WDW Social 'Media' and Conspiracy

Originally Posted By Scutr

Geez, people.
Can you say, "Attention Deficit Disorder"?

 

Originally Posted By ReelJustice

<<Geez, people.
Can you say, "Attention Deficit Disorder"?>>

No, more like a poorly written article with no clear purpose other than sharing that he got high in WDW...and not the usual fanboi way.

If I had to guess, most readers would be put off by the first half of the article focusing solely on weed.

I read the whole thing, and I guess the writer does eventually make some sort of point of displeasure and distrust with Disney (mainly about EPCOT), but it's a week one. I was very disappointed with it after Spirit spoke so highly of it as I am huge doom and gloomer.

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

It was amusing enough to read if you want to devote the time necessary to read over 8,000 words of semi-sarcastic, semi-comedic satire. But it was TOTALLY WORTHLESS if you were expecting anything else. This is where the guy once and for all finally lost me.

<<No sooner did we enter Epcot than Trevor started checking his phone, and while I won’t bore you with more detail about that business, there being no tediousness quite like doper tediousness, suffice it to say that the rest of the day was spent on pendulum bouts of ecstatic, hyper-attentive parenting followed by separation from family to indulge addiction and vice.

Ready as one may be to don the hair shirt, it was hard not to feel that this was the perfect way to do the park. I wasn’t as prone to feel surly toward the late-empire brittleness of it all. I stopped trying to remember which companies Disney owns or co-owns: ESPN, Marvel and was it ABC or CBS? What gigantic swaths of our visual environment is this corporation shaping every bit as meticulously as it did those parks?

I took Mimi on a little roller coaster ride (with maternal urging; I hadn’t gone rogue — she wanted to go). But pobrecita, it turned out she wasn’t ready for it. The ride was small but still moved pretty fast.>>

Now I don't know what Epcot you guys have been to, but the Epcot I've been to has absolutely NO ROLLER COASTER, large or small. This guy was clearly so freaking stoned he either didn't really know what park he was in, or so stoned that he remembered Test Track as being a coaster. Either way, he lost whatever slim credibility he had with me in the first place. Among other things the guy needs to GROW UP. I'm not totally down on weed, though I've not done any in about 20 years. But there is a time and place for everything, and Disney World IS NOT the time or place to try to sneak a few tokes.

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

RoadTrip, I was wondering about that same passage as well. Also I don't agree with his claim that in Germany (and he specifically mentions Germany) more people know about Orlando than New York. That's just nonsense (and I checked the official statistics: New York gets about 30% of all international visitors, Orlando 10%).

However, one can argue the merits of that article a lot. But I don't think that that was the Spirit's point.

I think we can agree on that this article does not paint a picture of WDW which fits with the way that the company wants to be seen. It would not be the kind of press they want, but the piece will have a wide distribution and reach lots of people. And it will shape their opinions. I am sure a lot of people who have enjoyed WDW before will not think less of it because of that article. But it will reconfirm the opinions of those who already are not overly positive about that place. Just think of a family with a 5-year-old, who is consider to do just what the writer did: take part in that thing which he calls "disneying". They aren't really keen on it, but think it might be nice for the kid. Wouldn't that article rather make it easier for them to just let it be? And that's what's the difference to all the social media which mainly reaches those who already are fans: the real media can reach potentially new customers and influence them.

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

And on the topic of reliability of social media: Did the news of the blog written by a lesbian in Syria who turned out to be an American guy living in Scotland make the news in the US? I found an article about it at the BBC website: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13747761" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...13747761</a>

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

<<Did the news of the blog written by a lesbian in Syria who turned out to be an American guy living in Scotland make the news in the US?>>

Yes, that was just reported today:

<<By JILL LAWLESS
The Associated Press
updated 6/13/2011 7:01:06 PM ET 2011-06-13T23:01:06

LONDON — A 40-year-old American man living in Scotland said Monday he's sorry for posing as a Syrian lesbian blogger who offered vivid accounts of life amid revolt and repression in Damascus, a still-unraveling hoax that has exposed the difficulty of sifting truth from fiction online.>>

Just one of the many reasons I no longer take much of what is posted on the web very seriously. It provides good entertainment and I certainly spend enough time here. But you have to realize EVERYTHING, including LP, is much like TV. Part is real, part isn't, and it is hard to tell which is which. So I just enjoy the heck out of it while at the same time trying not to take much of it very seriously.

I think that is the primary problem with tea baggers. They actually BELIEVE all that crap they read on right-wing blogs.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

>>>I think that is the primary problem with tea baggers. They actually BELIEVE all that crap they read on right-wing blogs.<<<

Bolna, I thought I liked you before, now I know it ;-)

I need to find some time to read it, need to contact people in the real world first, including Spirit.

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<Bolna, I thought I liked you before, now I know it ;-)>>

You quoted RoadTrip just before that, not me... However, I am not a tea party fan at all, either.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

OOOps, me bad. I knew I already liked RT. Lol

Serves me right for posting when I should be working.

 

Originally Posted By MousDad

I hate to differ with my buds, but I thought that article was a masterpiece.

I thought the narrative cleverly expressed the unfathomable mystery of the "Disney mindset" and how a trip to the World (which, let's be completely honest and turn off our Disney mental conditions) is an absolute ordeal that contains roughly 90% drudgery mixed with a mystical 10% fun that somehow seems to transfix a portion of the population into an addiction that must be fed, (Don't think the weed references were included for no reason) while at the same time creating a desire in the rest of the population to get out of town as soon as possible and never come back.

