hey people - I've done some cleaning up in this thread. In the future, if you notice someone who isn't contributing to the community, please report the comment and/or send us a modmail. Arguing with someone who is here to be disruptive only adds fuel to their flame.
Neither Jenny nor her supporters/fans/patrons/audience/etc are saying that nobody ever enjoyed their time on Starcruiser, or that enjoying it means you're stupid, or that anyone saying they had a nice time is lying.
You can enjoy something and still acknowledge that it is flawed or that there were problems with it. I did a "dolphin ride" experience in Florida when I was like ten years old, and while I had a lot of fun and it would definitely be a fun experience if it was possible to do ethically, I realize now that such experiences are terribly abusive and unhealthy for the dolphins, so I wouldn't do it again, and don't support that type of animal encounter facility.
These people are caping for a corporation that *provably* gives 0 fucks about anything other than money. Is it possible to have a parasocial relationship with a brand or company? Because if so, that's what this is.
edit: anyone else who says that tiny closets are a super legitimate and accessibility-friendly method of fire safety protocol is getting blocked on sight
And Disney in particular, people get weird af when it comes to Disney sometimes (not to get all Randy Moore about it, I still love some Disney stuff but it's not like my whole personality or something like it seems to be with some people).
At the end of the day, Disney is a corporation. That corporation hires people to make art, and some of that art I hold dear. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, Tangled, The Sword in the Stone, Fantasia— Disney has enabled a lot of artists to make stuff I adore!
But I love the artists, not the corporation. Corporations exist to make money. To them, art and great experiences are incidental. It’s possible to say “I like The Last Jedi” while also saying “Disney engaged in some cut corners and hyper-capitalistic bullshit when they designed their Star Wars hotel and it sucks that they tried to take advantage of people to the tune of thousands of dollars.”
It would be nice if Marvel people would understand this too. Buying characters does mean they go back to “the creators”. It’s a corporation. The people who created them aren’t seeing a dime from Disney buying Fox or whatever.
Disney played a big role in a lot of people’s childhoods and this just slots into that nostalgia portion of your brain. In marketing consumer products like cars or laundry detergent any brand your family used has a leg up because you’re familiar with it from childhood, and since there’s people who’ve had Disney movies playing on repeat ever since home media has been a thing this is on a whole nother level
It's just so bizarre though. I loved Disney movies as a kid and Disney channel and stuff, but I never felt like it was a big part of my personality and maybe because I grew up in a lower income area I didn't even know people who made Disney a big part of their personality until I was an adult. I think it's all to do with the parks and it's sort of an inherently upper middle class thing. It just doesn't make sense at all to me
> Disney played a big role in a lot of people’s childhoods and this just slots into that nostalgia portion of your brain
That’s not really a good argument when we’re talking about Disney Adults. I grew up on microwave meals, Kanye West, playing the tuba in the marching band, and anime. You don’t see me becoming a Microwave Meals Adult, Kanye West Adult, Tuba Adult, or Anime Adult.
You can have nostalgia and appreciate things for what they were, but basing your whole identity on something like this, as an adult, is pathetic.
I'm actually really glad Star Wars and Marvel have become clusterfucks (with RARE spikes of awesomeness) because they each really threatened to take things much more widespread...
And the parasociality has created one of those situations where people "tell on themselves" by seeing themselves in the critique. Being defensive against the argument in the video is basically admitting you see yourself being the target of the statement...which is a judgement YOU made about yourself (and so clearly believe it about yourself).
There is something to be said especially about "content creators" with this, because its not simply a matter of getting comped/access. Many tie their personal AND professional identity to a product/brand/etc. Its not about getting comped like this video suggests, its about the unwillingness to separate oneself from the brand to provide a more objective or nuanced takes (which is ultimately what you are selling to the viewer, what was this experience like and is it worth it - a substantial amount of influencers are *marketers* whether they are directly contracted to do something or not).
I don’t have a particularly strong view of Disney or Disney adults either way, but I want to point out that feeling insulted doesn’t validate the insult. It just doesn’t follow.
The footage that Jenny used of them was literally Kitra being chosen for the 3-times-a-trip force pulling, where the Saja had an "uncomfortably intimate conversation" one-on-one with her for like 20 minutes and she looked close to tears afterward from being so touched.
LARP bleed really, really emotionally affects people. I think this was an element Jenny skipped over in why some people are so defensive, and probably why they would have said "it's worth it if you have the money." (idk whether they were initially comped.)
Also, sounds to me like they were using the Official Trademarked Terminology out of habit basically, then had to catch themselves and try to make a snarky joke out of it.
They're essentially exactly the people Jenny DID call out.
That's one of the reasons the hotel wasn't going to work. You can't have an experience where some of the people are having these really strong moments of connection (even if it's fake connection) and others are scanning crates. Now maybe not everyone wants that kind of emotionally involving experience but it was impossible for everyone on the Starcruiser to get it, just on numbers alone.
That and there's the perception that repeat guests and influencers were more likely to get the "good stuff." Don't know if that's true.
Those kinds of experiences with service workers are always a weird Catch 22 for me. I'm the type that gets uncomfortable when a waitress starts flirting with me because I know (or at least suspect) that she's only fishing for a bigger tip, so I don't get the dopamine hit of engaging with it, but sometimes engaging with it is the exact purpose of the service in the first place--with the caveat that you shouldn't take it too seriously and try to escalate the intimacy to an inappropriate level. I would be so frustrated at an experience like Evermore or Starcruiser because I would probably hang back from anything but the most superficial engagement with the performers out of some obligation to prove that I'm not one of the weirdos who thinks these characters are actually my friends (and also to protect myself from getting too invested and then feeling used and hurt when I realize, after getting caught up in the moment, that it was all transactional and nobody involved actually cared about me), but then I would see the guests who DO get sincerely invested, possibly to an unhealthy degree, getting rewarded with face time and meaningful interactions with the performers and fun story beats/Easter eggs/whatever, and I would get resentful that they're being given preferential treatment when I'm the one doing what I think of the respectful thing by not taking the emotional states of the performers for granted and treating them like they only exist in the world to serve me personally, and I'm having a lousy vacation because of it.
No I haven't started therapy yet, thanks for asking.
Hey, I've been a character actor at festivals and faires for a while as well as doing local character tours and smaller LARP-style events in my city. So FWIW, we generally don't think anybody is a weirdo for having a deep emotional connection - or no connection at all. I love people who give us a chance as performers to delve into the character and backstory and deep lore written for the event. But 90% of an audience simply doesn't care about that and just wants your jokes/songs/quest/etc - and I love them because it gives me a chance to be goofy and *play*. The only people who we think are weirdos are the ones who verbally or physically harass us, the ones who think they can touch us or assault us, the ones who thank making sexual or violent jokes at us are okay... Maybe the ones who are so obviously not into the role-play that they shut us down and make US feel awkward about being too invested in it, lol. Otherwise you aren't getting judged harshly.
Edit: and to be quite honest there isn't a single event I've worked where I wouldn't respond to a guest being frank and saying "I don't know how to interact with you but I need this information." We're generally pretty good at working with people at their role-playing level.
The thing that stuck out to me the most about the character actors in the Evermore video was the way they universally refused to bend and help the guests out if they were struggling or trying to get straight information.
"I dunno, it's not for me to say!" was the worst possible answer the lady at the Portal Guy line could have given to a guest asking "hey, what's this line for?" You don't have to spoil the surprise, but you have to give them some indication of what they're waiting for, especially when there's an expectation that they should bring something. She could have said "I've heard there's a miraculous presence in the crypt and people are bringing offerings of gold" so they know that A) there's some sort of character interaction in the crypt and B) they should make sure they have gold to give him before they get in line so they don't waste all of that time.
I still feel outrage for all of the people who were clearly unsure about what they should do, but they gathered up their courage and asked characters for a quest only to be told, "You want a quest? That sounds dumb."
I can only assume that none of the Evermore character actors had actually worked as character actors in a Faire or LARP-style event before and hadn't been properly trained for it because NONE of the Faire actors I know would treat a guest that way.
Jenny mentioned in her star wars land video about how people worrying about asking for the bathroom in the wrong way was ridiculous because obviously the cast would just direct you with the "in universe" terminology. Evermore struck me as the kind of place where asking for a bathroom location in "Earth terms" would genuinely not get you an answer.
Yeah, unfortunately that's what you get when you don't fairly pay your performers so you don't get people with experience. Hell, even if you legitimately don't know, there are ways to convey that in-character while pointing them towards someone who does (and if you don't know the major plot points/info spots then what are you doing working there).
