Singles Day — the frenzied annual celebration of consumption and commerce that is China’s much larger version of Black Friday — began as a protest of sorts against Valentine’s Day, propelled by college students in the 1990s.

The event’s date, written numerically as 11/11, was associated with unattached singles, known as “bare sticks.”

This year’s shopping festival entered new territory, blazing past $1 billion within two minutes of the holiday, starting at midnight on Saturday. By the end of the day, sales had hit a new record of $25.3 billion, more than 40 percent higher than sales on Singles Day 2016.