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Sunday Puzzle: Cyber Monday categories!

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Sunday Puzzle: Cyber Monday categories!

Sunday Puzzle

NPR


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On-air challenge: Tomorrow is Cyber Monday. I’ve brought a game of Categories based on the word CYBER. For each category I give, name something in it starting with each of the letters C-Y-B-E-R.

For example, if the category were “Two-Syllable Girls’ Names,” you might say Connie, Yvette, Betty, Ellen, and Rachel. Any answer that works is OK, and you can give the answers in any order.

  1. Colors
  2. Garden Vegetables
  3. Mammals with Three-Letter Names
  4. Popular Websites

Last week’s challenge: Last week’s challenge comes from listener Greg VanMechelen, of  Berkeley, Calif. Name a state capital. Inside it in consecutive letters is the first name of a popular TV character of the past. Remove that name, and the remaining letters in order will spell the first name of a popular TV game show host of the past. What is the capital and what are the names?

Challenge answer: Montgomery (Ala.) –> Gomer (Pyle), Monty (Hall)

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Winner: Greg Felton of Stateline, Nev.

This week’s challenge:  This week’s challenge comes from the crossword constructor and editor Peter Gordon. Think of a classic television actor — first and last names. Add a long-E sound at the end of each name and you’ll get two things that are worn while sleeping. What are they?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, December 5th, 2024 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.

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‘Wait Wait’ for February 14, 2026: With Not My Job guest Arden Cho

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‘Wait Wait’ for February 14, 2026: With Not My Job guest Arden Cho

Arden Cho attends Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” Special Screening at Netflix Tudum Theater on June 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with guest host Negin Farsad, judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, Not My Job guest Arden Cho and panelists Tom Papa, Paula Poundstone, and Beth Stelling. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Bill This Time

Laser Party in Texas; Olympic Cheating Scandal; Romance Advice for this Weekend

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Panel Questions

Those Whippersnappers!

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell three stories about a news story inspired by a movie, only one of which is true.

Not My Job: KPop Demon Hunters’ Arden Cho answers three questions about K-Mart

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Arden Cho, star of KPop Demon Hunters, plays our game called, “KPop Demon Hunters, meet K-Mart Bargain Hunters.” Three questions about K-Mart.

Panel Questions

Hot Airplane Etiquette Trend; Russia’s Pooping Spy Drones

Limericks

Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Who Rescued Ew!; A Double D Cup of Butter; Getting Fancy At McDonald’s

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Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict what will be the big story out of the final week of the Olympics.

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To be in love, in L.A and in Acne Studios on Valentine’s Day

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To be in love, in L.A and in Acne Studios on Valentine’s Day

Styled in Acne Studios’ Valentine’s Day edit, three L.A. creative couples brought us into their worlds as they reflected on their artistic journeys, relationships and personal styles as a tool for connection. The simple act of always having their partner’s go-to moisturizer in their bag for them, shopping together or making space for each other’s dreams can yield the kind of fruitful love that makes navigating this world all the better.

Hayley and Clyde

Hayley and Clyde

Hayley, left, wears Acne Studios top, belt, skirt and bag, Y Project earrings and model’s own socks. Clyde wears Acne Studios shirt and model’s own socks and Dickies pants.

Smooth jazz plays as the sun pours in over the mountains and into the heart of Hayley Ashton Corley and Clyde Nikolai Corley’s home, tucked away in the hills of Topanga Canyon. Hayley is an artist and model, and her husband Clyde is an artist and filmmaker. Though the two of them have not been professionally photographed together often, they are quite natural together on camera. As the shoot unfolds, Clyde can be found affectionately rubbing Hayley’s hand, gently playing with the wedding band on her ring finger. “I met Clyde when I was 20 and we’ve been together almost 10 years now,” Hayley says. The two got married in India, where Hayley’s family is from, during a three-day ceremony in November 2024. “The wedding was making what was already spiritual, physical,” Clyde says.

When you first met, what drew you to each other?

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Hayley: His eyes. I saw him across the room and we both looked at each other. I crossed the room, walked up to him and sat down and wanted to just chat. Then Clyde DM’d me on Instagram and a few weeks later he asked me out to breakfast.

Clyde: We just clicked immediately; we were drawn to each other. We were kids, and she was just so positive and kept talking about all the good things about L.A., which is really refreshing when you’re from L.A., because everybody comes here and kind of hates on things.

What was most memorable about your first date?

