking at your phone on V-day? I’m kidding. But, social platforms are not! Here is how they managed to code some love into tech platforms this year. 

If you tagged your boo on Instagram — doesn’t matter if it was a hard or a soft launch — chances are you’d have seen some love sprinkled on it by the social networking site. Posting or tapping on a ‘Note’ with Valentine’s Day-related keywords or emojis triggered an “exploding heart emoji or animation in your inbox. Posting or tapping on a tagged profile in your ‘Stories’ triggered floating hearts. 

Ready to celebrate my V-day with my lifelong boo — food — I opened Zomato only to be asked if I want to be set up with a special someone, on this special day. Trusting that my loving partner will shrug this off as a professional hazard, I ventured ahead. What I did appreciate was the gender non-binary options to look for love on the food platform. I was matched with ‘Rita’ on a very Tinder-like user interface. Only three kilometers away, Rita’s full name, as I tapped on her profile, turned out to be ‘Margherita’ — just a cheesy gal out of a love triangle! Well played, Zomato!

When I looked for potential men to date, I found Elon who turned out to be ‘Watermelon Juice’. It still had a pick-up line better than most men I’ve met — “Will go to the Moon and Mars for you but also give you your SpaceX.”

Blinkit, on the other hand, did the emotional labour on behalf of those who generally don’t — I think we all know which demographic generally doesn’t! All you have to do is select three or more things that your partner likes. There’s a long list that includes choices such as Coffee Addict, Board Game Master, Office Geek and much more.

Once you select these, Blinkit curates a thoughtful list of gifts that you can get to your partner in less than 30 minutes. I took adages like “love yourself first” and “put on your mask before you help others” and ordered myself some espresso and butter shortbread for the evening. No, I’m not sharing. 

There’s also a special ‘Single Mode’ for Valentine’s Day which apart from snacks and games also has brass diyas and agarbatties to ‘Pray for a Good Partner’, and tennis balls and gym gloves to ‘Get a revenge-bod’. 

If not a partner, there’s always good humour on these platforms to soften the blow on a capitalism-driven day designated for love.