Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Disney Adults

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Blackout dates, Genie lines, Magic Keys, Storyliving, DCP, D23... If any of these terms got you feeling some kind of way, you're likely in "cult" of Disney Adults. Grownups who worship an iconic mouse have established themselves as one of the most fanatical fandoms out there, but how dangerously culty are these Disney-inspired behaviors and rituals, *really*? To find out, co-hosts Amanda and Isa solicit the help of many passionate listener call-ins and special guest, cheeky Disney influencer Francis Dominic @francisdominiic.   Go to MeritBeauty.com/CULT to get their free signature reusable makeup bag with your purchase.  Sounds Like A Cult listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/CULT

Hi, my name is Shanti. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I know a lot of Disney adults in my life and I always think it's super fucking weird that people are Disney adults and spend hundreds of dollars to go to a children's park. People still celebrate this company that's pretty fucked up and has way too much fucking money. I don't get it. I am a Disney adult and we're never really given a fair shake by people who aren't Disney adults. Nobody has a gun to your head saying that you need to love Disney stuff or go to the parks with us. We just tend to wear what we like on our sleeves. We don't need to be told that Disney is problematic. Chances are we know about how Disney is problematic in ways that you don't.

There is no entry cost. There is no exit cost and nobody's forcing us to do this. My family are all Disney adults. We have a Disney Vacation Club membership since we've had since the 50s. It's like been a family vacation for years and years. The cultiest thing about it is my mom's the only one who likes it. All of her daughters and her daughters-in-law have been assigned a Disney Princess and we get various Disney Princess paraphernalia each holiday according to who we are. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism. Every week here on our show we discuss a different fanatical fringe

group from the cultural zeitgeist, from astrology to Trader Joe's to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod. I'm on IG at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-M-A-A, and I'm on Instagram at Amanda Underscore at Montell. We also just launched our YouTube page, which is Just Sounds Like a Cult podcast. We have video now. Yeah, we do, and it's really special, especially on this episode. You'll see what we mean. You get a little something extra when you listen with your eyes. Also for bonus materials, juicy cult discussions, and more, feel free to hit us up on Patreon at patreon.com slash SoundsLikeACult. Now, are you ready to take a magic carpet ride

into this week's topic? Zoom, or maybe an elevator? Yeah, but Twilight's, oh, it's different now. Guardians of the Galaxy is the theme of the ride. What was it before? Twilight Zone. I love that ride. Me too. It's my favorite one. I love to feel like I'm plummeting to my death. Yeah, and in like an artsy, fashionable way, because that's what Disney's all about. It's beautiful. It's not just a ride. It's also a magical experience. Obviously, it's a world. I can show you that world. Girl, show it to me. So if you don't know what a Disney adult is, I don't know where you've been living, and I don't know how you're listening to this episode, because you might just not have internet. No, no, we had one commenter on our Instagram post about this being like, wow, this is truly

the first episode topic you're covering where I have no idea what you're saying. That's amazing. Where do they live? On the moon? I think that actually is a great position to be in, because you're not going to come at it with preconceived judgments. Yes, and it's also somewhat self-explanatory. Yeah, adult who loves Disney. Yeah, but I think it's like a person who's like, has a full-time job. They go to the parks at least a couple times a year. They buy all the merch. They are obsessed with the movies, maybe even go to the midnight premieres. It's a person who just is obsessed with everything that Disney does. Think of your hardest core Taylor Swift Swifty, but for Disney. In this way, I think it's easier to say not what a Disney adult is, but what they do. Yeah.

Well, what do they do? They go to the parks. Yeah. They dress up. They collect merch. They want to have access to the most exclusive Disney fun facts and paraphernalia. Yeah, they even go as far as to sometimes make it, you know, their job in that they become influencers in the space, which stay tuned for the end of the episode. We have a very fun guest. I would sort of classify a Disney adult as a person who, I guess, Disney follows them outside of the park and outside of the movie theater into their everyday life. We're not trying to figure out whether or not being a Disney adult is weird. It is pretty weird. We're trying to figure out whether or not it is harmful. Yeah, exactly. And we also want to make sure that everyone understands, like, we're not talking

about Disney the corporation. We're not going to see if, like, the corporation is culty or not, because, like, obviously, if it's like a multi-billion dollar corporation, something's going off. For sure. Of course, Disney's HQ culture is going to inform the fandom, but we're not going to talk about the experience of working at Disney. We're talking about the experience of worshiping Disney. Exactly. I do think that there's one more final bullet point to differentiate a Disney adult from just, like, an adult who, like, sometimes go to Disney Land, which, to me, I think is someone who doesn't have children, because I, or sometimes Disney adults, hide behind their children and force their children to dress up and force them to go to the parks. But I do think a healthier