Clyde: We went to Figaro Bistrot in Los Feliz. I order an eggs Benedict, and Hayley’s like, “I’ll do the same.” But then she swaps the bread for croissant, makes the egg scrambled, adds spinach, and ends up with this different story sliding around the plate. She was over it and didn’t even eat it.

Hayley: I honestly hate eggs Benedict so much.

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Clyde: But we just kept looking at each other and I really liked being around her. Then I got back to my car and got a parking ticket, so it was great. About a $150 brunch that no one enjoyed and that was our first date.

Haley and Clyde
Image March 2026 Acne Story Haley and Clyde

What is your favorite thing about the way your partner styles themselves?

Hayley: Clyde dresses himself by his mood. Some days it’ll be all black or white, but he’s always pulling fits. I feel like I tend to go to Clyde when I want to be dressed a certain way, so he really helps style me.

Clyde: Hayley’s really natural. She wears anything and it’s fire, and I’m inspired by that. Maybe it informs my outlook on clothing. Hayley can play both worlds really well; she can dress up really beautifully and be an absolute stunner. She can tap into her Indian roots and express beautiful dynamic style. She’s also just my muse so I’m obsessed with her.

Image March 2026 Acne Story Haley and Clyde

If you styled each other for the day, what do you think the end results would look like?

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Clyde: Hayley loves funny fits I wear, maybe baggy sweatpants and a funny beanie. She loves a messy skater boy look. Or she likes when I’m really dressed up so she’d probably dress me in some fun whimsical stuff.

Hayley: If Clyde were to style me, it’d probably be skinny jeans that are tight on my butt or a really chic skirt. He likes to see my skin and my shape, where sometimes I tend to wear baggy pants.

If you were on a game show, and you had to accurately guess at least five things that you could find in your partner’s bag at any given moment, what would those items be?

Clyde: In her bag right now would be her phone, wallet, her little rose-brown colored lip gloss. She has this energy boosting key from a Chinese herbalist lady in New York, like a tonic. She’s known to bring a phone charger around.

Hayley: For Clyde, I think laptop, hard drive, computer charger, phone, wallet. That’s pretty much it.

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Haley and Clyde

You both are so creative. How has being in love enhanced your artistic practice?

Hayley: Clyde is just a really inspiring person to be around. Watching him and his craft inspires me to be a better artist, because he has such discipline, but also flow. The past 10 years of being together has helped me hone in on my own work and practice.

Clyde: I feel the same, in different ways. I’m coming from a place of feeling seen. I got the person who loves me for who I am and I don’t have to keep up with trends or anything. It allows me to focus on the actual feelings I’m trying to express rather than how it’s going to be seen by the outside world. It just allows me to stay inspired. We’re so lucky. I think if love can inspire you to hold on to the things you care about, that’s really advantageous in art.

Mo and Banoffee

Mo and Banuffee

It’s a picturesque afternoon in Echo Park. The sun is warm, the breeze is cool and the peaceful bustle feeds the atmosphere at Canyon Coffee. Mo Faulk and Banoffee Faulk, partners in love and creative pursuits, arrive for a late lunch. Both earth signs, the two laugh at the peculiarities they noticed within each other upon first meeting. Together for almost a year, they instantly clicked, which is quite apparent while observing them. They can’t help but smile at each other throughout the shoot, stealing forehead kisses between shots and laughing constantly. It is a connection so in sync it could have been written in the stars. And, as two people with heavy earth sign placements, it nearly was.

With Mo being a creative producer and manager, and Banoffee being a musician and producer, their jobs can be socially demanding. The self-proclaimed homebodies share that their ideal quality pastime is rewatching “Grey’s Anatomy” for the third time, sitting together in silence while enjoying cookie milkshakes, or spending a weekend away in nature.

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When you first met, what drew you to each other?

Mo: We both understand the chaos of family dynamics in a way that’s really comforting.

Banoffee: Yeah, it’s nice when you find someone who’s not a nepo baby in L.A., because it’s rare. But the goofiness as well. I was drawn to Mo initially, because they’re attractive, but it was nice to meet someone who can be really silly.

What was the most memorable part about your first date?

Mo: We were coming to hang out as friends, but we left kind of obsessed with each other. Separately, we left and called our friends.

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Banoffee: We met at 10 in the morning and left at 4 p.m.

Mo: We just didn’t want to leave each other.