Definitely a piece the Mouse will not be happy about, as it is too raw, non-idealized and truthful.

 

Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub

agreed especially considering I just returned from one family WDW trip(Texans) to planning another with dif relatives(Californians)
It is def worth reading cause I laughedout loud alot.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

Ok, I had a read over lunch (much more interesting than the squabling of health reforms that are destined to take the Great out of Britain, but there you go).

while his cyncism and celebration of barbituates is a bit of a turn off, there is much truth spoken in this artical. The one part that really resonated with me was quite interesting coming from someone who is ambivolent about "Disneying". It resonated with what many of us mentally ill fans have been saying for years too:

>>>It’s no longer communicating that idea; the idea is no longer intelligible. I don’t know what it’s communicating. The old virtues are gone, the new ones unidentifiable. <<<

And there for me is the cruxt of the problem with modern Disney. Of course Social Media (with official persuasions) would never entertain such a notion. Quite facinating.

 

Originally Posted By MousDad

>>And there for me is the cruxt of the problem with modern Disney. Of course Social Media (with official persuasions) would never entertain such a notion. Quite facinating.<<

I liked his use of the word "yearning." If there ever is a word that describes the Disney condition, that hits the nail. The place was built by a guy who yearned for something, is full of stylized environments that yearn for a reality that doesn't exist, and is filled with masses who yearn to fill the place that Disney fills in both the individual and global psyche. Pretty good social commentary.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

Absolutely, I also find it interesting that the most entertaining part of the trip was the part that did not require admission media, being bundled in the ponchos.

Many times, our best experiences at Disney resorts around the globe were pool related, or walking to the parks when something happens. Though the Disney yearning has been the enabler.

I would love to see what those guys thought of the Mexico attraction, JII or Maelstrom when they were not fully compis mentis. lol

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<I liked his use of the word "yearning." If there ever is a word that describes the Disney condition, that hits the nail. The place was built by a guy who yearned for something, is full of stylized environments that yearn for a reality that doesn't exist, and is filled with masses who yearn to fill the place that Disney fills in both the individual and global psyche. Pretty good social commentary.>>

That was the highlight of the article for me, but unfortunately he did not really develop that thought.

 

Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1

"<<Geez, people.
Can you say, "Attention Deficit Disorder"?>>

No, more like a poorly written article with no clear purpose other than sharing that he got high in WDW...and not the usual fanboi way.

If I had to guess, most readers would be put off by the first half of the article focusing solely on weed.

I read the whole thing, and I guess the writer does eventually make some sort of point of displeasure and distrust with Disney (mainly about EPCOT), but it's a week one. I was very disappointed with it after Spirit spoke so highly of it as I am huge doom and gloomer. "


Completely agreed.

Even as a teenager, I found people that "boast" about how much they had smoked or how much they had drunk to be just THE MOST purile and BORING thing.

I remember constantly thinking, "You are describing something you have ingested....a bodily function - would you like to hear about some of the bodily functions *I* performed over the weekend? ...... No? Well then SHUT THE (you know what) UP, get over yourself and STOP thinking what you drank or smoke is SO interesting to the rest of us!!!"

I always saw it as an insult to ME that these immature idiots thought I was one of THEM and thought this crap impressed me!


It's like all that Hangover, douchebag teenage boy "comedy" nonsense. Just can't stand it.

And reading about some douche who was "hip and edgy" enough to *GASP* actually smoke weed in WDW.....well sir, you are my HERO for being SUCH a MAN.


rolls eyes

 

Originally Posted By DDMAN26

Let me repost this.

After reading this topic I do after wonder how the whole social media thing would affect the Disney guest who saves up for a few years to take his family down to WDW? Someone who wouldn't know a Mongello or the Moms Panel.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

DDMAN - sorry if it got lost in the thread. I think the whole point here, with the exception of trip advisor, and a few rogue sites, I think the issue is that if you google Disney, you will find very few negative things. Now, the product is better than average, so that is pretty natural, but with the social media massaging of information, it makes it even harder to find a fair critique. So the we always go to Hawaii, Skiing, Yellowstone, to the lake etc. crowd think "hey, our little one is 7, maybe we should think about going to WDW", they google it, hear all great things, and book.

After a while the Emporer has new clothes. Why try to dazzle when we can spend less and bring the rubes in.

 

Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer

>>>Completely agreed.

Even as a teenager, I found people that "boast" about how much they had smoked or how much they had drunk to be just THE MOST purile and BORING thing.

I remember constantly thinking, "You are describing something you have ingested....a bodily function - would you like to hear about some of the bodily functions *I* performed over the weekend? ...... No? Well then SHUT THE (you know what) UP, get over yourself and STOP thinking what you drank or smoke is SO interesting to the rest of us!!!<<<<

This. A lot of this.

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

But there was something in this article that did resonate with me. And also conjued up one of my reasons of anger, annoyance and disappointment with the mouse.

The writer mentioned Walt's tenacity at pushing and wanting to do things and make new things, never being satisfied. I am the same, I always want to top things, improve things, engineer a new tomorrow. It is what I get paid to make a living at. Disney no longer feels like they really innovate unless it is ties with toons (world of colour had some innovation, but entirely toon based). Instead of trying to tell an awesome new story, they rehash the old standards. It feels so commercial, it feels so dirty.

There are a few truths spoken in this article that will sadly be lost because of his talk of pot, or because of his cynical view of Disney before he arrived that has not changed since going.