The four "1"s abstractly refer to the demographic group of single people and it is also known as the Singles' Day or Bachelors' Day. This unofficial Singles' Day started in the '90s as a celebration of singledom. Sources suggest that four male students of Nanjing University's Mingcaowuzhu dorm ("all single men") discussed how they could break away from the monotony of having no significant other, and agreed that November 11 would be a day of events and celebrations in honour of being single.
In 2009, Alibaba, the company that owns the two largest e-commerce websites in the world, Taobao and Tmall, repackaged the day into a discount shopping event, encouraging singles to treat themselves.
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