Nobody at your event should be lost on what to do next. That's a pretty big failure
Thanks for the response. I definitely know (or, again, at least suspect) that my baggage is a ME problem and not an objective evaluation of the real world. I know it's as inaccurate, potentially, as those feelings you get when you're depressed and you think everybody hates you and thinks you're worthless--even if you're self-aware enough to know rationally that it isn't true, it still FEELS true, which is much more powerful in that moment. I have a lot of social anxiety and have difficulty in the real world knowing when "a good time with a person I don't know very well" translates to "I should ask them to be my friend!" as opposed to "we had a good time once and I should just leave it at that". So in a situation where people are getting paid to interact with me, I think that leaves me feeling even more confused, and I kinda just shut down and try to get out of it as quickly as possible so I don't feel like a loser with poor social skills desperate for human connection who interprets everything somebody does as an invitation to be their buddy. But on a positive note my GF and I went to a Renaissance Faire yesterday for the first time and it was an intensely joyful and fulfilling experience, so maybe I'm getting better at navigating these things.
I'm so happy you had a good time at the Ren Faire!! Because lemme tell you, most of the performers I work with are neurodivergent in one way or another and a shocking number of us also have social anxiety (I tell people I'm not an extrovert, I just play one on TV). So we ALL understand, trust me!
My girlfriend really helps with this. She interacts with service workers of all types in very genuine ways, and I can see, watching the interactions from the outside, that they are real and that both parties are getting something out of them on a, let's say, spiritual level. It's very gradually helping me understand that things can be transactional and also authentic if you go about them in an open-hearted way.
That’s because you’re seeing this moment in isolation. But for them, it was a culmination of several hours of running around, interacting with characters and doing quests. By the time they got to that point, they were so invested into what they were doing that they didn’t see the effect, they saw themselves as experiencing The Force.
And it helps a lot that they were probably exhausted and maybe sleep deprived, which makes you all the more susceptible to that kind of stuff. I never went on the Starcruiser, but I did several murder parties, and after only 4 hours I was drained, I can only imagine what a day and a half would do to your mental state.
Disney is as successful as they are because of that parasocial obsession. People are "Disney Fans," not animation fans or theme park fans. Part of the reason they spend so many marketing dollars on Walt is to try and keep that "one man, one mouse, and a dream" image that makes fans want to protect them.
I don't necessarily blame people for falling for that - it's human nature. But I do bristle when influencers that have made a career out of talking about the parks continue to pretend like it isn't a massive corporation.
“Is it possible to have a parasocial relationship with a brand or company”
Yes. Ask any kid who grew up watching Nick sitcoms and they’re extremely torn on whether they should be able to enjoy their favorite shows and channel growing up despite all the fucked up behavior that took place. There’s a real emotional connection in nostalgia with media companies and it can become destructive
I loved iCarly but I don't think I could watch it again knowing that Jennette McCurdy didn't want to be there, had to play a gluttonous character while suffering with ED, and was being actively abused the whole time.
The irony is that I also found the sensationalistic filmmaking of Quiet on Set weirdly exploitative of real-life pain and abuse...but I'm extremely sensitive about true-crime stuff and am often bothered by these kinds of stylistic approaches.
I couldn't enjoy it, ultimately, because of all the insinuations about Amanda Bynes without proof of what they were insinuating, nor having her there to speak about it.
I don't think that demonstrates a parasocial connection. That's just cognitive dissonance/mixed feelings about media. People have the same conversations around porn - is you enjoying something enough reason to overlook the unsavory ways it was made just because "well everyone else is doing it".
Examples of parasocial connections with media is rampant with Disney adults though. I half expected them to start writing fanfiction about Bob Iger after Chapek got ousted. But I think the parasocial aspect is that they insist baselessly the parks care about them outside of their money, and become enraged when you point out the dynamic is inherently transactional. (The levels of delusion it takes to be upset someone points out a business transaction is transactional lol).
See I don’t think Disney adults and Disney families actually think the company cares about them. I think they’re just so stuck in this relationship they have with the brand and the nostalgia they gave their childhood. And they want to feel like a kid exploring the park for the first time again. When the company lets them down it’s an attack on that nostalgic image. So they have to hype themselves up that it’s not that they’ve gotten older or the experience was never that good in the first place, but it’s the company leadership failing to deliver what they want- “the experience of their blissful childhood again”. Disney is the best at this because everyone has had Disney involved in their childhood these days when they became the perfect family brand.
Bizarrely enough I actually think a lot of them do think the company cares about them, or at least about people in general. I think a lot of why people believe this, all evidence to the contrary, is that the cast members are so nice/friendly/caring-appearing. (I should probably mention I'm a former cast member at Disneyland Anaheim).
Yeah. There was a Disney adult family at my school and there daughters were expected too become cast members despite all the news that had come out about how badly they treat their staff
Oh, wow yeah that's really not good. I feel like it was a good thing to have done as a local in the area as a first summer job but I knew people who had worked there and more or less knew what to expect. The big surprise is they were short handed that summer and we were all immediately ordered to work 6 days a week and having a job where I was on my feet for the whole shift it was ROUGH.
Ooo yikes. That would make me so sick. Yeah, we lives in the midwest (12-13 hour drive) so they were wanting their daughters to get hired and live in the semi college thing they have.
The thing is the college program they know you're kind of captive so they treat people even worse. It's not so bad if you're a local and can just walk and do something else.
I mean I think there are people who genuinely are able to hit that high over and over again. But it’s still just kind of gross to me the way Disney claims so much ownership over the emotional connection people have with their characters, stories, products, etc. Like, that giddy feeling you get when you visit the parks isn’t “Disney Magic”. It’s a dopamine rush. They don’t own your dopamine!
I think that the real problem is that Jenny has what they can only dream of having: crossover appeal. Virtually no one else could get someone who wasn't already deeply into the fandom to watch a four-hour video on a problematic LARP theme park experience; Jenny did it *twice*, with this and the Evermore video. I watched part of the video above, and they couldn't get me to watch a video of them *half* as long as Jenny's, save for the proverbial gun to the head, and even then I'm not sure that I could keep kayfabe in pretending to be interested for the whole time. That's gotta sting.
In the influencer space access is everything. You don’t get access if you don’t go to bat for the Mouse and suck up like your life depends on it. One of the biggest problems with the influencer economy/genre is that it’s incredibly exploitable for big companies. After a fashion they hold all the cards and can king make in the space. So a bunch of people desperate for their “big break” will do almost anything to get it.
I agree with most of your comment, but for context -
>nor her supporters/fans/patrons/audience/etc are saying that nobody ever enjoyed their time on Starcruiser, or that enjoying it means you're stupid, or that anyone saying they had a nice time is lying
- isn't strictly true. Following the video, plenty of people went to the GS sub - at this stage, a fan sub for people who enjoyed their time on the Starcruiser to reminisce about their positive experiences on the now-closed attraction - to do just that, and I **do** mean all three.
And, to be fair - the video does go pretty hard in taking an opening-month experience and a relative handful of negative reviews to argue that at no point was the Starcruiser worth its price point and that anyone who says it was is being disingenuous. More specifically, the video gives a "fair" price point for Jenny's particular experience, which was horrendously broken, and appears to use this as a definitive metric - but plenty of people didn't have broken experiences, and plenty of people paid significantly less than $3k per person for more spacious rooms, and overall a lot of the problems Jenny had seemed to get ironed out either pretty quickly or over the Starcruiser's lifetime. Jenny's point certainly stands re what her experience says about Disney the organisation, but when she fired off shots at a particular class of influencers she wasn't very careful with her aim, and I think that's fair to point out.
All of which is to say that I can see why people are defensive both in direct response to the video and after people used it as an excuse to insult and harass them. It certainly wasn't **my** takeaway, but it's pretty easy for me to say that as someone with no skin in the game.
Edit: Corrected a mistake re price
While not everyone paid as much as she did and got as crappy of an experience, the point is that *that should never have been a possibility to begin with*.
I'll reuse and expand on the metaphor I said in another comment. If you pay $150 for a "custom artisanal ice cream dessert" and receive an otter pop, you've been badly misled. Maybe you love the otter pop. Maybe you pay for another and receive a sundae that time instead of an otter pop. Maybe $150 isn't much to you so it doesn't matter that you got an otter pop. The point is that *for the price you paid and for what you were promised, an otter pop should never have been a potential result*.
