A Non-Disney Identity

It’s been long enough; I can officially declare myself a Disney Adult. It’s a title that I’ve held unabashedly for a long time- well before I started to work for The Mouse. But there’s an iceberg to Disney Adulthood. To put it dramatically, in the eyes of a regular person, I am a full-fledged crazy Disney girl, but in the eyes of a Disney person, I’m really not that into it. I haven’t seen most movies, I’ve only been to World, I haven’t tried most of the foods or been on all of the rides. I don’t even care for two of World’s four parks very much, to be honest. I love Disney as a concept, but my love for Disney doesn’t extended farther than the love I have for its creative byproducts that I’ve claimed as my own.

A mostly-exhaustive list of my absolute most favorite Disney things:

• The Disney Princess Franchise and its history

  • Moana, Tangled, and Snow White & the Seven Dwarves are my three favorite Princess Movies. Aladdin is my fourth favorite.

• The Disney Fairies Franchise

  • Fawn is my favorite, and I’m most nutty about this franchise over anything.

• Daisy Duck

  • Always been my favorite of the Sensational Six.

• Encanto

  • My favorite modern Disney movie, starring my most beloved Mirabel.

• Peter Pan

  • My favorite classic Disney movie, and my favorite Disney Movie since I was a kid.

• Magic Kingdom

  • I had only been to the parks at WDW a handful of times before moving to it, but Magic Kingdom holds a place close to my heart. To me (and most people) it IS Disney.

  • Especially Fantasyland, which is my favorite section in any of the four parks- my CP placement was a cosmic gift.

• Animal Kingdom

  • My favorite park, although Magic is the most meaningful to me.

• Disney Channel

  • Most notably, Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Descendants, Let it Shine, and Lemonade Mouth- among others.

I can go on and on about these things- while I left out plenty of little things I love but not as much (Big Hero 6 comes to mind as an example). These are the things that classify me as a Disney Adult. I don’t care deeply for Figment or Epcot or Mickey-shaped foods or Hollywood Studios or the main man, Michael T. Mouse himself. I don’t buy Spirit Jerseys and Loungeflys and I prefer not to wear Ears.

I am a big pin trader though.

My point is, in the layers of Disney Adult, I objectively don’t sit very high on the scale. But still, why does it consume my life?

Can we get the obvious out of the way: yes, I moved out of my parents house and into a new city solely because I wanted to work at Disney. But it was originally going to be temporary and it wasn’t because I dreamed of working here- I just thought it would be a fun story.

Living in the Disney bubble can make you forget about reality. It’s all-consuming. As a CP, every single person that lived in the complex I lived in worked at Disney too. To some varying degree, you are surrounded by Disney adults. It’s the thing unifying you. I met my friends through my program. We had Disney in common.

The Disney bubble is hard to get out of.

If you were to ask anybody that I’ve met in the last year what does Willianny like? There is a 95% chance they say one of two things: Tinkerbell or Encanto. If you were to ask anybody whose known me longer than that, I can’t even remember what they would have said, but it wouldn’t have been Disney-related. Maybe concerts or the beach, they would’ve said. But even now, my friends from home see Disney, and they think of me. Who am I without Disney now?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Disney and I love being a little Disney Adult, but I miss being multi-faceted. Disney is so massive and all-consuming, it can be an identity entirely on its own; people have Disney-specific closets for the clothes they keep to wear exclusively to the parks. Disney influencers have separate TikTok and Instagram accounts from their personal accounts, personal accounts that typically don’t see any Disney-related content.

I think about my roommates. Bella loves Star Wars and Marvel, she’s almost Disney Adult adjacent. Brandon doesn’t care much about Disney, to be honest. These are just facets of their personalities. I don’t want to change my personality. I don’t want to force myself to like Disney less or like other things more. I just want to have a life and an identity outside being a person that likes Disney.

There’s a definitely non-exhaustive list of non-Disney things that I like.

• Concerts

• Going to the movie theater

• The beach, and being in water in general

• Arts and crafts

• Collecting CDs and DVDs

• Building Legos

• Playing softball

• Ballet class

• Reading books

• Going to record stores and bookstores and thrift stores

I want to spend more time doing things outside of the Disney bubble. It honestly feels like a hassle to do so. It can almost feel uncomfortable. I’m going to try and change that. Today I took a trip to my closest Goodwill and wandered for a good hour. Tomorrow I’m going to the record store with my friends. I recently hung out with my coworker from my second job for the first time outside of work, and it was nice to have a local friend that I don’t share a connection to Disney with. I want to recreate my life without Disney being the center of it, I just want it to be a big part of it. I want to have a life outside of Disney. An identity of my own.

From, Willianny