Mo and Banoffee
Image March 2026 Acne Story Mo and Banuffee
Mo and Banuffee

Mo, right, wears Acne Studios jeans, top and bag and Martine Rose shoes. Banoffee wears Acne Studios jeans, top and belt, Martine Rose X Nike shoes and stylist’s own Acne Studios moto jacket.

What is your favorite thing about the way your partner styles themselves?

Mo: With Banoffee it’s always fun because everyday is like a new character. They’re down to put weird stuff together that actually is very cool. I like the playfulness with clothes and it also speaks to the playfulness of our relationship.

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Banoffee: Mo’s style is sort of a recontextualized hick. They love a flannel and fishing caps. I like how rugged their style is, but somehow they make it look really high fashion.

If you styled each other for the day, what do you think the end results would look like?

Banoffee: Mo would put me in a baggy jean, with a belt and a little shirt, with some sort of leather jacket or a bomber and a cool sneaker. I feel like Mo’s ethos for dressing is “over-casual is always cooler.”

Mo: Maybe those new jeans you got me, I have no idea.

Banoffee: I’d put you in a vintage thermal.

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Mo: Oh, yeah. Little tight thermal, big jeans.

Banoffee: Would we dress each other exactly the same?

If you were on a game show, and you had to accurately guess at least five things that you could find in your partner’s bag at any given moment, what would those items be?

Mo: A Juul, 17 empty Juul pods, a lipliner that’s broken without the top on it, one of those makeup brushes that’s been in there for far too long and maybe a mini hairbrush. And empty contact lens cases.

Banoffee: Mo’s bag is so full, so practical, it’s annoying. They’d have two Aquaphors. The big tube and the little tube. They’d have all of my things: ID, sometimes my passport, medications, my contact lenses. A mini natural mouth wash, gum, a charging cord, deodorant, there’s probably a spare pair of socks, and then those sniffy menthol things for your nose. And a lot of rings, chains, and things that they may or may not want to wear.

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Image March 2026 Acne Story Mo and Banuffee

With both of you being in the creative industry with overlapping work, how do you think being together has influenced your artistic practice?

Banoffee: I feel like our relationship has re-energized my creative work. We’re each other’s cheerleaders but can also get our hands dirty. It feels cool to be a part of a team in that way. Before I met Mo, I was feeling kind of tired about my work, a little bit like the romance had gone from it, but I feel like since we’ve met, there’s a lot of possibility opening up because we’re in it together.

Mo: I agree. Being in the entertainment industry can feel really lonely. Everyone’s kind of stepping on each other intentionally or not to get to what they want to do, and if things aren’t going the way you want it to it can feel hopeless. But with Banoffee, they think everything I do is cool, every idea I have they’re excited about, and I feel the same way about them. The idea of being a team, it reignites the fire.

Lex and Petar

Petar and Lex

Petar, top, wears Acne Studios top, Calvin Klein underwear and model’s own socks, shoes and jewelry. Lex wears Acne Studios jeans, sweater and belt and model’s own jewelry.

Lex Orozco-Cabral and Petar Ilic are on their sunset-lit balcony, overlooking the Hollywood strip. Petar, a Bosnian model and creative, works at a creative agency in the fashion sector, while Lex, a Bay Area native, is a union costume designer and stylist. Both exude a level of comfortable confidence in front of the camera — like two sculptures come to life. Immersing themselves into the fun of it all, Lex jokes, “This is our normal.”

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Crossing paths for the first time in New York, connecting over Instagram and finally meeting when Petar moved to L.A., the pair’s romance had been years in the making. Lex, a triple fire sign and Petar, a balance of fire, water and air, live together in WeHo where they love to spend time deep-diving into fashion and pop-culture references. Lex has a larger-than-life personality — he is sure, protective and affirming of Petar, while Petar is calm, grounding and nurturing of Lex. “Two years later and I’m still obsessed with him,” Lex shares lovingly. “He’s just getting better and better,” Petar offers, “and I’m here for where this is gonna take us.”

What about your partner were you most drawn to?

Petar: I have a lot. The list is long. He’s handsome, he’s tall, he’s funny. I love his fashion sense, just everything about him. This is my person. Everything we do from day to day, it’s never boring.

Lex: At first it was physical, he’s just so gorgeous. But then once I met him, I fell in love with his little -isms. He has these buzz words and phrases. And he is genuinely so caring, so kind. I’m like, “Where the f— did he come from?”

Image March 2026 Acne Story Petar and Lex
Image March 2026 Acne Story Petar and Lex

What is your favorite thing about the way your partner styles themselves?