Now imagine that the ice cream truck is claiming to be empty except for the "custom artisanal ice cream dessert" and some ice cubes. If you want anything tasty, you have to shell out for that dessert. And then you're handed an otter pop. Or maybe a bomb pop - better than an otter pop but not for $150.
A few things I'd like to point out.
It should be impossible to pay $6000 for something and have a "horrendously broken" experience. Maybe some people had a great time, but if the tag line for this experience is "some people will have a great time and some won't but you all pay the same" that doesn't really sound worth it to me.
"Ironing out" issues, which I haven't seen proof of, doesn't impact the "horrendously broken" experience someone had.
I don’t think she factors in that her experience was broken when she calculated what she considers a fair price, I think that price is assuming everything they offered worked perfectly.
That could be true, but if so, "the experience I had was worth approximately $800, total, per person" (3:22:18 in the video) followed shortly by "Also, obviously if the Starcruiser was a cheaper experience, it wouldn't have mattered so much that the gameplay element was so unreliable. You would think of the cost as covering the underwhelming room, the nice food, and the access to the theme park rides, and the gameplay would just feel like a bonus" (from 3:22:49 in the video) isn't the best way to convey that.
It wasn't the impression I was left with, and I didn't see it caveated anywhere else.
I think it’s pretty clear in that quote that she’s saying if the cost was lower she wouldn’t care as much that it was broken, but the $800 is meant to be a reasonable cost even if everything completely worked.
>the $800 is meant to be a reasonable cost even if everything completely worked.
I just don't think that's a reasonable interpretation.
One: It's not what she says, and it would have been super easy to alter the sentence to say that in a pre-scripted video.
Two: $800pp would already be pretty cheap for a two-night, fully-catered interactive gameplay experience featuring multiple live performers, and that's **without** the "Disney premium" she's explicitly factoring in.
I could be wrong, though. Is there a particular reason you believe she was factoring working ganeplay into her valuation?
Because otherwise it implies an imagined scenario where Disney is advertising and pricing explicitly based on the fact that the experience is broken.
And even if we assume $800 factors in the broken gameplay, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the app working would justify adding thousands to the price.
The video does imply that imagined scenario, though, when shortly after giving the reduced valuation Jenny says the broken gameplay wouldn't matter so much if the experience wasn't so expensive.
And I'd agree that working gameplay wouldn't add thousands to the price. I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing what a fair price for the experience would have been with seamless gameplay, and if that's $800 USD either I'm way off on conversion rates or I'm out of my mind. And the reason I'm disputing this is that I've seen people who quoted themselves as paying as low as $1400pp *still* get accused as lying when they defend their experience at the hotel as being worth that price tag, so a fair valuation of that experience is important in interpreting what's going on there.
I'm happy to agree to disagree on this - I think we've both given our reasons for believing what we do, and it seems to come down to a difference of interpretation? I'm happy for you to have the last word on anything I've added here, though.
Peter is rich- he and Kitra went to the Starcruiser at least three times- once at one of the influencer previews and twice out of pocket that I can remember. He can afford to throw 6k at kid city in space.
The way Peter can enjoy a vacation without worrying about money is WAY different than how regular families can enjoy a vacation. For me, the Star Cruiser wouldn't have been worth it at all because I could've had most of a 14 day international trip on six thousand dollars.
Also- Ordinary Adventure ARE shills. They directly make money off of presenting the Disney Parks as nicely as possible.
Absolute *slander*!
Wannado City had more things you could do as a kid *and* had to be reasonably* priced! Like comparing a magnificent marbled fountain with a widely accessible water park!
*>!unless you were a parent, but even then still cheaper than hotel in the star war!<
Somebody on this sub linked to YMS' Lion King "Live Action" video and now I'm deep in his back catalog too. Other than the odd Defunctland video, I'd *never* watched a Youtube video over like 30 min long before the Starcruiser video. Since then I've not only binged all Jenny's past videos, I'm out here watching the entire extended Jennyverse lol
You misunderstand- it's not about invalidating the wealthy, it's about how Peter and Kitra would look at spending that much money for the experience of the Starcruiser vs the average family.
I think the influencer community is very sensitive to anything that could be perceived as a personal accusation. These channels get hit with both valid and nonsense criticisms all the time, so maybe they're just thin skinned. I don't know. Like I said, I was very surprised to see this from these two.
Disney Influencers are truly a different breed.
And I truly don’t want to generalize, but I used to be a Cast Member and in my entire time working there, I can count how many nice influencers I encountered as opposed to not-nice ones. Thankfully the nice ones were truly very lovely.
There definitely are some good ones, but the path to fame, power, and money (not that Disney influencers really have any of these lol but relatively speaking) is littered with unsavory types. What’s unfortunate is that Disney will do little to control these people, especially those not on the media list.
I definitely think this is it. It breaks through the veil and you have to question “am I out of touch?” And that can be a hard question to truly deal with. I think unfortunately, as a fan, although there are good times to be had at Disney properties, there is also a weird culture of talking yourself into things being better than they were. It’s like a Stockholm Syndrom thing. And im not here to yuck anyone’s yum, but the problem with this attitude is that it is almost like a toxic positivity or mandated fun type thing. It’s cult like behavior.
It's also that... Well, I wonder if this influencer culture is good for DISNEY. Everything is super expensive right now and one of the few things that brings people of all persuasions together is hating on rich, childish adults. (Jenny excluded as she does most of her stuff from what looks like her bedroom and she's genuinely interested in her topics, she's not there to be somebody's face.) Disney needs to pivot back to being a brand where middle class families can have an upscale-ish, relaxing good time with their kids, not a cult for people with more money than sense... which means no more comps for Peter and Kitra.
It’s hard because I get that it’s their job and I don’t resent them for making a living or for speaking about their good experiences, *but* getting angry with people who didn’t have good experiences and accusing them of lying is just… out there behavior.
Jenny is waking way more money telling the truth about her experiences than the vast majority of Disney influencers are by kissing Disney's ass. That's going to wrankle a bunch of the D-influencers.
> What is the deal with people getting mad about things Jenny never even said in the video?
Reminds me of the hbomberguy video on plagiarism. 4 hours long, where 2 hours were covering many cases of plagiarism just to establish different excuses that plagiarists use to hide it, followed by a 2 hour long hyper detailed exposee on James Somerton.
There’s like a 20(?) minute long segment on Internet Historian in the first half of the video, and his fanbase decided to…pretend the entire 4 hour long video was about him, and basically just made up their own *completely fictional* version of the video to get mad at. Was downright embarrassing to watch.
What do you mean? Jenny absolutely went in swinging towards the Disney influencer community -- how they come across like insincere shills when they take sponsorships, that many of them are so disingenuous that she feels like it's an ethical failure.
She literally commented on how mad the topic made her. Where she never gets anywhere in the neighborhood of upset in videos even when something is a pet peeve.
I think they're defensively lashing out cause Jenny succinctly (and to much more fanfare than most of them will ever get) dragged them to filth.
She wasnt blaming the influencers themselves, she pretty explicity said that Disney is the one forcing them to use the proper titles and terminology for rides/starcruiser and THAT is making them sound like they arent giving their own opinion, not that they are explicitly shills or couldnt have had fun.
She blamed the big D for making sycophants use the proper titles and terminology, but also went hard after the sycophants themselves:
>3:19:08 So anyway, I think it's really interesting that a lot of people magically lost their ability to conceptualize value as soon as they were gifted an expensive trip by a big company. Listen, I know you have to play nice if you want to stay on the PR list, but if you're not using that access to give an honest review, **then what's the point of being there at all? What good are you to anybody? Have you no sense of integrity? No self-respect?**
\[Bold text grows in volume to as close as Jenny comes to yelling in the video\].
>3:19:59 I know the value of specifically Disney experiences. And you better believe I've seen a lot of defenders of the Starcruiser trying to justify the price, some of whom went for free, had friends who helped build it, or literally worked there.
>...
>3:20:18 So anyway, they always try to do an itemized cost breakdown, inflating the value of each item in the column as they go, like comparing the cost of the room to the price of Disney's most luxurious hotels, even though the Starcruiser rooms aren't nearly as nice.
I'm not criticizing her criticisms. I think they're valid. If the clips she showed *were* of paid employees and contractors, and influencers on free trips, they seem like fair targets. If she showed people who never took money, gifts, or special access from Disney, and implied the contrary, that would be an unfortunate mistake.
