De Beers has a widely circulated advertising slogan "Diamonds are forever, a diamond is forever", which first appeared in 1947. In other words, the idea of diamonds as a symbol of eternal love has existed for less than 80 years.
The same De Beers company has ingeniously created a kind of male responsibility - the value of a diamond engagement ring should be more than two months' salary of a man. In many movies and TV shows, there are clips where a man takes out a small box and a woman bursts into tears instantly. The place where the man takes out the small box can be on the mountain, on the deep seabed, on the Ferris wheel, on the roller coaster and other unexpected places, but the small box must contain a diamond ring. These romantic clips make girls think that's how marriage is supposed to start.
How many men have faithfully fulfilled this responsibility? Probably no one has counted, and De Beers will never tell the public the truth. The UK survey found that Brits spent an average of £1,865 on engagement rings in 2020, a little less than the average monthly salary in the UK for that year.
The marketing of diamonds is a bit awkward: the sole purpose of any marketing is to sell more, but once the concept of diamonds symbolizing eternal love is established, it is less romantic to encourage consumers to buy as many as possible: “Diamonds for everyone you love. Women!" If men were really caught up in this, women would wear a string of diamond rings as necklaces. When a doctor saw movie star Elizabeth Taylor, he showed her the engagement ring he was going to give to his fiancée. Taylor joked: "I have a bunch of these things.
" You can only buy a diamond ring from them once, which means you love only one woman in your life. Later, the marketing of this company did not collapse on the fickleness of men, but it collapsed on not allowing women to buy diamond rings for themselves. Obviously, money is God or man is God, or the idea of the company's marketing director is God, the company has yet to figure it out.
The diamonds sold in the 1950s may still be on many people's fingers, but the value of diamonds in the world has changed. There have always been rumors that diamonds are not rare, but that large companies strictly control the number of diamonds in the market so that they can sell for higher prices. Today, a steady stream of large, flawless, transparent, sparkling man-made diamonds are churning out from factories at a fraction of the price of natural diamonds, befuddling everyone.
Jewelry companies dealing in natural diamonds initially tried desperately to prove the superiority of natural diamonds over man-made diamonds, but cold machines couldn't tell the difference. Later, they tried to prove that the slightest flaws in natural diamonds were more beautiful than artificial diamonds, but in doing so, they completely destroyed the diamond grading system that had been in use for many years. So they simply rushed into the business of artificial diamond jewelry, no longer mentioning eternity and longevity - after all, every brick and tile, even plastic and chemical fibers, last longer than flesh and blood.
Diamonds are cheap, what about our love? Is it cheap too? If the value of love is not converted into diamonds, how should it be calculated? Is it love to spend two months' salary to buy diamonds? Was there no love before diamonds? Does King Zhou love Daji, does Huchai love Xi Shi, does Romeo love Juliet, and does Prince Albert love Queen Victoria? So, diamonds are diamonds, love is love, and business is business. Raising a cat together is more indicative of love than buying a diamond.
