The term “Disney Adults” is a thing. I hate it. It doesn’t make any sense, and sure, I guess there are people who take it to an extreme, but like, those people are who Disney was made for, and just because it has continued to be geared towards younger generations doesn’t mean we don’t all still have a connection to it. The idea is that adults who have more than a passing interest in Disney moves, characters, and more are weird, which isn’t fair since most of the “classic” Disney movies (especially the princess collection) came out in the ’80s and ’90s. The Lion King came out in 1994. So what? All the kids who watched it as kids when it came out are now weird if they still love it?
You might be asking yourself: Hey, Rachel, why are you so mad about this all of the sudden? Well, the answer is NPR decided to do a “deep dive” into the phenomenon, as they put it. They called it a religion, and it feels very much like NPR is just saying, “Hey, it’s weird that you like Disney, so we’re going to make it sound worse than it is,” to me.
The NPR article interviewed some Disney Adults who shared their love for Disney, but what the article really failed to do was point out that a Disney Adult is no different than a sports fan or someone who loves anything else, really. Football fans can have entire houses dedicated to an entire football team, and yet, if a Disney fan has some expensive merch, it’s seen as a “religion”?
Sports fans can travel the country to support their favorite team, but go to Disney World or Disneyland multiple times a year and you’re weird? It just feels very much one sided, and even the interviewees point out that they’re not “crazy” for their love of Disney, and yet, the piece itself seems to be showing us how it’s weird, and it doesn’t sit right with me.
And it didn’t sit right with a lot of people on Twitter, either.
Let people like things
Twitter got right to it calling out the article and pointing out that it is nonsense that this is such a concern for people over and over again.
The moral of the story is simple: Stop shaming people for liking harmless things. Why is it Disney Adults are a constant source of problems, and yet there is no “investigation” in to the love of a sports team or anything else.
(featured image: Disney)