version of that is, like, a adult who doesn't have children, and they're not hiding behind anything. They're just, like, I love this because I became obsessed with it at some point in my life, and now it is part of my life. Oh, I see. Okay. So the equivalent is, like, you think it's healthier to discover your love of Disney on your own, maybe based on your childhood, but not because you were forced into it, but some families sort of, like, want to live vicariously through their children? Yeah, like, I feel like they, they were already obsessed, and then they have kids, and they're like, I'm gonna have a kid because then I can take them to the park. Oh, it reminds me of, like, toddlers and tiaras. Exactly. That's, my metaphor was gonna be, um,

it reminds me of, like, uh, sports dads. Yes. Yes. But I love your toddlers and tiaras. That is the gender binary right there, is, like, whether you're forcing your kid into Pee Wee football or you're forcing your daughter into pageants. Exactly. When you're forcing your child into the universe of Disney, that's kind of the convergence of those two categories. Like, when you're pushing your child in the park, you literally get in there, kid. Yeah. You're gonna love it, or you're gonna fucking love it. Yeah. Eat that ice cream. Shaped like a mouse. Devour that bread bowl. Yeah, exactly. The food is kind of legit at Disney Land. Okay, and we've been, like, talking about this episode for so long that I've been, like, craving Disneyland food.

Their corn chowder is not, not delicious. Did you have it on your birthday? Yeah, I did. That's when I got these ears for those, uh, watching on YouTube and wondering what the fuck is going on. Yeah, Amanda gave me my ears, so. Yeah, you can keep those. And they kind of actually match my outfit. They really do, yeah. So let's go ahead and articulate some of the things that we find cultiest about Disney adults. We're not gonna be able to cover everything, just the things that we find most salient. We're going to talk about different themes, so we're going to talk about, like, exclusivity in group out group. We're gonna talk about, like, entry level costs. Are there any exit costs? We're gonna talk about capitalism. We're gonna

talk about conformity. And we're gonna talk about undue judgment of Disney adults, because there's a lot of that. I think that Disney adults are people who, just right off the top, I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I think Disney adults are people who have a hobby. And I kind of admire that they go out into the world and live their hobby, rather than just watch it on TV. Yeah, because that's what a lot of people do these days. Commit. It's actually. Commit to the bit. It's commit to the bit. It's so true. They have committed shamelessly. And the word shameless has this negative connotation, but it's like, what? Do we want these people to have more shame? Yeah. What kind of message is that? Shame literally only makes bad situations. Everything

worse. I know. It's like, shame is how you get the fuck out level cults. Like, the fundamentalist Mormons. Exactly. Shame is how you get, like, priests in Boston situation. Literally. Yeah. All right. So the first thing. Yeah. I think that, like you mentioned earlier, the corporation does influence the way that Disney adults create exclusivity within themselves. So I think Disney has created this sense of like VIP, this idea that there's always a next level that you can access. And they've done that with their passes. They've done that with clubs within Disney. There's Club 33, which costs like tens of thousands of dollars to become a member of. I think it's 25 to 33 K upfront to join and 10 to 5 K yearly to maintain membership. That is so much money. When I saw

Club 33, I was like, okay, like maybe a couple hundred bucks a year. Yeah. The club is essentially just like an airport area for Disneyland. That's what I'm getting the vibe. Well, that's the funny thing about the feeling of exclusivity and cultishness. It's not even about the content. It's not even about what you access. It's about the feeling. Yeah. It's about telling people. It's like about going around and being like, oh, yeah, like I was just at Club 33. Very much so. But already to access Disney at the lowest level is very expensive. Yeah. You cannot talk about Disney without talking about the cult of capitalism. Yeah. And they're constantly pushing you to spend, spend, spend. And spending is the equivalent to reaching enlightenment in the Disney world. Yeah. And I

think it's important to highlight how a lot of people who are Disney adults are normal Americans who have a couple of holidays a year that they can spend away from work. And they're not like millionaires who should be spending tens of thousands of dollars on visiting parks. And so I do think it's kind of a risk for some of these families or people to spend so much of their money on this hobby. But at the same time, if it makes them happy. Yeah. I mean, they're doing it consensually. Nobody is forcing them to fork over all of their money in the way that say the cult that my dad spent his teenage years in, you had to in order to be in this exclusive group, pay all of your salary to the leader. And the other thing is that sometimes in a really

destructive cult, you'll spend your money thinking you're going to be getting one thing. And then it's beaten, switched or misused on something else. And I don't really think that's going on. Yeah. With Disney, they're like, this is exactly what you're getting. And this is what's going to happen. But they have like a lightning pass thing. But in order to get a lightning pass, you have to download their app, which is called like Disney Genie. And it's $20 a day to access a lightning pass. Yeah. Okay. So that's just, I feel like maybe run of the mill corporation charging, you know, not necessarily culty in the way that like you think you're spending $20 a month to get a meditation app and then all of a sudden you're in a sex cult. Yeah, that's so true. They're

