"Fans"

A few days ago, Jim Hill wrote an article about how Disney Imagineers are rather fed up with the online fan base. He quotes an employee in Imagineering as saying "How typical. We spend $70 million to build this damned attraction, then pile on the theming. Even go so far as to try and match the color of those hand-kilned bricks that Steve Jobs selected to build Pixar Studios out of. But do we get praised for our efforts? For our years & years of hard work? No. We get bitched at for the one thing that we got wrong."

I’ve seen this attitude myself. In “conversations” with WDI employees, I’ve been cursed at, called names, spoken of derisively and so on. I was told “You must be one of those people who never thought DCA had any theming.” Considering the exact opposite is the case, it seems that WDI is now in a mode where they consider any criticism at all to be from people who damn them for absolutely everything they do. There is no middle ground. The truth is, of course, that I defended DCA to a very large degree until only recently. Someone once called me “DCA’s great defender.” But to this WDI employee, I was a person who trashed everything they did, because I dared to be critical of something specific and something that deserved the criticism.

People who work inside Disney seem to have a few names for the fans that they don’t feel are appreciative enough of their fine efforts. “Foamers” and “Walties” are two I’ve heard a lot of. The people at Disney sound tired of hearing complaints, tired of having every little thing looked at, and tired of listening to any of it--particularly when they claim to have surveys saying that everyone just loves their stuff to pieces.

But there really are two sides to this story. On one hand you have Disney putting out some pretty horrendous junk that deserves to be called junk. Some of the things they have done lately, and are working on doing for the future, just are not very good. Should things that are really rather poor be just loved to death because it has the Disney name on it?

I’m sorry, but I think that’s just wrong. Furthermore, what is wrong is the idea that you’re some sort of "Waltie" because you think the way they did things that actually created the empire they now have is actually the correct sort of behavior to continue to follow. It is also wrong to think that because you dislike something they have done, that you hate anything they do at all.

But on the other hand, I can totally understand why they think that way. There is actually quite a lot of truth in what this fellow quoted on the Jim Hill site had to say. Starting roughly in the late 1990s, hysterical, irrational, and uncalled for comments about things being done at Disney, no matter what, have been lodged over and over again to the point where it is true that it seems nothing Disney can do is any good. Overwrought, over the top, and out of control vitriol and attacks towards Disney, and specific employees of Disney who were personally and unfairly targeted, have poisoned the climate of what should have been a good relationship between the workers and their fans.

DCA was the “carnival in the parking lot.” It was the “heroin monkey.” “Not Disney.” And much worse. This attitude extends to this day in many different areas within Disney. For example, there was total outrage over a security fence at the entrance to Epcot. I had read online that it totally ruined the entire area. When I was there recently, I saw the fence. It was a fence. It neither ruined nor damaged the area in any way. Balancing out the supposed transgression against the reaction to the situation brings into sharp focus precisely what the Disney worker bee was complaining about.

And it never stops, either. There are currently rabid complaints about Spaceship Earth, for example, of how the ride has been ruined. I’ve been on the new version of the ride. I find it to be absolutely fantastic. It was one of the things I repeatedly rode during my recent visit. Some of the complaints about this thing are some of the poorest excuses for nit picking I’ve ever seen. “The Romans did not build the world wide web!” Well, duh. It’s a metaphor. It is this sort of never ending cacophony of loud and harsh complaints over the silliest of things that completely destroys credibility. There were also complaints about the end of the ride, and how the little cartoon is somehow an affront to all decency. I thought it was cute and funny, and the reactions from those in other vehicles indicated that they too thought the cartoon was very entertaining. But somehow, it triggered a lot of anger. Senseless and uncalled for anger.

And the anger is always uncalled for. The ranting never helps, the hostility never helps. Trying to get people fired does not help. Celebrating people losing their jobs does not make you or your opinions look very good. Lying about things to make Disney look bad doesn’t help a whole lot, either.

This has been going on for years. “The lines have been drawn!” Was a rant written many years ago on the alt.disney.disneyland newsgroup about how HORRIBLE the changes were going to be to the Candy Shop on Main Street. The changes went in…and…nothing. It was no big deal, and no one cares. This last week, we had a bunch of people with picket signs standing outside of Disneyland making statements like “Year of a million broken dreams.” All this because their little video game is going away. Meanwhile, in Iraq, hundreds of thousands are dead and maimed. Have some perspective, folks.

Yet this is what we see over and over again.

So after years of this behavior going down, what has finally been accomplished? What have the years of vicious behavior against Disney and those who would dare not be willing to constantly drone how awful they are done for us? Well, according to the person Jim Hill quotes, Disney is simply ignoring the fan base. And again, they can’t be blamed. It has to appear to them that the Disneyana fans, the Walt fans, and those who love the products they have made for so many years are a bunch of never satisfied armchair quarterbacks with perfect 20/20 hindsight. They never have a good thing to say about anything and never like anything, no matter what. Nothing is ever any good. Ever.

Who would be interested in listening to that?

And yet, in many ways they need to. The prima donna act that WDI and other Disney employees are engaging in does not serve their purpose any better than the mindless foaming rabidity serves the fan base. As people who create art (or what passes for it) in the public sector, they should understand that while reactions can be harsh, they should also be taken for a barometer of the public’s mood. Yes, they have surveys which tell them how great they are, but surveys often tell you just what you want to hear.

While much of what is said online is really outrageously wrong on many levels, the overall impression given by the fans online mirrors how DCA, for example, played out. The general mood of what is said online is a good gauge for how the public is reacting. Yes, your survey says that 38.943% of the public thinks a certain thing. But taking the pulse of the online community, as distasteful as that may be, can also yield some very worthwhile information.

A lot of the things said online over the years were not totally ridiculous, but consisted of some well thought out commentary. Unfortunately, that was often drowned out by those who have had and continue to have a personal mission of destruction that they constantly engage in. Because of this, when people now talk of how an idea is bad, or how something is damaging the parks, even when offered up in sincere criticism and not to be simply empty negativity, it comes across as just more of the hysterical rants that have made all fan opinion appear basically worthless. Disney fans have lost their voice with the Disney Company to the fan's detriment, while the Disney Company turns a deaf ear to their most ardent supporters, to Disney's detriment.

It is unfortunate but the rather hostile Disney environment that has been created online is what we have. Disney may be listening to what is said online, but it is doing so in a standoffish and defensive manner, instantly ready to scoff at any criticism as just more of the same. By behaving as if a misaligned manhole cover is the biggest crime in the world, Disney fans have made themselves out
to be not worth listening to. That is a mistake the fans have made.

Not listening is a mistake Disney is making.