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Lex: I definitely help him and elevate his style but he had great style before. He’s very minimal, he likes to look refined and polished, like a proper boy, but then at home, he’s dressed really gay. Like, at home it’s sexy undies and a rocker shirt.

Petar: I never really cared too much about dressing up before I met him. One of my favorite things about him is that his style is so crazy. He’s wearing all these amazing pieces. I never really met anyone who cared so much about clothes, and it’s inspiring. I’m like, “this is hot.” He’s like an encyclopedia when it comes to fashion.

If you both had to style each other for the day, what do you think those end results would look like?

Petar: That’s really hard to say.

Lex: I would like him to dress gayer.

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Petar: I’m just avoiding all the bullying I can. I get nervous sometimes holding hands.

Lex: But I try to tell him no one is bullying you here, this isn’t Bosnia.

Petar: And that’s true, I’ve never been bullied here in L.A., and he helps me get out of my comfort zone.

If you were on a game show, and you had to accurately guess at least five things that you could find in your partner’s bag at any given moment, what would those items be?

Petar: His phone, wallet, the microfiber cloth for glasses and phones, really just the essentials.

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Lex: His crystal stone, his mouth tape. He always has some type of lip gloss, gum and edibles.

Lex and Petar

Lex holds Acne Studio bag.

You are both very creative. How do you think being together, being in love, has influenced your artistic practice?

Lex: I just have better days. I know that I have the best f—ing boyfriend at home waiting for me. I always say I get the best ideas [when I’m with] him.

Petar: I am just honestly happier from the moment I wake up. The world feels safe and everything is more aligned. Also the subjects we talk about, the things he shows me.

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What is something about the way your partner sees the world that you really appreciate?

Lex: He’s so positive and optimistic, and I miss that because I can be jaded working in this industry where you don’t always get credit for your work. I’m more of a stresser, and he calms me down.

Petar: One of my favorite things about him is that he’s very confident, he’s a go-getter. You gotta act like you’re the main character in life and he brings that out of me.

Image March 2026 Acne Story Petar and Lex

Cierra Black is an Inland Empire-raised, L.A.-based writer and UCLA graduate. With bylines in several publications, Cierra writes about the interplay between art, style, and beauty, and social issues and behaviors.

Photography Kevin Amato
Couples Hayley Ashton Corley and Clyde Nikolai Corley, Banoffee Faulk and Mo Faulk, Lex Orozco-Cabral and Petar Ilic
Creative direction & styling Keyla Marquez
Makeup T’ai Rising-Moore
Hair Adrian Arredondo
Movement director Kate Wallich
Production Matzi
Styling assistant Ronben

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What Did Valentines Day Cards Look Like 200 Years Ago?

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What Did Valentines Day Cards Look Like 200 Years Ago?

In the late 19th century, few things telegraphed yearning like a card adorned with paper lace, gold foil and a couple exchanging a coy glance.

Today, such a card would evoke an eye roll.

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The evolution of cards from the treacly confections of Victorian England to the quippy missives of today reflect both shifting design aesthetics and broader cultural customs around romance. As the borders of socially accepted relationships have shifted, so have the cards. Where once there was poetry, now there are drawings of pizzas.

“Greeting cards are a reflection of society,” said Carlos Llansó, executive director of the Greeting Card Association, a trade organization that represents roughly 4,000 independent card makers.

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Valentine’s Day cards today are less formal, precious and prescribed, Mr. Llansó said, because our understanding of love has become more expansive.

Lottery and lace

Historians struggle to trace the exact origins of Valentine’s Day — some pinpoint the holiday to a curiously unromantic Pagan festival in Rome that involved goat slaughter and nudity — but they tend to agree that its association with romance was most likely established in England.

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Early Valentine’s Day celebrations, dating as far back as the 17th century, were only loosely associated with love and often revolved around a lottery, said Sally Holloway, a cultural historian at the University of Warwick whose research focuses on love, marriage and courtship in 18th century England.

People would pull names out of a hat and select someone to be their Valentine from February through Easter.

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“Your Valentine could be your neighbor, it could be a colleague, it could be a member of your family,” Dr. Holloway said. “You’d pin the name of the person who you’d been given as your Valentine to your clothes.” Matched pairs would exchange gifts, dance together and maybe write funny riddles or poems for each other.