not like asking you for nudes in exchange. I think when it starts to get culty is when Disney adults start to attribute the amount of money they're spending with their worth in this group. And that's when we start to talk about the Facebook groups and the clothing. And we can talk about that next. My name is Rose and I'm from Orlando. I think one of the cultiest things about Disney adults is specifically Disney influencers. They are impossibly pretty, impossibly coordinated, sets people up for unrealistic expectations of their Disney vacation and then make people feel bad about that. Hey, this is Tim from the Stevens Point, Wisconsin. The absolute cultiest thing about Disney adults is just how quickly they snap when you say you don't like this character or you don't

like that character. I'm Kay from Sacramento and I think the cultiest thing about Disney adults is the godlike pedestal that Walt Disney is placed upon to this day. He has talked about as if he was an all knowing visionary. One of the Facebook groups that they have is Disney adults without children. It has over 130,000 members. They also have like that Disney adult dating app. What is it called? Mouse mingle. Which is like a really cute name. I mean, what is the difference between having mouse mingle and J swipe, which is like the Jewish dating app? I completely agree. Or having mouse mingle and like the league. I would say the league is worse. The league is worse than mouse mingle. Or farmers only. What's wrong with dating someone that you know shares this

thing that's very important to you? Yeah, exactly. I think that people are finding other people with similar hobbies and similar interests to them that they like. But when things get involved in your love life, especially with weddings too, because we all know there's Disney adults who get married. And the number of proposals that happen at the Disney parks every year, it's like you're spending one of the most meaningful moments of your life in front of this children's castle. And then there are even adults who like get married to a Disney adult. There's an acquaintance of mine that got divorced from her spouse because she was too into Disney and then got remarried to another Disney adult and is much happier. And then I have

another friend who called in and he was like, I don't know if this was particular to my ex, but believing the characters are real. I guess like marriage isn't necessarily like a religious thing anymore. It really like doesn't have to be. But I do think that it has like an association to traditionally for sure. Yeah. So I think like it does get into that level of like, you're connected to the park and you're connected to the company in like a more spiritual way. Oh, I completely think that the way people interact with the Disney brand is completely akin to a religion. Like I reference this sometimes, but there's a theologian and journalist named Tara Isabella Burton who says that it's hard to define what a religion is, but it's easy to

define what a religion offers people. And it's to offer community, ritual identity and meaning. Yeah. That is what Disney offers people. It is completely a full blown religion for some. Also in our research, I saw that a lot of Disney adults are obsessed with Walt Disney himself. Yeah. And they debate his thoughts and they debate his ideologies. But he's dead. But he's dead. Who does that remind you of? God? Jesus. I don't know. I grew up Jewish. I don't really know. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus himself. Completely Walt Disney is this idol that they're worshiping. And so is Mickey Mouse. I was just going to say, I feel like like Walt Disney is Jesus and like Mickey Mouse and all the characters are like his Apostles. His Apostles. I thought you were

going to say the Holy Spirit. Oh no. You really are just very Jewish. I just don't know about the Christian analogs. But very true. They hypothesize about what Walt would think of say changing the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to Guardians of the Galaxy. Would he approve? The fact that they like sit down and like are essentially analyzing his scripture. Yeah. Which is his movies and his cartoons. Walt Disney's cartoons are his scripture. Controversial opinion. I'm going to say it in public. But I personally find biblical stories and Disney stories to be equally fictitious. Oh. That's my Disney ears. You're like hot take. I mean, if you're looking to Disney movies for a script by which to follow your life. And I think everyone who grew up with

Disney does this to some degree. Like I definitely look to Disney movies to see what I thought about relationships, etc. Totally. When you look to that content to figure out how you want to live your life and to figure out who you are, that is not that dissimilar to looking to the Bible. And in this way, it is almost a new religious movement. It doesn't involve a God per se, but the deceased or animated figures that are providing this inspiration for your life serve that godlike role. People who grew up watching Disney movies is like you learn what's right or wrong from those movies. And this and this is what a lot of non Disney adults will say is culty about Disney adults is that they worship this brand that's super problematic. And I think that is valid.