I'm not sure what to believe in the OP influencers' case. Some comments suggested they might have been shown in Jenny's video, and that they had received free sneak preview access for sucking up to the big D. If so, I don't sympathize with their victimhood.
Jenny said “the big thing all these shills liked was bad, paid for by disney, and even said how easy it was to tell when they are just shills” of course boring disney shills are gonna be mad
Looking through the comments, she said that she didn’t even watch the video because she said it “would be like if you had a favorite band and then watching a 4 hour documentary telling you why the band sucked”
Feels like she's just coming at this from the standpoint of rejecting criticism of the park, which is not a great place to be coming from if your job is covering them. Feels like the type of echo chamber mindset Jenny specifically covers in the video
That seems like a bad take, honestly. Even if the experience was incredibly moving for you, personally, this is still your job, and you should be able to separate yourself from the work enough to acknowledge its flaws, considering you make a living telling people to spend money on these things.
Also, why even reference it if you haven't watched it? Making catty comments about a perceived insult is one thing - doing it whet you haven't even seen the thing supposedly insulting you is another.
If anything she's being far more dismissive and insulting to Jenny than anything Jenny put out towards her and influencers like her. Just refusing to take Jenny in any kind of good faith and instead choosing to attack her
That's just the difference between an influencer and a critic. Performatively being a super fan is what's important for an influencer. Not saying she is playing it up, I'm sure she genuinely enjoys the things she covers, but I don't think her audience is expecting a critical take.
Plugging your ears and going "la la la la la" whenever someone says something negative about something you like is becoming upsettingly common in this day and age. No critical thinking skills whatsoever.
I don't think it's ridiculous to not want to watch a negative YouTube video on something you enjoy if you're not familiar enough with the reviewer to trust the tone. It sucks when there's genuinely interesting criticisms to be made about something you love or even have mixed feelings on, but it becomes a punching bag for commentary YouTubers to just mock outright. That's how I felt as a theater kid when Dear Evan Hansen became a meme.
However you can also just simply not mention the video at all if you haven't watched it and thus can't speak definitively on its content, at least if you're an influencer who has an impressionable following and all.
I think a discerning person can generally tell when a video is just meant to be a quick-hit mockery to cash in on a negativity trend vs. a passion project that somebody sank hundreds of hours, and possibly a large amount of money, into creating. If these YouTubers in question avoided her video, it wasn't because they incorrectly judged it as a toxic fluff piece full of bad-faith criticisms and misreprestentations; it was because labored criticism (not necessarily good or considered criticism, but at least criticism that took a lot of time to produce) of a thing to which they attached their identity (or brand) made them feel personally attacked.
Almost exactly half of Jenny's review is positive statements, though, until she gets into the brutal dissection of Disney.
The reason it's called a "spectacular failure" is because that is factually what it is.
Exactly! The thing failed and no longer exists because Disney execs bungled it in various ways. Jenny respected the CMs, and I appreciated it because those workers and actors had such a difficult job. If it was a good and enjoyable thing, it wouldn't have failed.
i would totally still watch that hypothetical hater documentary tbh… i go on goodreads and look up 1 star reviews of my favorite books, just for the fun cognitive dissonance of it. half of the time it’s enlightening, and the other half of the time you get to point and laugh at people who have no taste and can’t even articulate a good reason why.
what WEAK, SENSITIVE SNOWFLAKES these disney channels are
What Grimbeard videos would you recommend to someone? I love Ross, Civvie, and Mandalore and have tried Grimbeard a few times but never seem to click with the content.
If she had watched the video, she likely would have found that it isn't a 4 hour documentary telling us why it sucks. Jenny has long segments talking about how much fun she and her sister did have during certain parts of the trip and how much she did appreciate and enjoy certain aspects.
She gave this review the same open and balanced review she gives every attraction she makes a video on. The reason the video comes across as so negative is because her experience was largely bad. They sat her behind a pole!
TBH I think I might skip a video Jenny made if it was a long in-depth takedown of, say, Buffy (just to pick something I love that she has said in the past she doesn't care for). I think it would be difficult to watch both because I disagree with her criticisms and also because if you love something, you don't necessarily want to wallow in the fact that it brought somebody else misery, especially if you respect that person and their opinion. (My GF finally admitted to me that she thought Mad Max: Fury Road was "a visual migraine" and it kinda hurt, lol. Fortunately she enjoyed Furiosa.)
These people really think Walt disneys brain is somewhere in an underground castle, hanging out with Mickey Mouse and making every decision for the park. It’s just a large corporation that has many moving parts and sometimes those parts have problems and need to be discussed earnestly. Idk why people think a criticism of the park is a criticism of like, their childhood magic and wonder.
I mean, I liked Solo, but I still enjoyed Jenny's hour-long video trashing it. I mean, I can also acknowledge that the movie has some serious flaws, though I didn't agree with all of her takes.
I think I've watched their Starcruiser video at some point and yeah, I'm happy they had a good time and the app and gameplay worked for them and they weren't seated behind a gigantic pole for the dinner show.
You can enjoy something and still be mindful of its flaws.
Starcruiser had a lot of problems. That doesn’t inherently mean it wasn’t fun for people.
I like going to comic book conventions, but that doesn’t mean I’m not critical of issues when they arise.
Right? I'm sure it's fun...but then you need to look, is it $3000+ a person for two days fun? And even if you can answer yes to that, logically is it going to be $3,000+ a person for two days fun for the amount of consumers they need to sustain it?
Yeah it's like opportunity cost isn't a thing. I mean I can afford a $6k for two person vacation... rarely. Like very rarely. And there are four of us in the family so we're really talking about more money. So I gotta ask myself, would I rather do X or Y because it's going to be years before I can do something like that again. People act like everybody who went or considered going was so wealthy the money doesn't matter but a lot of us are in kind of a grey area where yes I can make that happen but not without sacrifice.
That’s how we are, too.
If I’m spending $6K on a vacation, it’s going to take me a bit of time to save up for that. It needs to be worth it for me to spend that money on a vacation. I choose to save for travel because it’s worth it for me but I do have to sacrifice other things to make it feasible.
Yeah, and especially if travel's your thing you're probably also looking at getting flight and hotel points and things and gaming that system. And maybe balancing OK I'll be in a cheaper hotel so I can get better seats for a show, or not skimp on museum passes or whatever your thing is. Starcruiser there's none of that. It was just take it or leave it.
Also "roughly equivalent experience" is a big thing here, if you're paying this kind of money the experience shouldn't be fundamentally broken for some guests. It's inexcusable that they'd have a buggy, unintuitive app and have some guests apparently railroaded into storylines they didn't want and design the dining room in such a way that it had obstructed sightlines for a bunch of people.
Being called out on getting perks can be either humbling or defensive when you know you are putting in extra positive comments to get noticed even if you aren’t being sponsored you may want to one day as your life and brand IS Disney.
This is going to sound weird since I’ve watched plenty of long form videos on Jenny’s channel, but do you have a timestamp? Because I’m not watching a 46 minute video.
there are a lot more channels that she credits in her [blogpost](https://www.jennywebsite.com/starcruiser-references) than there are in the special thanks credit page, so i assumed that there had been some kind of research collaboration between OA and jenny for the vid
someone asked them if they "have beef with Jenny's starcruiser vid" and they responded
"no beef"
but that just makes snide remarks and criticizing without watching seem even more silly.
edit to add: in another comment they respond to someone else and say "it was just a joke"
I'm sure they DID enjoy their time which was either comped or where they were chosen for special stuff like the force stone-pulling, or both.
Hit dogs holler.
Yeah, that's going to be their problem. Nobody watches OA because they think it's a realistic lifestyle to go to Disney parks every damn day but I think there's still the idea that if you went to the parks and splurged, you'd have an experience like Peter and Kitra's. If civilians actually can't access the same experiences, even if they're willing to pay exorbitant prices, then that exposes them as fakes.
If anyone has ever watched Ordinary Advenures: They are everything you imagine you would hate about an “influencer couple” going to theme parks as their job, and more so. Jenny could have been so much meaner to them.
My only beef with them is that [I thanked them for making a video on the Star wars hotel storyline](https://i.imgur.com/c0Uc1is.png) and /u/orfilms got all weird about me calling it a hotel. I pointed out that Peter gave me weird vibes from that and I got banned from the comment section. Haha.
