Disney Headlines for October 29th, 2021
This week in Disney Headlines, we’ve got dirty shirts, virtual reality, and Bob Chapek rage. You won’t want to this one.
The Quirks of Disney Theme Park Rules
Remember a few months ago when a pair of women received free shirts at Walt Disney World?
Both women recounted similar versions of the same story. They wore somewhat risqué outfits to the parks, at least according to park officials.
So, cast members handed them free coupons to exchange at merchandise stores for free shirts, less revealing ones.
I’m reminded of Homer Simpson telling Maude Flanders that the human body is a beautiful thing as he runs around nekkid.
Anyway, Disney has mixed the message a bit recently. Apparently, you cannot display too much of your body if you’re female.
However, you can wear a super-dirty shirt as long as it seems brand-positive toward Disney.
Here, take a look at the offending t-shirts:
D is for Don’t pic.twitter.com/XnWGDAxTql
— Sam Carter💀 (@Cartarsauce) October 22, 2021
Folks, I don’t want to alarm you, but I don’t think the D in question here is actually Disney. Even if it is, you can interpret that shirt MUCH differently.
These shirts are readily available from third-party vendors on Amazon, Etsy, and other places.
actually has a policy in place about inappropriate attire, but they generally try to solve these matters quietly.
Thus, they give away free shirts to under-dressed women. But, of course, nobody at Disney had a problem with euphemisms that day.
Given the social media outcry, park officials may reconsider how to broach this subject. That leads to different problems, though.
Some people express themselves via clothing. If Disney starts policing this issue heavily, it could cause problems with fans.
As such, cast members would vastly prefer to stay out of this nonsense. Also, people have correctly noted that kids would take this shirt on the level.
Disney does start with a D, after all. We only interpret the message differently as we grow older.
What do you think?
The NFT Era Begins
Are you familiar with NFTs? These non-fungible tokens allow people to buy digital files that they own on a digital ledger, aka blockchain.
I find the whole thing pretty scammy, but some folks have paid millions of dollars for NFTs.
In fact, there was a lovely story earlier this year where the subject of a meme turned her notoriety into a $411,000 deposit into her bank account.
You guys are INSANE. Thank you to everyone who bid and special thanks to @3fmusic 😳😭
Truly, you have no idea how this is going to change my life. I mean it. I am so incredibly thankful and also still just BLOWN AWAY.
So weird. So cool. Wtf.
Thank you, internet.
— Laina (@laina622) April 4, 2021
Well, Disney executives have noticed how much money has flowed into the NFT marketplace. Now, some argue that it’s already saturated and fading.
Even so, some reliable brands have proven (mostly) impervious to the fluctuations.
As such, Disney will offer its own NFTs! Disney will release a series of “Golden Moments” via the Veve app.
This event will occur on November 12th, which is Disney+ Day. So yes, the NFTs will tie into the various brands on display then.
You can expect Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and Disney animation NFTs as the initial Golden Moments.
Disney officials have also promised a “special Ultra Rare digital collectible” as part of the first NFT collection.
As a nice incentive/throw-in, anyone who buys a Golden Moments NFT will also receive three months of Disney+ in the package. That’s a $25 value right there.
So, Disney fans will enjoy a new way to expand their collection in two weeks!
Welcome to the Real World, Neo
Would you visit an augmented reality (AR) that mirrors Disneyland or Walt Disney World?
I answer yes to this question because I’ve played Disneyland Adventures on a Kinect, a kind of forerunner for this premise.
Some media conglomerates have shifted their focus to virtual worlds as they plot the future of their businesses. I guess everybody watched Ready Player One.
To wit, Facebook just announced the name of its new company. It’s Meta. I’m not being referential here. That’s the actual name: Meta.
Facebook has done this because it envisions a day where people will spend much of their free time in a metaverse of its creation.
As THE primary storyteller of our era, Disney could do the same. After all, we’d all love to live in a world where Mickey and Minnie Mouse are real, right?
We already stand in line at the parks to interact with cast members pretending to be these characters.
So, the logical conclusion is that Disney would absolutely dominate the metaverse industry if it chose to play.
However, this Yahoo! article addresses the oddity in play here. Disney has recommitted to brick-and-mortar theme parks as its future.
The company isn’t oblivious to AR. In fact, Imagineers programmed some AR functionality into Disney Genie+.
Disney executives simply aren’t ready to embrace this nascent tech quite yet, and I think that’s the right call.
Bob Iger’s masterstroke in his final years as CEO was that he watched and learned from Netflix. Then, he built Disney+ from the ground up as a viable competitor.
Meanwhile, others in the streaming industry just copied whatever Disney did…and they were terrible at it.
Suppose Facebook or Google or somebody does the metaverse right. In that case, Disney can take those ideas and implement them later…likely in a superior form.
Speaking of Disney CEOs…
Did you hear about the viral online petition about Bob Chapek? Some haters want Chapek replaced as the CEO for Disney.
Oddly, the petition gushes praise on Josh D’Amaro, Chapek’s hand-picked head of the Disney theme park empire.
I’m unsure whether the people running this petition understand that’s a backhanded compliment about Chapek’s leadership and decision-making.
Anyway, the Change.org website probably will have reached the 50,000 requested signings by the time you read this. It’s over 48,000 as I type this.
By all accounts, Chapek is a nice fellow with a good sense of humor. So, I expect him to take this in the spirit it’s intended.
People aren’t happy about recent price increases, with the latest one occurring at Disneyland.
Disney fans are venting by letting Chapek know that they don’t like the direction he has steered the ship recently.
Will this tactic do anything to dissuade him? I kinda doubt it. After all, when Disney+ Day occurs two weeks from now, I suspect all the hard feelings will wash away for a while.
The next time Disney raises prices, fans will get upset again. But, alas, there’s not much Chapek can do here. Disney executives have had to make some tough calls during the pandemic to survive.
As Mallory Archer would say, “I didn’t invent the economy.”