I think that is valid. But also like are the people who are critiquing these Disney adults saying they blindly worship this brand looking into the people who worship the brand because I actually think a lot of Disney adults are pretty vocal about like things that they don't like. It's just that idea of like where you spend your dollar and like there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. So truly you can't who among us does not patronize and or stand a brand without problematic leadership. No one. It's like people in glass houses can't throw stones like you know we all need to criticize the problematic brands that we are repping before we start criticizing problematic brands that other people are repping. So like let them be happy. Yeah, I mean we'll

hear from our guest who is a member of the LGBTQ plus community and who has actively advocated for Disney to be more inclusive. Everything needs a grassroots movement for sure. So I think if these Disney adults are speaking on important issues then it's important for those avenues to be open especially like our guest today. If he's like an influencer in the space that could affect like the way that people spend at the parks. A thousand percent. I mean that's what his title is. He has the capacity to influence. That's what he does. And a really destructive cult would say take someone off a press list or take someone off their media list if they expressed pushback but they're not doing that to our guest and those like him. Yeah again we're not defending the

corporation in any way. No not at all. We're just we're in part defending some of these Disney adults who are the subject of such harsh judgment. I think the judgment comes from what you said earlier which is like it is a little weird right. Like we look at these parks and we think these parks were made for children but when Walt Disney made the park he was an adult. Yeah he made the park as an adult and there was never a time where he explicitly said that the parks were for children. People are like you're into Disney as an adult. Grow up. Why? Because you're projecting because you grew out of it so you think everyone else has to too. Why? So they can go join a more adult type of cult and displace their fanaticism onto QAnon conspiracy theories. Alcohol. If someone has

that zeal in them they're going to find an outlet for it and I think comparatively Disney it's not that fucking bad. It's not. Here's the thing is like during times of crisis we always turn to nostalgia right. It's like why during the pandemic all these reboots and reunions of old movies were happening. We romanticize the past in a way to have hope about the future. Yeah. Literally the same parts of our brains light up when we dream about the future as when we romanticize the past. The way that you say that like in pink. I contain multitudes as Walt Whitman once said and I can wear Disney ears and talk about neuroscience at the same time. Go off. I do think we need to talk about like cultier aspects of it. Like any community that

like doesn't have like a system of monitoring or like a universal way of like making sure that everyone is safe. There are going to be some toxic figures in the space. Hey you said Amanda I'm Sarah calling from Arlington Virginia. I think the cultiest thing about Disney adults is how many engagements you see at Disney parks. Like the most important moment of your life has to be Disney related. Hi I'm Sydney and I'm from Portland and the cultiest thing about Disney adults is definitely the the attire the focus on what adults are wearing to Disney as well as the flooded secondary market of things like home decor coffee mugs that are all definitely geared towards adults. So the cultiest thing about Disney adults is the debt

they will put themselves into in order to continue to go for every celebration or to purchase anything marked limited edition. The Mickey Mouse ears some people like to collect all of them and some of the collector's editions are upwards of a thousand dollars a pair which is crazy. Another culty aspect of Disney adults is the specialized lingo. There are whole glossaries of in-group terminology you can find online acronyms. Actually I found a website called allears.net that had oh I don't know maybe a hundred Disney specific acronyms like emh which stands for extra magic hours GAP gold annual pass so many more there are terms like hidden Mickey's which are like Easter eggs planted around the park's mouse keeping a synonym for

housekeeping which kind of reminds me how the cult of we work would have highfalutin terms like we EO instead of CEO and then of course there's Disney's tagline the most magical place on earth which you know promises don't really get more hyperbolic than that. The other word that's kicked around is Disney bounding when Disney adults who know they're not allowed to dress as characters in the park will come up with this very clever way of dressing to sort of hint at Disney characters. Yeah and they try and push the boundaries because there are literally rules in the parks that you're not allowed to dress like a character and one of the most recent dramas is that there were Disney adults who were going to the park trying to crack the actual characters

they were going around on tiktok and taking videos of like the Disney adult characters and trying to get them to get go out of character break the fourth wall yeah exactly which they're not allowed to do or else they'll get in trouble yeah and so one of the Disney characters who works at the park they make like minimum wage right they are truly just there because like it's a job for them was like stop doing that like we don't like it when you do that we don't want you to do that and some Disney adults have gotten kicked out and like banned from Disney so there was this drama between those who work at Disneyland and Disney World and those who are fans and make content about Disneyland and Disney World yeah so it does get clicky as any passionate community

does there are two elements of being a Disney adult that I think take it into a different league and that is Storyville and the Disney College program I was going to say the Disney College program if you don't know what the Disney College program is it's actually just an internship program it's not a college at all and it's like I think that's already misleading and I think it's like a little predatory the Disney College program is this education professional development and paid internship program kind of like study abroad but the abroad is Disney yeah they are not an accredited program but you can earn college credit by basically like working an entry level job at Disneyland yeah but you already like have to be at a separate college or university institution

