I've been hearing quite a bit about this phenomenon lately. It's all over the internet.

This one is a somewhat tongue in cheek look:

Disney adults are the most terrifying people on the planet and they need to be stopped
https://thetab.com/uk/2020/07/15/disney-adults-are-the-most-terrifying-people-on-the-planet-and-they-need-to-be-stopped-166643

Excerpt:

Seemingly overnight, stunted adults have become really unironically into Disney and it’s horrifying.

A lot has been said about millennials’ inability to adjust our media consumption habits as we’ve grown up. So content are we to bathe in the warm nostalgic paddling pool of Twilight, One Direction, Waterloo Road and Tracy Beaker that we forget to read big boy books, get jobs, or have sex. That inability to cut the umbilical cord that connects us to childhood fantasy worlds has made monsters of us all in different ways. People who are still into Harry Potter or Pokémon well into their adulthood come in for a lot of flack, but there is a special place in Maleficent’s darkest dankest cell for the subsection of society that is Disney adults.

Rolling Stone, true to form,  goes into great sociological depth in a very long article:

How ‘Disney Adults’ Became the Most Hated Group on the Internet
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/disney-adults-tiktok-hated-internet-1370226/

Excerpts:

With its emphasis on selling “magic moments” and “making dreams come true,” Disney sells a rather unsophisticated version of wish fulfillment to consumers, who willingly spend thousands of dollars on an authentic emotional experience that they know, at least on some level, isn’t really authentic at all. “One of the reasons people find Disney adults so abject is that they decide to live in this world because they can, if they pay enough money or buy all the merch; it almost signals a break from regular society or real life,” says Idil Galip, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology who studies memes and fandoms. “It’s very commercialized and engineered and focus-grouped; there’s a whole lot of work that goes into selling this sort of experience. So it’s sort of all perpetuated in this sickly capitalistic cycle.”

Adding an extra layer of repulsion to outsiders, Disney adults’ ability to escape into this fantasy is almost entirely dependent on their ability to afford it. Given how expensive merch, park entry, and resort reservations are, with vacations costing thousands of dollars at a minimum, it requires a great deal of economic capital to devote oneself to the fandom. As a result, “you probably have a lot less white middle- to upper-class women in any of the other fandoms,” Mittermeier says. “There’s more Karens in the Disney fandom than others.” This overwhelming representation within the fandom is not lost on many Disney fans of color, who are well aware of the company’s roots in white, Judeo-Christian Middle American values, and often feel alienated from the rest of the community.

Brennan identifies the microblogging platform Tumblr, the beating heart of internet fandom culture, as the origin of the Disney adult. Specifically, it was a blog documenting “Disneybounding,” a term used to describe informally cosplaying as a character at the parks using the color palettes inspired by that character, which she IDs as one of the first adult-driven Disney trends to capture the attention of the mainstream. (Adults wearing Disney costumes at the parks is strictly forbidden.) Tumblr also originated the sparkly, ultra-feminine aesthetic currently associated with the Disney adult — the glittery Cheshire Cat GIFs and tongue-in-cheek princess memes that combine nostalgia with a more winking millennial perspective.

“Millennial” is a key word here, as most of the current discourse around Disney adults centers on that specific demographic, Brennan says. Indeed, the entitled “childless Disney millennial” became a meme in 2019 following a mom’s irate Facebook post accusing non-parent visitors of depriving her child of a Mickey pretzel, prompting a trolling New York Post headline, “Sorry, childless millennials going to Disney World is weird.” Part of this is a function of timing, as millennials came of age during the Tumblr era and were the first generation to embrace online fandom. But it also intersects with a very specific, mid-2010s-era criticism of millennials as entitled and fiscally irresponsible, says Galip.

I've been hearing quite a bit about this phenomenon lately. It's all over the internet.

This one is a somewhat tongue in cheek look:

Disney adults are the most terrifying people on the planet and they need to be stopped
https://thetab.com/uk/2020/07/15/disney-adults-are-the-most-terrifying-people-on-the-planet-and-they-need-to-be-stopped-166643

Excerpt:

Seemingly overnight, stunted adults have become really unironically into Disney and it’s horrifying.

A lot has been said about millennials’ inability to adjust our media consumption habits as we’ve grown up. So content are we to bathe in the warm nostalgic paddling pool of Twilight, One Direction, Waterloo Road and Tracy Beaker that we forget to read big boy books, get jobs, or have sex. That inability to cut the umbilical cord that connects us to childhood fantasy worlds has made monsters of us all in different ways. People who are still into Harry Potter or Pokémon well into their adulthood come in for a lot of flack, but there is a special place in Maleficent’s darkest dankest cell for the subsection of society that is Disney adults.

