5 ms·

These people have made consuming an experience a large part of their identity. That's it. They consume the parks. They consume the food. They consume the experi

These people have made consuming an experience a large part of their identity. That's it. They consume the parks. They consume the food. They consume the experiences. They even consume cheap clothes on amazon that match the general colors of their favorite cartoon characters (it's called disneybounding, look it up).

alephnerd 8mo ago
There's nothing wrong with targeting a different ICP from who you were previously. As a business you in fact have an incentive to target these kinds of identity-driven consumers as they are much more likely to spend more on average than others. And Disney is shifting their entire GTM as a result, but frankly there is nothing wrong with that - consumer tastes change. That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addicts, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, mechanical keyboard collector, etc.
- parl_match 8mo ago
  I don't really care about Disney's business. The Disney adults, as people, are bleak. Take their money, who cares. > That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addict, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, etc. does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? i feel like that way of looking at things is bleak. im a heavy fitness enthusiast and i hardly spend any money besides a basic gym membership and the cost of trail/camp permits
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    > does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? Everyone already does. It's called hobbies. Some people make their hobbies their entire identity, others less so.
    - parl_match 8mo ago
      a "specific subculture" really elevates "hobbies" beyond what they are, maybe hobbies don't have to be about consumption. In your post, it seemed like they did.
      - alephnerd 8mo ago
        The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, and invariably some people will spend more of their discretionary income on said hobby over others. And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer. I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable. For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it. As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
        coldtea 8mo ago
        >The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, No shortage of very cheap or free hobbies. Walking is free. Cooking is what you'd spend anyway for food (or cheaper if it helps you skip delivery), watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable), coding is cheap, playing 8-bit games is cheap, a book club is cheap, sewing is cheap, drawing is cheap, writing is cheap...
        alephnerd 8mo ago
        In almost all cases you are still purchasing, consuming, and being targeted in some shape or form. Literally every hobby has an incentive to target those practitioners who heavily spend and spend time with other similar minded practitioners. > Cooking And you see the rise of influencer and performance driven marketing by firms like Henckels and Le Crueset (nothing wrong with that) along with those who truly love cooking specific types of cuisine overindexing on unique or subsets of ingredients (Geographic Indicator or bust) > watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable) And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics > coding is cheap And you see whales who spend inordinate amounts on money on mechanical keyboards, 4K monitors, personal rigs, etc > playing 8-bit games is cheap Retro gamers. > book club is cheap Book subscriptions and local bookstore-led book clubs --- Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- fuzzfactor 8mo ago
  >Disney is shifting their entire GTM You also have to figure that most parents can't afford to take their kids to Disney as easily as they could just year or two ago, and may never be able to do so again.
  - alephnerd 8mo ago
    They're fine with that. A Disney holiday as a pre-teen or early childhood milestone was only true amongst a subset of middle class Americans during the 1960s-2000s. Heck, the first time I visited Disney was during my high school graduation with the subsidized HS Disneyland grad trip which Disney created in order to create a monetizable nostalgic customer base that became 'Disney Adults'. Most people globally never experienced that, and only really care about Disney from a teen or adult oriented lens. A high earning single person household flying in from Beijing or a DINK household in NYC spending $1-2K at a Disney resort is more valuable and provides better margins than a household of 4 spending $600 on Disney (and most likely won't stay at the resort). It's the same strategy the foreign Disney Experience properties (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai) and the Walt Disney cruises use as well. You aren't a bad parent if you didn't take your family to Disneyworld - in fact they don't really want your money anymore.
    - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      >the first time I visited Disney was during my high school Me too, but back when I started high school Disneyworld didn't yet exist, and by the time I got there the first phase was only about halfway built. It was already too expensive for Florida natives though, but almost every Orlando resident could get special passbooks from places like their employer or church. My sweetheart's older brother had moved up there and set us up with a few days worth. It was just plain designed to not only be expensive, but overpriced to boot :\ I'll still remember the second time we went to it a few years later after it was "complete." Still surrounded by swamp, there were no competitive attractions yet and to celebrate the completion they were going to shoot off fireworks for the first time, like the original in Anaheim was famous for every day. It was a massive show, way over the top, after all it was Fourth of July, 1976, the Bicentennial of the founding of the USA :)
coldtea 8mo ago
and even calling the things they consume "experiences" is overselling them
glasss 8mo ago
I guess that is their hobby, consuming the products or experiences and sharing that with others.
tylerflick 8mo ago
They also ruin the experience of trying to take your child to one of these parks.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- mekdoonggi 8mo ago
  I can think of a million things I'd rather do with my kids. I don't understand why people continue to go to these parks. The experience is bad with or without the Disney adults.
simon666 8mo ago
While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story. The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)". So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities. Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
- parl_match 8mo ago
  > So, of course people's identities are consumption centered > The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses. Skill issue.
  - array_key_first 8mo ago
    If you exist within a society you must play by the societies rules, to an extent. There's no free pass from consumption, everybody must consume. Even the act of not consuming can become consumption. Minimalism, the almost anithesis of consumption, itself became a new avenue of consumption. You can, of course, genuinely live modestly with minimal consumption. Keyword minimal. You just always consume to an extent.
parliament32 8mo ago
You're not wrong, but isn't "consumption" the entire point of every vacation ever? Do you do anything other than consume when you, say, go for a cruise? Road trip across the country? Go be a tourist in a city abroad? What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"?
- parl_match 8mo ago
  > What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"? Oof.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    Instant corrective upvote. Yes, consuming is an experience, and experience is one of the ideal things to do on vacation in particular. Surely it's still legal to have just as many new and rewarding experiences, in a new or familiar environment for the same duration of time, and none of them are actual consumer activities. It can be as fantastic as possible without doing any more significant or out-of-the ordinary consumption than otherwise. If you can't get the most out of both plain experiences and dedicated consumption, any travel might not be as worthwhile as it could be.
    - parl_match 8mo ago
      Engaging with the world, with people, with experiences, and places is good! Yes, there is a consumptive element to it, but you can be reductionist about that all the way down. It's a far cry from taking a vacation where, for the entire time, you are The Customer. Where you are paying for predictable catered experiences and food, where everyone is trying to serve you in some way.
- brailsafe 8mo ago
  Depends how far you want to go with reducing things down to consumption. Does going somewhere to hike, climb, or camp count as just consumption? I can't stand going somewhere to only look at things or eat things, it gets very boring very quickly, but I like meeting people and going on adventures, exploring nature in as physical way as possible regardless of viewpoint availability.

alephnerd 8mo ago

There's nothing wrong with targeting a different ICP from who you were previously. As a business you in fact have an incentive to target these kinds of identity-driven consumers as they are much more likely to spend more on average than others. And Disney is shifting their entire GTM as a result, but frankly there is nothing wrong with that - consumer tastes change. That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addicts, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, mechanical keyboard collector, etc.

parl_match 8mo ago
I don't really care about Disney's business. The Disney adults, as people, are bleak. Take their money, who cares. > That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addict, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, etc. does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? i feel like that way of looking at things is bleak. im a heavy fitness enthusiast and i hardly spend any money besides a basic gym membership and the cost of trail/camp permits
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  > does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? Everyone already does. It's called hobbies. Some people make their hobbies their entire identity, others less so.
  - parl_match 8mo ago
    a "specific subculture" really elevates "hobbies" beyond what they are, maybe hobbies don't have to be about consumption. In your post, it seemed like they did.
    - alephnerd 8mo ago
      The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, and invariably some people will spend more of their discretionary income on said hobby over others. And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer. I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable. For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it. As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
      - coldtea 8mo ago
        >The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, No shortage of very cheap or free hobbies. Walking is free. Cooking is what you'd spend anyway for food (or cheaper if it helps you skip delivery), watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable), coding is cheap, playing 8-bit games is cheap, a book club is cheap, sewing is cheap, drawing is cheap, writing is cheap...
        alephnerd 8mo ago
        In almost all cases you are still purchasing, consuming, and being targeted in some shape or form. Literally every hobby has an incentive to target those practitioners who heavily spend and spend time with other similar minded practitioners. > Cooking And you see the rise of influencer and performance driven marketing by firms like Henckels and Le Crueset (nothing wrong with that) along with those who truly love cooking specific types of cuisine overindexing on unique or subsets of ingredients (Geographic Indicator or bust) > watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable) And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics > coding is cheap And you see whales who spend inordinate amounts on money on mechanical keyboards, 4K monitors, personal rigs, etc > playing 8-bit games is cheap Retro gamers. > book club is cheap Book subscriptions and local bookstore-led book clubs --- Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
fuzzfactor 8mo ago
>Disney is shifting their entire GTM You also have to figure that most parents can't afford to take their kids to Disney as easily as they could just year or two ago, and may never be able to do so again.
- alephnerd 8mo ago
  They're fine with that. A Disney holiday as a pre-teen or early childhood milestone was only true amongst a subset of middle class Americans during the 1960s-2000s. Heck, the first time I visited Disney was during my high school graduation with the subsidized HS Disneyland grad trip which Disney created in order to create a monetizable nostalgic customer base that became 'Disney Adults'. Most people globally never experienced that, and only really care about Disney from a teen or adult oriented lens. A high earning single person household flying in from Beijing or a DINK household in NYC spending $1-2K at a Disney resort is more valuable and provides better margins than a household of 4 spending $600 on Disney (and most likely won't stay at the resort). It's the same strategy the foreign Disney Experience properties (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai) and the Walt Disney cruises use as well. You aren't a bad parent if you didn't take your family to Disneyworld - in fact they don't really want your money anymore.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    >the first time I visited Disney was during my high school Me too, but back when I started high school Disneyworld didn't yet exist, and by the time I got there the first phase was only about halfway built. It was already too expensive for Florida natives though, but almost every Orlando resident could get special passbooks from places like their employer or church. My sweetheart's older brother had moved up there and set us up with a few days worth. It was just plain designed to not only be expensive, but overpriced to boot :\ I'll still remember the second time we went to it a few years later after it was "complete." Still surrounded by swamp, there were no competitive attractions yet and to celebrate the completion they were going to shoot off fireworks for the first time, like the original in Anaheim was famous for every day. It was a massive show, way over the top, after all it was Fourth of July, 1976, the Bicentennial of the founding of the USA :)

coldtea 8mo ago

and even calling the things they consume "experiences" is overselling them

glasss 8mo ago

I guess that is their hobby, consuming the products or experiences and sharing that with others.

tylerflick 8mo ago

They also ruin the experience of trying to take your child to one of these parks.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
mekdoonggi 8mo ago
I can think of a million things I'd rather do with my kids. I don't understand why people continue to go to these parks. The experience is bad with or without the Disney adults.

simon666 8mo ago

While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story. The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)". So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities. Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.

parl_match 8mo ago
> So, of course people's identities are consumption centered > The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses. Skill issue.
- array_key_first 8mo ago
  If you exist within a society you must play by the societies rules, to an extent. There's no free pass from consumption, everybody must consume. Even the act of not consuming can become consumption. Minimalism, the almost anithesis of consumption, itself became a new avenue of consumption. You can, of course, genuinely live modestly with minimal consumption. Keyword minimal. You just always consume to an extent.

parliament32 8mo ago

You're not wrong, but isn't "consumption" the entire point of every vacation ever? Do you do anything other than consume when you, say, go for a cruise? Road trip across the country? Go be a tourist in a city abroad? What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"?

parl_match 8mo ago
> What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"? Oof.
- fuzzfactor 8mo ago
  Instant corrective upvote. Yes, consuming is an experience, and experience is one of the ideal things to do on vacation in particular. Surely it's still legal to have just as many new and rewarding experiences, in a new or familiar environment for the same duration of time, and none of them are actual consumer activities. It can be as fantastic as possible without doing any more significant or out-of-the ordinary consumption than otherwise. If you can't get the most out of both plain experiences and dedicated consumption, any travel might not be as worthwhile as it could be.
  - parl_match 8mo ago
    Engaging with the world, with people, with experiences, and places is good! Yes, there is a consumptive element to it, but you can be reductionist about that all the way down. It's a far cry from taking a vacation where, for the entire time, you are The Customer. Where you are paying for predictable catered experiences and food, where everyone is trying to serve you in some way.
brailsafe 8mo ago
Depends how far you want to go with reducing things down to consumption. Does going somewhere to hike, climb, or camp count as just consumption? I can't stand going somewhere to only look at things or eat things, it gets very boring very quickly, but I like meeting people and going on adventures, exploring nature in as physical way as possible regardless of viewpoint availability.