in order to get that and so I think it's a little predatory that they say that it's a college program so it's a little overblown it's like why does Disney need to weasel its way into our education system exactly the last thing we think makes it very culty is story living there are communities where you can literally live yeah there are these residential communities for Disney lovers it's basically like living in a gated community but Disney themed this is actually not the first time that uh Disney has tried to create communities Walt Disney tried to open one in the 90s and it failed we weren't ready for that yeah I think it says a lot about how culture has become that we're ready for it now it also did just come out like a month ago yeah so we'll see

how long it lasts true um so the first location is in Rancho Mirage that's where Walt Disney himself used to own a house they've got estates single family homes condos retirement communities and it's this you know voluntary club membership where you get access to curated experiences and entertainment um and each community is operated by Disney cast members I think the reason we saved the story living for the end is because like in all notorious cults like the final step is to like physically move somewhere well and you don't even have to move to story living to have Disney effect where you move plenty of people including our guests uprooted their life and moved to either southern california or or land of just to be close to the parks yeah it's now not just like

you're moving to a neighborhood near the parks you're moving into the literal neighborhood that is made and created by the parks in your living it's the next level in this like fantasy for sure which if you're not harming anyone and you can leave whenever you want yeah that's the thing you can leave whenever you want it's not like jones town where they'll shoot you yeah you leave yeah I mean we'll find out in a couple months I know it's gonna come out but I I think that this kind of leads perfectly into our guest who it can tell us more because he uprooted his life to move next to a park mm-hmm our guest today is Francis Dominic he is a Disney adult he doesn't use that term I don't think but he wasn't offended by it he wasn't offended it's not like it's a slur

yeah he did move to a neighborhood near Disneyland to be closer but he goes to all of the events he speaks on their movies and merch he's a professional Disney influencer that's the way he makes his living exactly and he's gonna tell us a bit more about his experience why he got involved with Disney to begin with and he's gonna tell us the tea yeah he's gonna expose the inner life of a true Disney adult do you want to let our guests know who you are and how you became such a hardcore Disney fan hi everyone my name is Francis Dominic I'm here in your ears to tell you about a little bit about my life story with Disney so I've actually been in love with Disney since I was born because I have pictures of me wrapped in a Mickey Mouse baby blanket the moment I came

out of my mom so it was solidified from that point on through my mom's love through Disney she kind of just ingrained that into all of us and it manifested into this huge giant phenomenal career that I've just been able to hone in and be a part of this circle so it's been a wild ride since so you grew up with Disney as like your religion basically yes yeah I was saying hi to Mickey Mouse before like any kind of religion was even based on upon me so cute it's like you chose him he didn't choose you or maybe yeah or maybe you never know my mom was just like this one and all you need to access heaven is to buy an annual pass exactly can you please explain what is a Disney adult exactly what I would say a Disney adult is is someone that embodies and like

loves um Disney theme parks animations fashion or even just like past influences I mean there are so many things that Disney can delve into now like it's not even just animated things or like princesses and prince like we literally have star wars marvel and all of the live action and even just from design aspect of it that you can appreciate because Disney's always in the forefront so there's a lot of like niches that fit into this giant small umbrella because some people just see Disney as like theme parks but some people see Disney as like for the kind of um cult following that it has in a sense people don't want to say it's a cult but but essentially it is it is you heard it here first folks you you you you lowkey you lowkey worship a mouse you visit a castle as much as you can

like babe like there's no difference than going to a church and worshiping like a man in the sky like so being a Disney adult is just having fun with it not taking it seriously and you can be as big of a fan as a small as a fan you are still a Disney adult I don't care if you're just a theme park go or a movie watcher I'm like babe if you love it you love it all green flag you can be any level that you want yes yeah so can you explain your journey into becoming a Disney adult because before we started recording you were talking about how you moved to Orange County like this is your career now can you explain all of that so I was raised in New York and then we moved to the Bay area and so Disney was only six hours away from us and with that kind of love I kind of just egged

everyone to drive to SoCal with me as much as we can to enjoy Disney and I took my love further and applied for this program an internship called Disney College Program and it was one of the best times of my life like can you just imagine living at Disney World from eight to 12 months of your life and all you do is work eat sleep play Disney that's it that's all you did and you got your dream yeah and you got paid to do it and then so um that's what I did first and then after I finished that internship I went back home um did more schooling and then I did another internship in Disneyland and then so I worked with them during the 60th anniversary in 2015 and then I stayed on and then became a tour guide and worked in guest relations and then after guest relations