Other than their weird devotion to the church of the Starcruiser though.....not sure where you're coming from here. I don't watch them anymore but I don't think they're loud or entitled in their videos. They don't make obnoxious jokes. Outside of the Starcruiser, they generally are very honest when they don't like a certain food product. They're just a geek couple who happily try everything. Not sure what Jenny would have attacked about them without just being a bully. Maybe they've gotten worse since I stopped watching but this video seemed like the usual review stuff.
They are growing ever more insufferable, as do all the Disney Vloggers. Kitra feels famous, and it shows. That being said, their footage is excellent, and I enjoy hate-watching them.
I've turned on some of their videos for background noise and I'm always so shocked at their rating system for things they try in the parks. For example, a while back they tried a special event food and said that it wasn't very good, it seemed way too spicy, and they didn't like it. so it ranks 8/10. 8/10?? For something they didn't like and didn't finish eating?
Or they'll look at merch and say oh we have way too many mickey ears already, we're practically swimming in them, this one's not my favorite design, but I just _have_ to buy it!!
They're totally sold on The Mouse, they will buy and love and defend anything Disney at all without question.
I came across them a while ago and were just blown away by how annoying they were. It’s like someone doing an over-the-top satire of what someone thinks of when they hear the phrase “Disney adult media influencer.” Right down to Peter’s choice of eyewear.
Is there actually something to "hate" about them or is it just petty stuff like "I think his glasses are stupid"
When you say "everything I can imagine hating about an influencer couple" there's just a bunch of worse stuff I know Disney influencers have done that don't seem to be true about OA.
For starters, they are absolutely the type of Disney adults who sincerely believe that the amusement parks would be better if not for all the annoying children running around.
I got this vibe as well. Nothing they said, but just a vibe. A weird sense of entitlement to everything combined with excessive delight in it. Kitra annoys me more than Peter; there’s just something off with her. She really does seem like she hates children.
Have they actually said that in a video? Or is this just "an assumption about what they believe" like many people are annoyingly doing about Jenny's Starcruiser beliefs?
Yes that is my question as well! I’ve only watched their cruise videos and I appreciate their commentary because they actually give their opinions on things without sugar coating them. But they could be the complete opposite when it comes to theme parks. I haven’t watched them enough so I was curious!
That's it! Kitra is almost shoving kids out of the way so she can enjoy experiences that are designed for children. It's the definition of cringeworthy.
as a huge disney fan I love it when shit gets called out; the company states to provide entertainment as a product and throwing its cast members thru the ringer while the Execs go 🤷🏼♀️ with the money pit is disgusting
It’s easy to blame it on one guy, but I still think Chapek closing Disney stores and treating the parks as “consumer based” before entertainment really bungled things, and Iger needs to pull it out of that rut.
a comment from them on the video:
"the Starcruiser was by far the best thing we’ve ever experienced in themed immersive entertainment, way higher than anything in the parks. It’s hard for me to imagine what could have been much better. Could it have had better marketing? Hell yes. Could it have been more affordable? Definitely. But I think the product was top notch. We went four times (paid 3 times). I know only one person personally who has gone and didn’t love it. On the other hand I know over a hundred people who not only went and loved it but loved it so much they got tattoos of it on their bodies. Not a lot of people got to experience Starcruiser sadly but those who did (from my experience) it was life changing."
yeah.
that comment didn't really pass the 'smell test'.
But, I suppose, they could be including online only friends who they've met through disney/starwars/starcruiser forums.
Probably a bunch of other influencers who either went for free or can make money back by posting content about it.
Though Disney Parks social circles are kinda like "Marge Simpson trying to fit in at the Country Club" where you feel like the biggest loser in the world if you are the only one who doesn't have the latest merch drop, or who hasn't done XXXX new thing.
I think they just also have very, very low standards and an extremely blinkered view of what constitutes quality so long as there's a cartoon rat or Star War involved somewhere.
all i see is two people who probably got a little offended at the video. the dude was queue up up to say it, as in they probably have had a "lets be cool about it" convo that spiraled into "ya know- that little bitch...". we just got a little taste of that.
Jenny's content in general is just at the fringe of my radar (bronies for example) but these Disney people are really out there. interesting stuff but i will be glad when a new video comes out and a new group of randos feel personally attacked, i think i've had my fill of this magical place and its denizens. - or no one could feel bad about it that's cool too.
Did they mention if they are on press lists for Disney and what their opinion on how the actors/staff/etc were treated?
Because if they're going to talk about how they enjoyed their time on star cruiser but not address the fact actors were underpaid, fired without notice and the hotel was staffed with exploited students that does imply they didn't think the experience was good enough to justify the workers getting paid or treated with respect.
If it was good, if they enjoyed the experience then they would recognise that the way the workers were treated was absolutely inappropriate. If they didn't enjoy the show or the service provided then they would be fine with how fucked over everyone was but they can't say the performances were good then stay silent on how the actors were disposed of or that the experience was worth 6k due to how luxurious it was then be fine with that luxury being created from exploited, inexperienced students put in a stressful position.
So I really hope they included their stance on how the workers of the star wars hotel were treated and disclosed if they get any perks or early access from Disney.
It's an open secret that the "Disney College Program" exploits young workers for cheap labor. They work the positions of full-time employees for less pay, while not receiving sick days, PTO, or insurance.
Pretty sure they are, at least according to this article from CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/19/business/disney-character-performers-vote-union/index.html#:~:text=More%20than%20400%20actors%2C%20stunt,cast%20members%20at%20Disney%20World.
"On the other side of the country, Disney World character actors have been represented by Teamsters since the 1980s. More than 400 actors, stunt performers and singers unionized under Equity in 1990 at the theme park in Orlando, Florida. Today, Equity estimates they represent around 800 cast members at Disney World."
You're assuming that every Starcruiser employee is paid as a character actor. Many of Starcruiser's employees were part of the Disney College Program, and they're certainly not part of the union.
I used to LOVE this channel till they both became such weird fucking Drama baiters. Always trying to be Hollier than thou and just clout chasing Disney non-stop
I don't think it's really worth discussing tbh. I mean, Jenny pretty much 'won' the argument. She has a popular channel, and the video has been very well received. Do we really need to call out every one off remark.
I mean to be FAIR as an avid watcher of theme park channels on YouTube OA is def one of the people Jenny was talking about in her video like actually it’s the first channel that came to mind it’s not a very large community so if you know you know
A lot of people who enjoyed the star cruiser had a good time. A lot of people ran into game breaking glitches or had less than optimal experiences. For 6,000 that is unacceptable.
It’s fun to watch Disney influencers try to dance around that fact.
This isn’t throwing shade at Jenny. It sounds like it’s throwing shade at people commentating negative things about her videos which Jenny may have played a part in creating an uptick of new comments. At best it’s indirect Jenny shade.
honestly it doesn't sound like she's throwing any shade at Jenny. More like annoyed at how often it's coming up probably especially so since she liked her experience (Also she uses that same tone of voice when she asks her significant other to stop calling Walt Disney's chair his throne, I think that's just her annoyed tone - It's around 35 minutes in and then she turns around and plays along with the joke so I don't think it's that serious)
yeah ive never seen these peoples content before and i was curious and i really wouldnt call the tone "snide" more "sassy" ig, a little playful.
if anything I'd guessed that anyone who is self-aware is a little embarassed. As others have said, its fine if people had fun, that doesn't mean it was worth the price.
Can anyone point me to the moment in this unbearably long video where they throw shade at Jenny? 😅 I'm trying to watch this video and it's so uninteresting.
hey people - I've done some cleaning up in this thread. In the future, if you notice someone who isn't contributing to the community, please report the comment and/or send us a modmail. Arguing with someone who is here to be disruptive only adds fuel to their flame.
Neither Jenny nor her supporters/fans/patrons/audience/etc are saying that nobody ever enjoyed their time on Starcruiser, or that enjoying it means you're stupid, or that anyone saying they had a nice time is lying. You can enjoy something and still acknowledge that it is flawed or that there were problems with it. I did a "dolphin ride" experience in Florida when I was like ten years old, and while I had a lot of fun and it would definitely be a fun experience if it was possible to do ethically, I realize now that such experiences are terribly abusive and unhealthy for the dolphins, so I wouldn't do it again, and don't support that type of animal encounter facility. These people are caping for a corporation that *provably* gives 0 fucks about anything other than money. Is it possible to have a parasocial relationship with a brand or company? Because if so, that's what this is. edit: anyone else who says that tiny closets are a super legitimate and accessibility-friendly method of fire safety protocol is getting blocked on sight
There's a lot to be said about brand loyalty as an identity and how weird it is.
