In a society that places pressure on young adults to get a job, find the love of your life and start a family (sorry mom, that isn't happening any time soon!), Singles' Day is a day that was designed to celebrate the opposite of just that -- being proud to be independent and single. Originally, Singles' Day was created by young Chinese adults in the early 90's as a way to curb the negativity surrounding being single, and as an excuse to attend singles' parties with their single friends. The day falls on November 11 (11/11), because the number '1' represents an individual that is alone. Today, thanks to the e-commerce company Alibaba, Single's Day is marketed to young adults as a day to treat themselves, in order to boost sales in the low season month of November. Alibaba, which was created by businessman Jack Ma, first took the marketing opportunity by launching what they called "Double 11" deals as online shopping started to boom. The holiday is considered to be the most influential annual online shopping day in China, surpassing events like Black Friday, Boxing Day and Cyber Monday here in North America. Last year alone, Alibaba generated approximately US$14.3 billion worth of goods from the online purchases of Chinese consumers in just 24 hours. Alibaba hopes to expand the online-shopping phenomenon worldwide, and re-brand it as the Global Shopping Festival. Promotions will be launched in Hong Kong and Taiwan via their online marketplace, Tmall. Update: According to reports, in the first 16 hours of the sale, shoppers had shopped for a staggering $13.7 billion. And this was just in China and other Asian countries. The Western hemisphere hadn't even woken up to 11/11 to partake in the shopping bonanza. By Kelsey Seepersad Banner photo courtesy of: NewsItems.