I noticed that a lot of people started following me through my entire Disney journey I didn't know I was an influencer before even the influencer term came out because I was already inspiring and like setting trends on like how to wear certain things or like what to wear to the parks and that the parks can also be your runway and then I became a Disney influencer and now I just get to do all these fun things with Disney whether it be going to premieres or being flown out and like experiencing like new things um the most recent thing I did with it was um was the Galactic Star Cruiser which was their new Star Wars hotel in Orlando and that was insane so that was just like a short version of my entire life with Disney and how much it's made my life so much better

in every aspect that's so fun I feel like I feel like the reason I like don't allow myself to indulge in that kind of stuff is because I like again this is like the whole theme of the podcast I would like fall into the world and then like think that I actually was Peter Pan like I I you know I wouldn't want to leave that's a thing that you would have to work on though you know like people can separate that but yeah that's a personal problem we're in therapy we're there but also I mean like you can do it you can just you can have as much or as little fun as you can with it there's no rules to it sure there will be some like noise but like that's up to you to listen you know so you don't have to how do you think that disney can take over your life in both good

and potentially not so good ways in other words what positive effects can be from the cult of disney on your life and what are like the hardcore disney fans like do you think they ever go too far oh absolutely so i'm gonna start with the con first because it's better to start with that and then end with a positive note um some of the cons like some of these people are I don't know if I could say it but it's like they're like batshit insane like there are like you think I'm a hardcore fan there's literally people out there who are bigger fans than me and I know that's hard to believe but some of them are just go full on out and sometimes um those can like manifest into like a negative aspect where like people are like oh like I'm a bigger disney fan than you so your

thoughts and your opinions about this are invalidated and so that could be like the toxic toxic aspect of it one of the positive aspects I do is that as even as a disney adult it's so hard to make friendships in our adulthood especially when we leave our homes and so finding people who are like-minded and love the same things as you do um you are able to develop this like insane and already deep connection just because you have such a passion and love for the brand like disney already and so it's up to you on whether you want to wage with the light side of the dark side but you can either be a villain or a hero in your own disney story and I love the metaphors yeah there are some people who are very negative and they only want to spew negative negativity but there's

also so much more bright light um within the fandom as well so it really just depends on how you want to go about it yeah do you think that like with the the people who can get a little toxic or like it sounds kind of like gatekeeper-y like I know more than yeah vibes do you think that anyone has ever gotten into like a culty situation from like being competitive and being like I'm gonna take it to the next level yeah I think there's a lot of things in the disney community right now because of social media about um being the first they want to be the first in everything and uh I feel like the faster the people learn that not to be the first at everything the more peaceful their lives will be because it is just it is just crazy how some of these people just like

will like sharpen their elbows and like get their way to the front like metaphorically like not literally um to just to just be like the first at something yeah and it's like it's not a competition on experiences because these things aren't gonna go away I mean like I can understand it from like a merchandise point of view but like from an experience point of view I'm like there's always gonna be time unless like a date has been like said that this is going away so that's I think one of the biggest extremes is like the first culture of being like the one to do it first and are they competing for like clout followers success or is it more like spiritual than that they do it I think just so that they have the most coverage and their stuff gets shared the most

so that they'll be the ones out there speaking on the personal experience aspect of it so people just want to be the first at it that's like the cult of capitalism all bubbled up yeah to the cult of social media yeah yeah there's there's no ethical consumption under capitalism but we're all under its spell exactly are there any cult vibes coming from like disney hq like what is your what is your relationship with like the disney gods it's scary like that some people who have high like high influences and power can like sway like the entire brand just like with the drama too with like the don't say the don't say gay bill I'm like with jpeg I'm like Iger was like full-on lgbtq like he was so positive and he was like so all about inclusion and then now

is like a new CEO he's like yeah we donated money but like you're gonna deal with it like that like just the two differences in power like that's crazy and that sways like how the entire brand looks like one person can really be that damaging or that good to the company so it's imperative of like who gets to be up there but it's also sad too because it's like oh like there's so many people in this company who are trying to like break barriers and try to like be more inclusive and more diverse but like a white guy on top could just ruin it all you know yeah yeah do you think that like as disney adults especially like with a following do you think that you guys have like any kind of power to like get attention from them to change things any in it like bottom up

I feel like I feel like we do because at the end of the day I'm like we're we're the money we're the ones that pay them and so if enough people if enough people like back it up and like stand up then like they'll take notice you know and I really do believe that change can happen from the bottom no matter what size your platform is like everyone has a voice if you have one to 100 followers or even like a thousand to a hundred thousand like you have a following like someone's always willing to listen and the more that you cause a string of movement the more your voice gets heard and then the more that people will resonate with it and be like hey that's not freaking cool let's do something about it Francis for president I was like I have a lot of strong beliefs