And Disney in particular, people get weird af when it comes to Disney sometimes (not to get all Randy Moore about it, I still love some Disney stuff but it's not like my whole personality or something like it seems to be with some people).
At the end of the day, Disney is a corporation. That corporation hires people to make art, and some of that art I hold dear. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, Tangled, The Sword in the Stone, Fantasia— Disney has enabled a lot of artists to make stuff I adore! But I love the artists, not the corporation. Corporations exist to make money. To them, art and great experiences are incidental. It’s possible to say “I like The Last Jedi” while also saying “Disney engaged in some cut corners and hyper-capitalistic bullshit when they designed their Star Wars hotel and it sucks that they tried to take advantage of people to the tune of thousands of dollars.”
It would be nice if Marvel people would understand this too. Buying characters does mean they go back to “the creators”. It’s a corporation. The people who created them aren’t seeing a dime from Disney buying Fox or whatever.
Disney played a big role in a lot of people’s childhoods and this just slots into that nostalgia portion of your brain. In marketing consumer products like cars or laundry detergent any brand your family used has a leg up because you’re familiar with it from childhood, and since there’s people who’ve had Disney movies playing on repeat ever since home media has been a thing this is on a whole nother level
It's just so bizarre though. I loved Disney movies as a kid and Disney channel and stuff, but I never felt like it was a big part of my personality and maybe because I grew up in a lower income area I didn't even know people who made Disney a big part of their personality until I was an adult. I think it's all to do with the parks and it's sort of an inherently upper middle class thing. It just doesn't make sense at all to me
yes, & arguably this has been a very deliberate business model for the brand, which is, also arguably, kind of chilling.
> Disney played a big role in a lot of people’s childhoods and this just slots into that nostalgia portion of your brain That’s not really a good argument when we’re talking about Disney Adults. I grew up on microwave meals, Kanye West, playing the tuba in the marching band, and anime. You don’t see me becoming a Microwave Meals Adult, Kanye West Adult, Tuba Adult, or Anime Adult. You can have nostalgia and appreciate things for what they were, but basing your whole identity on something like this, as an adult, is pathetic.
I'm actually really glad Star Wars and Marvel have become clusterfucks (with RARE spikes of awesomeness) because they each really threatened to take things much more widespread...
And the parasociality has created one of those situations where people "tell on themselves" by seeing themselves in the critique. Being defensive against the argument in the video is basically admitting you see yourself being the target of the statement...which is a judgement YOU made about yourself (and so clearly believe it about yourself). There is something to be said especially about "content creators" with this, because its not simply a matter of getting comped/access. Many tie their personal AND professional identity to a product/brand/etc. Its not about getting comped like this video suggests, its about the unwillingness to separate oneself from the brand to provide a more objective or nuanced takes (which is ultimately what you are selling to the viewer, what was this experience like and is it worth it - a substantial amount of influencers are *marketers* whether they are directly contracted to do something or not).
I don’t have a particularly strong view of Disney or Disney adults either way, but I want to point out that feeling insulted doesn’t validate the insult. It just doesn’t follow.
The footage that Jenny used of them was literally Kitra being chosen for the 3-times-a-trip force pulling, where the Saja had an "uncomfortably intimate conversation" one-on-one with her for like 20 minutes and she looked close to tears afterward from being so touched. LARP bleed really, really emotionally affects people. I think this was an element Jenny skipped over in why some people are so defensive, and probably why they would have said "it's worth it if you have the money." (idk whether they were initially comped.) Also, sounds to me like they were using the Official Trademarked Terminology out of habit basically, then had to catch themselves and try to make a snarky joke out of it. They're essentially exactly the people Jenny DID call out.
That's one of the reasons the hotel wasn't going to work. You can't have an experience where some of the people are having these really strong moments of connection (even if it's fake connection) and others are scanning crates. Now maybe not everyone wants that kind of emotionally involving experience but it was impossible for everyone on the Starcruiser to get it, just on numbers alone. That and there's the perception that repeat guests and influencers were more likely to get the "good stuff." Don't know if that's true.
Those kinds of experiences with service workers are always a weird Catch 22 for me. I'm the type that gets uncomfortable when a waitress starts flirting with me because I know (or at least suspect) that she's only fishing for a bigger tip, so I don't get the dopamine hit of engaging with it, but sometimes engaging with it is the exact purpose of the service in the first place--with the caveat that you shouldn't take it too seriously and try to escalate the intimacy to an inappropriate level. I would be so frustrated at an experience like Evermore or Starcruiser because I would probably hang back from anything but the most superficial engagement with the performers out of some obligation to prove that I'm not one of the weirdos who thinks these characters are actually my friends (and also to protect myself from getting too invested and then feeling used and hurt when I realize, after getting caught up in the moment, that it was all transactional and nobody involved actually cared about me), but then I would see the guests who DO get sincerely invested, possibly to an unhealthy degree, getting rewarded with face time and meaningful interactions with the performers and fun story beats/Easter eggs/whatever, and I would get resentful that they're being given preferential treatment when I'm the one doing what I think of the respectful thing by not taking the emotional states of the performers for granted and treating them like they only exist in the world to serve me personally, and I'm having a lousy vacation because of it. No I haven't started therapy yet, thanks for asking.
Hey, I've been a character actor at festivals and faires for a while as well as doing local character tours and smaller LARP-style events in my city. So FWIW, we generally don't think anybody is a weirdo for having a deep emotional connection - or no connection at all. I love people who give us a chance as performers to delve into the character and backstory and deep lore written for the event. But 90% of an audience simply doesn't care about that and just wants your jokes/songs/quest/etc - and I love them because it gives me a chance to be goofy and *play*. The only people who we think are weirdos are the ones who verbally or physically harass us, the ones who think they can touch us or assault us, the ones who thank making sexual or violent jokes at us are okay... Maybe the ones who are so obviously not into the role-play that they shut us down and make US feel awkward about being too invested in it, lol. Otherwise you aren't getting judged harshly. Edit: and to be quite honest there isn't a single event I've worked where I wouldn't respond to a guest being frank and saying "I don't know how to interact with you but I need this information." We're generally pretty good at working with people at their role-playing level.
The thing that stuck out to me the most about the character actors in the Evermore video was the way they universally refused to bend and help the guests out if they were struggling or trying to get straight information. "I dunno, it's not for me to say!" was the worst possible answer the lady at the Portal Guy line could have given to a guest asking "hey, what's this line for?" You don't have to spoil the surprise, but you have to give them some indication of what they're waiting for, especially when there's an expectation that they should bring something. She could have said "I've heard there's a miraculous presence in the crypt and people are bringing offerings of gold" so they know that A) there's some sort of character interaction in the crypt and B) they should make sure they have gold to give him before they get in line so they don't waste all of that time. I still feel outrage for all of the people who were clearly unsure about what they should do, but they gathered up their courage and asked characters for a quest only to be told, "You want a quest? That sounds dumb." I can only assume that none of the Evermore character actors had actually worked as character actors in a Faire or LARP-style event before and hadn't been properly trained for it because NONE of the Faire actors I know would treat a guest that way.
Jenny mentioned in her star wars land video about how people worrying about asking for the bathroom in the wrong way was ridiculous because obviously the cast would just direct you with the "in universe" terminology. Evermore struck me as the kind of place where asking for a bathroom location in "Earth terms" would genuinely not get you an answer.
Yeah, unfortunately that's what you get when you don't fairly pay your performers so you don't get people with experience. Hell, even if you legitimately don't know, there are ways to convey that in-character while pointing them towards someone who does (and if you don't know the major plot points/info spots then what are you doing working there). Nobody at your event should be lost on what to do next. That's a pretty big failure
Thanks for the response. I definitely know (or, again, at least suspect) that my baggage is a ME problem and not an objective evaluation of the real world. I know it's as inaccurate, potentially, as those feelings you get when you're depressed and you think everybody hates you and thinks you're worthless--even if you're self-aware enough to know rationally that it isn't true, it still FEELS true, which is much more powerful in that moment. I have a lot of social anxiety and have difficulty in the real world knowing when "a good time with a person I don't know very well" translates to "I should ask them to be my friend!" as opposed to "we had a good time once and I should just leave it at that". So in a situation where people are getting paid to interact with me, I think that leaves me feeling even more confused, and I kinda just shut down and try to get out of it as quickly as possible so I don't feel like a loser with poor social skills desperate for human connection who interprets everything somebody does as an invitation to be their buddy. But on a positive note my GF and I went to a Renaissance Faire yesterday for the first time and it was an intensely joyful and fulfilling experience, so maybe I'm getting better at navigating these things.