Rolling Stone, true to form,  goes into great sociological depth in a very long article:

How ‘Disney Adults’ Became the Most Hated Group on the Internet
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/disney-adults-tiktok-hated-internet-1370226/

Excerpts:

With its emphasis on selling “magic moments” and “making dreams come true,” Disney sells a rather unsophisticated version of wish fulfillment to consumers, who willingly spend thousands of dollars on an authentic emotional experience that they know, at least on some level, isn’t really authentic at all. “One of the reasons people find Disney adults so abject is that they decide to live in this world because they can, if they pay enough money or buy all the merch; it almost signals a break from regular society or real life,” says Idil Galip, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology who studies memes and fandoms. “It’s very commercialized and engineered and focus-grouped; there’s a whole lot of work that goes into selling this sort of experience. So it’s sort of all perpetuated in this sickly capitalistic cycle.”

Adding an extra layer of repulsion to outsiders, Disney adults’ ability to escape into this fantasy is almost entirely dependent on their ability to afford it. Given how expensive merch, park entry, and resort reservations are, with vacations costing thousands of dollars at a minimum, it requires a great deal of economic capital to devote oneself to the fandom. As a result, “you probably have a lot less white middle- to upper-class women in any of the other fandoms,” Mittermeier says. “There’s more Karens in the Disney fandom than others.” This overwhelming representation within the fandom is not lost on many Disney fans of color, who are well aware of the company’s roots in white, Judeo-Christian Middle American values, and often feel alienated from the rest of the community.

Brennan identifies the microblogging platform Tumblr, the beating heart of internet fandom culture, as the origin of the Disney adult. Specifically, it was a blog documenting “Disneybounding,” a term used to describe informally cosplaying as a character at the parks using the color palettes inspired by that character, which she IDs as one of the first adult-driven Disney trends to capture the attention of the mainstream. (Adults wearing Disney costumes at the parks is strictly forbidden.) Tumblr also originated the sparkly, ultra-feminine aesthetic currently associated with the Disney adult — the glittery Cheshire Cat GIFs and tongue-in-cheek princess memes that combine nostalgia with a more winking millennial perspective.

“Millennial” is a key word here, as most of the current discourse around Disney adults centers on that specific demographic, Brennan says. Indeed, the entitled “childless Disney millennial” became a meme in 2019 following a mom’s irate Facebook post accusing non-parent visitors of depriving her child of a Mickey pretzel, prompting a trolling New York Post headline, “Sorry, childless millennials going to Disney World is weird.” Part of this is a function of timing, as millennials came of age during the Tumblr era and were the first generation to embrace online fandom. But it also intersects with a very specific, mid-2010s-era criticism of millennials as entitled and fiscally irresponsible, says Galip.


Never heard of "Disney Adults" but given everything else going on, it doesn't surprise me one bit.  We have some good friends who are really into Disney (not Millenials, rather late Boomers like us).  They don't live in a fantasy world, they are responsible adults who take care of themselves (and their pets), and they don't think escapist thoughts like the people described in this writeup.  Plus I doubt they are on any of that social media.  What is being described is very strange indeed.

Never heard of "Disney Adults" but given everything else going on, it doesn't surprise me one bit.  We have some good friends who are really into Disney (not Millenials, rather late Boomers like us).  They don't live in a fantasy world, they are responsible adults who take care of themselves (and their pets), and they don't think escapist thoughts like the people described in this writeup.  Plus I doubt they are on any of that social media.  What is being described is very strange indeed.


Apparently one of the more notorious things that Millennial age Disney Adults have done is the case of the couple who were getting married. Their parents were paying for the wedding. This couple used up the ENTIRE BUDGET to fly an official Disney Mickie and Minnie Mouse in from Disney World to be at their wedding. The guests arrived to no food, no drink and no music, but they had two minimum wage schmoos from Disney dressed up as rodents.

A buddy of mine is a 69-year-old baby boomer, and he and his family are into all things Disney... BIG TIME.

Pretty much any time they go on vacation, they'll be doing a Disney venue.

My family (currently early Gen X) are quite into Disney in general. As a nostalgic Millennial, so am I do a fair extent, but my folks can sometimes turn it all the way up to 11 (or at least 7-9). We recently got Disney Plus, which I myself haven't checked out yet. I'm actually more interested in the originals (Mandalorian, Wandavision, Beatles: Get Back, Hamilton and things like that) and 4:3 Simpsons.

My family is a bit weird (read: culturally impaired). None of them are particularly bright, they all suck at math, they have odd/mediocre/downright terrible taste. They are (or have been) Fox News-watching, Trump-supporting, ID-watching, Ion-watching, Christian (to some extent) Republicans (to some extent). Was I switched at birth? Am I adopted? Is this even my real family?  ;D

Granted, they're not into (or apparently even aware of) everything. The Lion King was "the only Disney remake I'm excited to see," my aunt said. I did want to see Aladdin (which I have seen only gotten to see half of because Comcast went out) and Dumbo (which I have on Blu-ray). But I was most excited for Mulan (also Blu-ray).

Before we got Disney Plus, the only way I could see most Disney movies we didn't get to see in the theater was to get the Blu-ray. And I usually pick movies that I would gladly own, are favorites, or (if they're movies I've never seen) they're not currently streaming on a service I currently have access to. So a lot of those tend to be Disney-owned, Criterion, or arthouse/A24.

I don't think loving Disney in an of itself is inherently strange. Walt himself said that he made movies not for kids, but for "the kid in all of us."