that's what we like this actually like you for president is exactly what american needs right now like we all just need to like relax and have a good time do you have any stories of like the most extreme things you can think of a disney adult doing for the fandom and what do you think of storyville I feel like I'm I'm an extreme person myself when I used to work at disney I used to help with disney proposals too and so one of my favorite things was setting up this proposal inside tower of terror I think one of the biggest biggest things that like a disney adult or disney fan can do is visit or go to the d-23 convention which is the biggest disney convention I don't know if you guys heard of it but it is a literally a three day convention full of disney fans and this is

where we get introduced to the new movies to the new theme parks to whatever new thing they're doing and what's crazy is that all the celebrities show up like the last d-23 the entire cast of every single disney movie showed up including one of the biggest ones was for a disney infinity end game oh my god they were just naming each person of the cast and they all came out on stage and we all watched the trailer for the first time together in this room you don't get those experiences anywhere except when you go to these conventions so those three days are like the biggest it's like it's like disney adult olympics like this is the time to be like the first ones to know what all the first times to get the merch the first time to get like the limited edition things and the

first time to know all the information that can happen and it will happen and it only happens like every two years so it's happening this year in september I believe so if you guys want to go the park food I wish they did but they want you to like go to the parks after because the convention ends every day at six so they'll like I don't know if they use still do this but they used to sell twilight tickets which would be from like five to closing and you'd pay like half the price of it so you'll be able to enjoy the parks after the convention oh that's cool I feel like that would be like perfect for me because it's like afternoon it's cooler out it's yeah I'm like hungry just thinking about disney so do you think there are any clicks or different types of disney adults is

there ever any drama amongst disney adults on it a little bit girl there's so there's so much drama I just try to be blissfully unaware because I just like to fade into the background and watch all of it unfold because he has nothing to do with me but we all know we love we love watching a good drama that doesn't involve us it's like it's like oh my god a car crash but like you can't look away you know of course yeah like it literally makes traffic when someone crashes a car because everyone's like looking out their window they're rubber-knicking I mean we rubber-knick at cults without naming names can you think of an example of like some hardcore disney drama I think one of my favorite disney dramas is um in like early early middle 2010s they used to have like these like disney gangs

that would show up in disneyland and like like jean jackets they were like a biker gang but like you go to the parks together and they all have like their each own hangout spots in the park and like they can get territorial and they were like no like this is this is like my side of the park yeah like yeah like disney got disney heard of it so bad that they're like no you guys aren't allowed to do this anymore but you should have seen these like disneyland gangs like they were serious if you go to disney on sunday some of them like still like show up but they can't like be a gang you know like they're they're called like social they can't be affiliated there's so many different versions of cliques and niches in disney that it can hit any kind of aspect

we really are all children at heart like it's like in the playground when like you would form your little cliques and like you think you're cool just because you're surrounded by your friends i'm like if you think you're cool then maybe you are cool you know like yeah okay we're gonna ask one more question and then we're gonna play a quick game why do you think outsiders think adults who love disney are cultish i think it's because it's one of the most like louder and prominent ones a lot of people are always judgment of being like oh dude like you're such a child for wanting to spend time at a theme park i'm like babe if you can watch guys bounce around balls or throw balls i'm not gonna judge you for what you want to do but like i'm not hurting anyone but like we all

have our own niches and different things that we like but this one is just easier to like bully on we all do the same things we all pay for the things that we want to do we all go to the places that we want to do i'm like like if people want to pay like a thousand dollars for like a certain artist they want to see or like a certain game that they want to watch i'm like people can can go to a theme park and pay thousands of dollars to vacation i'm like and people are just like labeling it because it's easy for them to like crucify in a sense you know we love problematizing sports on this podcast and like getting that intense about a little game where you're throwing around a little ball that's childish too or mma like fake fake fighting that

like people go watch i'm like that's actually like theater like yeah 100 it's just a masculine version of theater you're still paying money to see it but i'm not i'm not shitting on you for liking dis and underwear and putting on a show to fight for you like yeah i'm not gonna yeah i'm not gonna like project that on to you like go ahead and enjoy that and i'm like if you like sports and you like disney i'm like disney literally owns espn i'm like if you're watching baseball on football you're also a disney adult i don't care what you say i'm like i don't care what sports team you wrap you're still a disney adult you're still giving money to espn like like so now we're gonna play a little game it's just a classic would you rather disney cult

edition okay let's do it would you rather have to live in the new disney story living neighborhood for the rest of your life or live in a commune of flat earthers for one month um i would rather live in storyville just because it's so beautiful and it's like um a paywall version of epcot and what disney wanted to do so if i was gonna live here and in palm springs well then so be it so what it'll be so far like easy i want to live in storyville yeah okay next question would you rather have to spend a month on the abandoned discovery island you have food and shelter but you can't access the outside world or join the church of scientology for one year oh no i would go to the discovery island because sometimes i need to disconnect from all these

