Is this accurate? Do Disney adults truly signal the end of Western civilization? Or are they simply just mildly annoying stans with an insanely high threshold for expensive mixed drinks? To find out, and to learn where the concept of the “Disney adult” comes from in the first place, I talked to a slew of academics, internet culture and fandom experts, and, yes, Disney adults. “People were saying Disney fans are a plague upon society, that they will be the end of Western civilization,” says Jodi Eichler-Levine, a professor of religious studies at Lehigh University who studies the intersection of Disney and religion. Yet it hit a nerve with exasperated internet denizens, who posted thousands of comments excoriating the author before moderators shut down the thread. The post, which was reportedly written by a bride who had opted to pay for Mickey and Minnie to appear at her wedding rather than feed her guests, was, like most things on Reddit, anonymously written and poorly sourced.
At no time was this distaste drawn into sharper relief than earlier this month, when a post on Reddit’s Am I the Asshole forum went massively viral.