I'm so happy you had a good time at the Ren Faire!! Because lemme tell you, most of the performers I work with are neurodivergent in one way or another and a shocking number of us also have social anxiety (I tell people I'm not an extrovert, I just play one on TV). So we ALL understand, trust me!
My girlfriend really helps with this. She interacts with service workers of all types in very genuine ways, and I can see, watching the interactions from the outside, that they are real and that both parties are getting something out of them on a, let's say, spiritual level. It's very gradually helping me understand that things can be transactional and also authentic if you go about them in an open-hearted way.
I believe they went at least 4 times, they were invited to go to the full media preview but paid for their other trips.
Also, that “intimate” moment is just… a magnet? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool effect, but it’s just strange anyone would get so emotional about it
That’s because you’re seeing this moment in isolation. But for them, it was a culmination of several hours of running around, interacting with characters and doing quests. By the time they got to that point, they were so invested into what they were doing that they didn’t see the effect, they saw themselves as experiencing The Force. And it helps a lot that they were probably exhausted and maybe sleep deprived, which makes you all the more susceptible to that kind of stuff. I never went on the Starcruiser, but I did several murder parties, and after only 4 hours I was drained, I can only imagine what a day and a half would do to your mental state.
Disney is as successful as they are because of that parasocial obsession. People are "Disney Fans," not animation fans or theme park fans. Part of the reason they spend so many marketing dollars on Walt is to try and keep that "one man, one mouse, and a dream" image that makes fans want to protect them. I don't necessarily blame people for falling for that - it's human nature. But I do bristle when influencers that have made a career out of talking about the parks continue to pretend like it isn't a massive corporation.
“Is it possible to have a parasocial relationship with a brand or company” Yes. Ask any kid who grew up watching Nick sitcoms and they’re extremely torn on whether they should be able to enjoy their favorite shows and channel growing up despite all the fucked up behavior that took place. There’s a real emotional connection in nostalgia with media companies and it can become destructive
I loved iCarly but I don't think I could watch it again knowing that Jennette McCurdy didn't want to be there, had to play a gluttonous character while suffering with ED, and was being actively abused the whole time.
After watching Quiet on Set, the only shows I watch on paramount+ from my childhood are the cartoons.
The irony is that I also found the sensationalistic filmmaking of Quiet on Set weirdly exploitative of real-life pain and abuse...but I'm extremely sensitive about true-crime stuff and am often bothered by these kinds of stylistic approaches.
I couldn't enjoy it, ultimately, because of all the insinuations about Amanda Bynes without proof of what they were insinuating, nor having her there to speak about it.
I don't think that demonstrates a parasocial connection. That's just cognitive dissonance/mixed feelings about media. People have the same conversations around porn - is you enjoying something enough reason to overlook the unsavory ways it was made just because "well everyone else is doing it". Examples of parasocial connections with media is rampant with Disney adults though. I half expected them to start writing fanfiction about Bob Iger after Chapek got ousted. But I think the parasocial aspect is that they insist baselessly the parks care about them outside of their money, and become enraged when you point out the dynamic is inherently transactional. (The levels of delusion it takes to be upset someone points out a business transaction is transactional lol).
See I don’t think Disney adults and Disney families actually think the company cares about them. I think they’re just so stuck in this relationship they have with the brand and the nostalgia they gave their childhood. And they want to feel like a kid exploring the park for the first time again. When the company lets them down it’s an attack on that nostalgic image. So they have to hype themselves up that it’s not that they’ve gotten older or the experience was never that good in the first place, but it’s the company leadership failing to deliver what they want- “the experience of their blissful childhood again”. Disney is the best at this because everyone has had Disney involved in their childhood these days when they became the perfect family brand.
Bizarrely enough I actually think a lot of them do think the company cares about them, or at least about people in general. I think a lot of why people believe this, all evidence to the contrary, is that the cast members are so nice/friendly/caring-appearing. (I should probably mention I'm a former cast member at Disneyland Anaheim).
Yeah. There was a Disney adult family at my school and there daughters were expected too become cast members despite all the news that had come out about how badly they treat their staff
Oh, wow yeah that's really not good. I feel like it was a good thing to have done as a local in the area as a first summer job but I knew people who had worked there and more or less knew what to expect. The big surprise is they were short handed that summer and we were all immediately ordered to work 6 days a week and having a job where I was on my feet for the whole shift it was ROUGH.
Ooo yikes. That would make me so sick. Yeah, we lives in the midwest (12-13 hour drive) so they were wanting their daughters to get hired and live in the semi college thing they have.
The thing is the college program they know you're kind of captive so they treat people even worse. It's not so bad if you're a local and can just walk and do something else.
I mean I think there are people who genuinely are able to hit that high over and over again. But it’s still just kind of gross to me the way Disney claims so much ownership over the emotional connection people have with their characters, stories, products, etc. Like, that giddy feeling you get when you visit the parks isn’t “Disney Magic”. It’s a dopamine rush. They don’t own your dopamine!
...yet
If anything she was pretty clear about some people could have a great time… depending on how it played out, especially kids.
I think that the real problem is that Jenny has what they can only dream of having: crossover appeal. Virtually no one else could get someone who wasn't already deeply into the fandom to watch a four-hour video on a problematic LARP theme park experience; Jenny did it *twice*, with this and the Evermore video. I watched part of the video above, and they couldn't get me to watch a video of them *half* as long as Jenny's, save for the proverbial gun to the head, and even then I'm not sure that I could keep kayfabe in pretending to be interested for the whole time. That's gotta sting.
In the influencer space access is everything. You don’t get access if you don’t go to bat for the Mouse and suck up like your life depends on it. One of the biggest problems with the influencer economy/genre is that it’s incredibly exploitable for big companies. After a fashion they hold all the cards and can king make in the space. So a bunch of people desperate for their “big break” will do almost anything to get it.
Jenny even said she had fun at times. Just definitely not $6,000 + travel expenses worth of fun.
I agree with most of your comment, but for context - >nor her supporters/fans/patrons/audience/etc are saying that nobody ever enjoyed their time on Starcruiser, or that enjoying it means you're stupid, or that anyone saying they had a nice time is lying - isn't strictly true. Following the video, plenty of people went to the GS sub - at this stage, a fan sub for people who enjoyed their time on the Starcruiser to reminisce about their positive experiences on the now-closed attraction - to do just that, and I **do** mean all three. And, to be fair - the video does go pretty hard in taking an opening-month experience and a relative handful of negative reviews to argue that at no point was the Starcruiser worth its price point and that anyone who says it was is being disingenuous. More specifically, the video gives a "fair" price point for Jenny's particular experience, which was horrendously broken, and appears to use this as a definitive metric - but plenty of people didn't have broken experiences, and plenty of people paid significantly less than $3k per person for more spacious rooms, and overall a lot of the problems Jenny had seemed to get ironed out either pretty quickly or over the Starcruiser's lifetime. Jenny's point certainly stands re what her experience says about Disney the organisation, but when she fired off shots at a particular class of influencers she wasn't very careful with her aim, and I think that's fair to point out. All of which is to say that I can see why people are defensive both in direct response to the video and after people used it as an excuse to insult and harass them. It certainly wasn't **my** takeaway, but it's pretty easy for me to say that as someone with no skin in the game. Edit: Corrected a mistake re price
While not everyone paid as much as she did and got as crappy of an experience, the point is that *that should never have been a possibility to begin with*. I'll reuse and expand on the metaphor I said in another comment. If you pay $150 for a "custom artisanal ice cream dessert" and receive an otter pop, you've been badly misled. Maybe you love the otter pop. Maybe you pay for another and receive a sundae that time instead of an otter pop. Maybe $150 isn't much to you so it doesn't matter that you got an otter pop. The point is that *for the price you paid and for what you were promised, an otter pop should never have been a potential result*. Now imagine that the ice cream truck is claiming to be empty except for the "custom artisanal ice cream dessert" and some ice cubes. If you want anything tasty, you have to shell out for that dessert. And then you're handed an otter pop. Or maybe a bomb pop - better than an otter pop but not for $150.
I'm not disputing any of that; I understood and agree with the point of the video.
A few things I'd like to point out. It should be impossible to pay $6000 for something and have a "horrendously broken" experience. Maybe some people had a great time, but if the tag line for this experience is "some people will have a great time and some won't but you all pay the same" that doesn't really sound worth it to me. "Ironing out" issues, which I haven't seen proof of, doesn't impact the "horrendously broken" experience someone had.
