This hilarious, NSFW video from CollegeHumor explains why the idea of engagement rings is a scam -- and why you'll end up buying one regardless.

It's a pretty nice scene out on a beach with a sunset in the background and a dude about to pop the question to his lady. But then Adam Conover steps in to drop some knowledge on the couple and ruin the magic behind this ancient tradition.

According to Adam, the tradition isn't very ancient at all. In fact, the idea of giving an engagement ring to the one you intended to marry didn't become a tradition until the De Beers diamond corporation introduced through marketing in the 1930s. Before then, when people wanted to get hitched, they'd just claim their intentions and get hitched.

In 1938, De Beers ran an ad campaign that claimed that the only way for a man to really show his love is with a diamond. Even the "rule" that you're supposed to drop two months' worth of salary on a ring was just the product of De Beers marketing. Womp womp. The worst part is that the diamonds have virtually no resale value, meaning that you might have dropped a whole lot of money on something that's completely worthless.

Actually, the worst part might be that even with this knowledge, we're still stuck getting engagement rings for the special ladies in our lives. Go ahead, try explaining to them that the whole thing is a scam and that they don't need engagement rings. If they let you off the hook and recognize it's a scam, then you'll probably need to put a ring on her anyways, because you need to lock that understanding beauty down!

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