A confluence of rapid social changes in the late 1700s and early 1800s, including the idealization of marrying for love rather than for economic advantage, Dr. Holloway said, helped to transform Valentine’s Day into a commercialized celebration of romantic love with a partner of your choosing.

Click on an image to look at the details.

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This period dovetailed with the advent of new printing technologies and mass production, as well as an expansion of postal services, making Valentine’s Day cards a popular component of courtship rituals.

They presented, in many ways, a rare opportunity to directly convey desire within the confines of an otherwise buttoned-up Victorian society, where bold romantic declarations could be both risky and risqué. At the time, the responsibility of pursuing a marriage partner fell to men, and women tended to avoid overtly signaling affection.

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But on Valentine’s Day, those rules were flipped.

“For one day a year, the language of love became the preserve of women,” Dr. Holloway said. And because it was considered a daring and even racy act to send a Valentine’s Day card, women “couldn’t put their name to it,” Dr. Holloway said. It is why so many cards from that era contain only vague, brief greetings, sometimes with a question mark at the end, adding a whiff of mystique.

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The custom arrived in the United States in the mid-1800s, and crafty, entrepreneurial women fueled its commercialization.

Esther Howland — often referred to as the “mother of the American valentine” — is said to have first received a Valentine’s Day card from someone in Britain in 1847 and was inspired to create her own version.

“It was her idea to essentially create an assembly line of women putting together these really complex Valentines,” said Jamie Kwan, an assistant curator at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The cards were handmade, and Howland “imported materials from the U.K. and Germany to incorporate into these cards.”

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Estimates suggest she sold between $75,000 and $100,000 worth of cards a year, roughly the equivalent of $3 million today.

Embracing new ideas of love

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Over time, innovation around the craftsmanship of cards slowed, and it was their imagery that began to reflect a rapidly changing culture.

In 1910, Hallmark entered the industry and quickly became one of the largest and most recognizable card makers. The brand’s earliest Valentine’s Day cards relied heavily on the Victorian symbols of love from the previous century: hearts, Cupids and lovebirds.

By the 1930s, Hallmark started printing cards with boundary-pushing images of couples embracing and, by 1945, dancing.

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“It used to be that we used a lot more traditional forms of creative crafts, like engraving, calligraphy and lace,” said Jen Walker, a vice president of Hallmark’s creative studios. Eventually, consumers found those aesthetic details less enticing.

“We are a consumer led brand — so we followed the consumer and what their needs were,” she added.

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But Hallmark cards did not display Black couples until 1970, and the company did not introduce Valentine’s Day cards for those in same-sex relationships until 2008.

‘There isn’t even a heart on it’

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In the mid 2000s, Valentine’s Day cards went through another major shift.

In 2013, Emily McDowell, a writer, product consultant and business adviser, designed a Valentine’s Day card to better reflect some of the difficult-to-categorize situationships she had been in.

The card had no illustrations. It was plain and white with text on the front that read: “I know we’re not, like, together or anything but it felt weird to just not say anything so I got you this card. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t really mean anything. There isn’t even a heart on it. So basically it’s a card saying hi. Forget it.”

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She put it up on Etsy, anticipating that only a handful of people would buy it.

Within days, she sold thousands, she said, and had to stop accepting new orders. The success prompted her to quit her job in advertising and start her namesake brand. The next year, she released another card that also instantly became a hit. It read: “There’s no one I’d rather lie in bed and look at my phone next to.”

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Over the past 13 years, the company has sold millions of similarly witty cards. (Ms. McDowell left the company in 2022, and it was acquired by Hachette Publishing last year.) While Ms. McDowell’s early designs feel commonplace now, they were among the first in an industrywide move away from the stilted, saccharine Valentine’s Day cards of previous decades.

Many independent card designers today, Mr. Llansó explained, continue to tap into a consumer demand for plain-speaking, authentic cards. As a result, some of the more popular designs feature references to the state of the world. Others nod to cultural iconography, like Labubus or the enduring appeal of sweatpants. Not all of them are intended for romantic partners, and many can be used in other kinds of relationships.

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Mitzi Sampson, the founder of the card company Mitzi Bitsy Spider, said her best-selling card was one that featured a grinning raccoon holding up a sign reading “you are TRASH to me.”

Ms. Sampson said she designed that card in 2023 for her sister “because she loves raccoons and because I love her.”

That, she added, is exactly what consumers want now. Not frills or grand proclamations, but an intimate knowledge of the receiver and “the simple recognition that says I know you, I see you, I choose you.”

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