mother so i'm gonna do it i have food and shelter perfect one month we're softballing you we're softballing you for sure yeah i was like guys these are so easy would you rather only be allowed to use social media to interact with disney conspiracy groups on facebook and reddit or have a regular social media use but you're not allowed to post about disney oh shit it's hard that's hard that's a good one um i'd rather debacle with people on facebook and reddit i feel like that would be easier because i still want to post about disney so so sure my mental health might deplete a little bit but that's what therapy is for the cost right it's the cost of posting okay would you rather attend the d23 expo for full

three days without being able to sleep or take a break from the activities at all or spend one week living as a practicing Mormon i've already done the d23 every two years since it started so i will gladly do it again without sleep or break yeah you have no idea but i slept in those parking lots so that i can go into those convention rooms literally it would end at six i would not even go to the parks i would go straight we would have inflatable like those like inflatable swim things and we would lay them out in this cold cement so that we'll be able to sleep so that we can have access to these panels in the morning you should see it in the holding rooms for disney it's cold as hell it's all cement and it's all bright light so i've done it before i've done no sleep no breaks

i'm like this is literally this one is unfixed would you rather have to wear a pair of mickey mouse ears 24 seven including two important meetings interviews etc for the rest of your life or give up getting your nails done wait how long do i have the ears for a year or for the rest of my life the rest of your life oh my god i have to give up the nails then i have to give up the nails i know they're done up right now they're like half dark half light oh so yeah i would i would have to say goodbye to nails i can't do years years for the rest of my life everyone's gonna have to follow you even if they don't care about disney which first of all how dare but they'll follow you for them all alone thank you thank you all right last question would you rather never be able to visit

disney again but you get to live a normal life or you have to live in a frat house full of incels but they go on a group trip to disney once a year oh my gosh okay so i consider myself as a really good influencer so give me those frat boy incels i will literally turn them into men i have no problem doing so i have no problem doing so the best answer you could have ever come up with i have no problem i have no problem turning these boys into men i'm like babe let's go ahead if you're gonna give me one trip to disney every year versus no trips to disney let me go ahead and shape these men up okay i love that you're like doing a deed for society at the same time exactly exactly my messiah has risen yeah i'm like my first lesson will be is like let's learn the difference between

consent yes and no listen this has been a delight beyond compare if folks want to follow you and just like join your cult where and how can they do that all of my socials are under francis dominic francis dominic and the last i has two eyes so you can find me all of that in instagram and tiktok and just anywhere else so amanda in those ears can you tell me out of the three cult categories do you think that disney adults are a live your life a watch your back or get the fuck out level cult you know all of the things that people feel most passionate about complaining about regarding disney adults the aesthetic and the movies and constantly going to the parks and collecting and merch and lingo and

blah blah blah blah i think all of that is a live your freaking life amanda if you can't tell by me like earnestly wearing these ears right now all of that is like who are they hurting yeah what are the exit costs like you're not signing away your life to anything if you lose interest in disney for whatever reason no one is going to shun you you're not going to be physically harmed yeah i feel like the reason disney adults bothers people is kind of like i was thinking about this on the way here yeah i feel like disney adults gets under people's skin because it's like bright and colorful and it like it gets a reaction out of them it's kind of like when you like go past the like salad section in a menu you're like oh this is annoying yeah it's people

just think it's obnoxious yeah but so what then look away look away go move on to the burgers and fries yeah to get a salad for us to talk about something on this podcast there's obviously going to be like a level of cultiness of course but it's what level and i agree i think that disney adults are a live your life and again with the disclaimer that you have to always like be watching out for your health yourself your finances your finances and like your friend groups but that's just general life advice like always like we read your comments you guys but these are our opinions and some might see differently of the disney adult community but we think disney super fans are kind of like the cult of feet it's basically just a wholesome daytime kink and who

are we to judge if it's not turning us on you know what i mean as long as it's consensual all is good all's to say we looked at disney adult we went in the forums we talked a little bit about the drama you know there's toxicity in everything we heard all your lists are calling we heard all your center calling we heard from our guests but we ultimately think as fun as it is to like pick at some people who do little funny weird things disney adults is low-hanging fruit it is and we think it's a live your life and i want to go to a park because we won't shut the fuck up about it i know it is actually hella fun yeah anyway that's our show thanks for listening we'll be back with a new cult next week but in the meantime stay cool but not too cold sounds like a cult is created

hosted and produced by amanda montell and isa medina k elizabeth is our editor our podcast studio is all things comedy and our theme music is by case of colb thank you to our intern slash production assistant noemi griffin subscribe to sounds like a cult wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode and if you like our show feel free to give us a rating interview on spotify or apple podcasts and check us out on patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult