Article: How The Mouse Stumbled........

Epcot81Fan

Epcot81Fan

Well-Known Member
Laketravis said:
"Why do we love Disney so much, when everything it does seems tailor-made to **** us off?"............

www.yahoo.com

How Disney Stumbled

Disney built an empire on childhood nostalgia and intangible magic. But in its relentless quest for IP, did it leave its true fans behind?
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
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Um...uh...OK.

"But there’s another aspect of Disney “magic” that’s more ineffable. It’s the way a full-grown adult man kind of has to catch his breath when he sees an actor playing Cinderella in full regalia."
 
Rhinocerous

Rhinocerous

Premium Member
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
 
HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Rhinocerous said:
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
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Be quiet, you money-leaking meat bag. I'm sorry, I meant walking ATM. ;)
 
JoeCamel

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
Rhinocerous said:
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
Click to expand...
Well look at it from their end, they put out a popcorn bucket and people make six hour lines to get it or wait a couple of hours for a magnet. Not normal behavior in the GP
What would you think of that in a different context?
 
trainplane3

trainplane3

Well-Known Member
Rhinocerous said:
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
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I know for Cedar Fair if you said anything that came off as a "coaster enthusiast" during an interview, they would specifically not put you in a coaster Ops position for them. At most you'd get a basic platform position (help load/unload/control who goes to what row/etc). It wouldn't stop you from any other position in their parks. At least they used to have a policy like that. Not sure if it exists anymore due to how things are now.

You want people that aren't going to get distracted/cause distractions from their job because of how passionate they are. But at the same time, you want people that can give off the whole experience. If that makes sense.
 
JD80

JD80

Premium Member
Rhinocerous said:
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
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Have you seen some of the discussions on this message board?
 
D

DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
Rhinocerous said:
This sentence jumped out at me.

According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”

I think it goes a long way towards explaining what they have done with the parks in recent years. They do not understand why we value the experience and they don't want to. They see us weirdos as nothing more than a money spigot that can be tuned and turned ever higher.
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I assume their rationale is that super fans often have deep convictions that they are not easily dissuaded from, and that might not be conducive to working with a team and / or considering the proverbial “Family from Colorado”.

I hope they strive for a happy medium. They need people that love Disney and love creating for a broad audience - whose passion is specific to bringing Disney magic to a diverse group of people. Having people who don’t particularly care for Disney creating for the Disney brand is of course going to lead to negative outcomes. If football fans were excluded from ESPN, or fashionistas excluded from fashion design, or “foodies” excluded from restaurant positions, that would of course be absurd on its face.
 
britain

britain

Well-Known Member
I’ve seen some fans that seem to have Disney on their biggest pedestal, and even worse, their only pedestal. The company shouldn’t hire people that don’t appreciate how special Disney is, but I 100% agree some “superfans” would not make good employees.
 
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C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
britain said:
Look, I’m a big fan. I wouldn’t be on these boards everyday if I wasn’t. But I’m also a fan of MST3K, Seinfeld, Last Airbender, Harry Potter, Vlogbrothers, CGP Grey, Hayao Miyazaki, the Beatles, Hamilton, The Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, Michael Crichton, Poirot, Mr. Bean, Jordan Peterson, Pee Wee Herman, C.S. Lewis, Russell M. Nelson, and The Chosen. And of course I’ve got my family & my church.

I’ve seen some fans that seem to have Disney on their biggest pedestal, and even worse, their only pedestal. The company shouldn’t hire people that don’t appreciate how special Disney is, but I 100% agree some “superfans” would not make good ememployees.
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Dang I dig your list, and more to your point of no one being a monolith, maybe we could hang with our similar interest and maybe not...but I want to know your thoughts on Weird AL.

You also have a lot of names on there that I find great thinkers that get people talking and are familiar names from the part of me that went to college in Rexburg Idaho.

Agreed with the superfan concept. It is kind of a broad term.
A writer/designer/executive/middle manager/you name it should care and have passion but fanatical is an extreme that one can see in everything, and Disney has it for sure. It os dangerous in its bias in both adverse to change as well as dangerous if everything is hubris.
 
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britain

britain

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
Dang I dig your list, and more to your point of no one being a monolith, maybe we could hang with our similar interest and maybe not...but I want to know your thoughts on Weird AL.

You also have a lot of names on there that I find great thinkers that get people talking and are familiar names from the part of me that went to college in Rexburg Idaho.

Agreed with the superfan concept. It is kind of a broad term.
A writer/designer/executive/middle manager/you name it should care and have passion but fanatical is an extreme that one can see in everything, and Disney has it for sure. It os dangerous in its bias in both adverse to change as well as dangerous if everything is hubris.
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Ha! Glad you liked it, though I decided to delete it because I thought it sort of sounded like “look at ME, isn’t MY variety of interests superior?”

I made sure my kids were well educated by Weird Al, and Hardware Store, Amish Paradise, and Word Crimes are in our regular rotation. :)

Happy to make new friends, even if we don’t like the same things.
 
SpaceMountain77

SpaceMountain77

Well-Known Member
Rhinocerous said:
According to two former corporate employees, the company eschews hiring what one referred to as “superfans,” viewing a love for the brand as “a huge turnoff.”
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A former Disney Store executive, who worked with the company in the 1990s and 2000s, told me that the internal language used in applicant tracking was "high affinity guest." The examples provided were riding Space Mountain 6 times in one day and naming all of the locations of the lesser known hidden Mickey's in the parks. If the interviewer commented on one's deep love or understanding, the interviewee was certain not to get a callback.
 
britain

britain

Well-Known Member
This is another reason why it’s a shame John Lasseter fell from grace: He was a nerdy superfan who really cared about nerdy things like the parks. So we didn’t feel like we were being patronized when we were being pitched park plans by him.

He was a superfan, but 1) He called BS when he saw it, he was no lover of ANYTHING Disney, and 2) he was successful at his craft and he had the billions behind his successes to prove it.

If you’re applying for Disney, it’s more valuable to have those two virtues than deep fandom.
 
HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
britain said:
Ha! Glad you liked it, though I decided to delete it because I thought it sort of sounded like “look at ME, isn’t MY variety of interests superior?”

I made sure my kids were well educated by Weird Al, and Hardware Store, Amish Paradise, and Word Crimes are in our regular rotation. :)

Happy to make new friends, even if we don’t like the same things.
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'Word Crimes' is one of the most pertinent modern songs written, along with 'Mission Statement'. :)
 

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