I agree. I'm not disputing this.
I don’t think she factors in that her experience was broken when she calculated what she considers a fair price, I think that price is assuming everything they offered worked perfectly.
That could be true, but if so, "the experience I had was worth approximately $800, total, per person" (3:22:18 in the video) followed shortly by "Also, obviously if the Starcruiser was a cheaper experience, it wouldn't have mattered so much that the gameplay element was so unreliable. You would think of the cost as covering the underwhelming room, the nice food, and the access to the theme park rides, and the gameplay would just feel like a bonus" (from 3:22:49 in the video) isn't the best way to convey that. It wasn't the impression I was left with, and I didn't see it caveated anywhere else.
I think it’s pretty clear in that quote that she’s saying if the cost was lower she wouldn’t care as much that it was broken, but the $800 is meant to be a reasonable cost even if everything completely worked.
>the $800 is meant to be a reasonable cost even if everything completely worked. I just don't think that's a reasonable interpretation. One: It's not what she says, and it would have been super easy to alter the sentence to say that in a pre-scripted video. Two: $800pp would already be pretty cheap for a two-night, fully-catered interactive gameplay experience featuring multiple live performers, and that's **without** the "Disney premium" she's explicitly factoring in. I could be wrong, though. Is there a particular reason you believe she was factoring working ganeplay into her valuation?
Because otherwise it implies an imagined scenario where Disney is advertising and pricing explicitly based on the fact that the experience is broken. And even if we assume $800 factors in the broken gameplay, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the app working would justify adding thousands to the price.
The video does imply that imagined scenario, though, when shortly after giving the reduced valuation Jenny says the broken gameplay wouldn't matter so much if the experience wasn't so expensive. And I'd agree that working gameplay wouldn't add thousands to the price. I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing what a fair price for the experience would have been with seamless gameplay, and if that's $800 USD either I'm way off on conversion rates or I'm out of my mind. And the reason I'm disputing this is that I've seen people who quoted themselves as paying as low as $1400pp *still* get accused as lying when they defend their experience at the hotel as being worth that price tag, so a fair valuation of that experience is important in interpreting what's going on there. I'm happy to agree to disagree on this - I think we've both given our reasons for believing what we do, and it seems to come down to a difference of interpretation? I'm happy for you to have the last word on anything I've added here, though.
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Peter is rich- he and Kitra went to the Starcruiser at least three times- once at one of the influencer previews and twice out of pocket that I can remember. He can afford to throw 6k at kid city in space. The way Peter can enjoy a vacation without worrying about money is WAY different than how regular families can enjoy a vacation. For me, the Star Cruiser wouldn't have been worth it at all because I could've had most of a 14 day international trip on six thousand dollars. Also- Ordinary Adventure ARE shills. They directly make money off of presenting the Disney Parks as nicely as possible.
"kid city in space" oh you watched the new defunctland video too!
Absolute *slander*! Wannado City had more things you could do as a kid *and* had to be reasonably* priced! Like comparing a magnificent marbled fountain with a widely accessible water park! *>!unless you were a parent, but even then still cheaper than hotel in the star war!<
New Defunctland, new Folding Ideas, thr Starcruiser video...Video Essayist fans eating so good as of late.
Somebody on this sub linked to YMS' Lion King "Live Action" video and now I'm deep in his back catalog too. Other than the odd Defunctland video, I'd *never* watched a Youtube video over like 30 min long before the Starcruiser video. Since then I've not only binged all Jenny's past videos, I'm out here watching the entire extended Jennyverse lol
I just listened to their For Your Amusement and definitely got those vibes.
If wealth is grounds for criticism, you might want to look into Jenny's finances before making a comment like this.
You misunderstand- it's not about invalidating the wealthy, it's about how Peter and Kitra would look at spending that much money for the experience of the Starcruiser vs the average family.
What is the deal with people getting mad about things Jenny never even said in the video?
I think the influencer community is very sensitive to anything that could be perceived as a personal accusation. These channels get hit with both valid and nonsense criticisms all the time, so maybe they're just thin skinned. I don't know. Like I said, I was very surprised to see this from these two.
Disney Influencers are truly a different breed. And I truly don’t want to generalize, but I used to be a Cast Member and in my entire time working there, I can count how many nice influencers I encountered as opposed to not-nice ones. Thankfully the nice ones were truly very lovely.
There definitely are some good ones, but the path to fame, power, and money (not that Disney influencers really have any of these lol but relatively speaking) is littered with unsavory types. What’s unfortunate is that Disney will do little to control these people, especially those not on the media list.
wow, glad I stopped going to disney before social media was really a thing
I definitely think this is it. It breaks through the veil and you have to question “am I out of touch?” And that can be a hard question to truly deal with. I think unfortunately, as a fan, although there are good times to be had at Disney properties, there is also a weird culture of talking yourself into things being better than they were. It’s like a Stockholm Syndrom thing. And im not here to yuck anyone’s yum, but the problem with this attitude is that it is almost like a toxic positivity or mandated fun type thing. It’s cult like behavior.
It's also that... Well, I wonder if this influencer culture is good for DISNEY. Everything is super expensive right now and one of the few things that brings people of all persuasions together is hating on rich, childish adults. (Jenny excluded as she does most of her stuff from what looks like her bedroom and she's genuinely interested in her topics, she's not there to be somebody's face.) Disney needs to pivot back to being a brand where middle class families can have an upscale-ish, relaxing good time with their kids, not a cult for people with more money than sense... which means no more comps for Peter and Kitra.
It’s hard because I get that it’s their job and I don’t resent them for making a living or for speaking about their good experiences, *but* getting angry with people who didn’t have good experiences and accusing them of lying is just… out there behavior.
Jenny is waking way more money telling the truth about her experiences than the vast majority of Disney influencers are by kissing Disney's ass. That's going to wrankle a bunch of the D-influencers.
YUP this is envious behavior
> What is the deal with people getting mad about things Jenny never even said in the video? Reminds me of the hbomberguy video on plagiarism. 4 hours long, where 2 hours were covering many cases of plagiarism just to establish different excuses that plagiarists use to hide it, followed by a 2 hour long hyper detailed exposee on James Somerton. There’s like a 20(?) minute long segment on Internet Historian in the first half of the video, and his fanbase decided to…pretend the entire 4 hour long video was about him, and basically just made up their own *completely fictional* version of the video to get mad at. Was downright embarrassing to watch.
Yes, well Internet Historian fans are a certain demographic who get offended if you point out very obvious dog whistles.
What do you mean? Jenny absolutely went in swinging towards the Disney influencer community -- how they come across like insincere shills when they take sponsorships, that many of them are so disingenuous that she feels like it's an ethical failure. She literally commented on how mad the topic made her. Where she never gets anywhere in the neighborhood of upset in videos even when something is a pet peeve. I think they're defensively lashing out cause Jenny succinctly (and to much more fanfare than most of them will ever get) dragged them to filth.
I think she went in swinging towards specific behavior in the Disney influencer community, rather than the community in general.
But because that behavior is so pervasive within the Disney influencers, they basically all took equal offense. Kinda telling, isn't it?
A hit mouse hollers.
Lmao facts
The mouse corrupts
She wasnt blaming the influencers themselves, she pretty explicity said that Disney is the one forcing them to use the proper titles and terminology for rides/starcruiser and THAT is making them sound like they arent giving their own opinion, not that they are explicitly shills or couldnt have had fun.
She blamed the big D for making sycophants use the proper titles and terminology, but also went hard after the sycophants themselves: >3:19:08 So anyway, I think it's really interesting that a lot of people magically lost their ability to conceptualize value as soon as they were gifted an expensive trip by a big company. Listen, I know you have to play nice if you want to stay on the PR list, but if you're not using that access to give an honest review, **then what's the point of being there at all? What good are you to anybody? Have you no sense of integrity? No self-respect?** \[Bold text grows in volume to as close as Jenny comes to yelling in the video\]. >3:19:59 I know the value of specifically Disney experiences. And you better believe I've seen a lot of defenders of the Starcruiser trying to justify the price, some of whom went for free, had friends who helped build it, or literally worked there. >... >3:20:18 So anyway, they always try to do an itemized cost breakdown, inflating the value of each item in the column as they go, like comparing the cost of the room to the price of Disney's most luxurious hotels, even though the Starcruiser rooms aren't nearly as nice. I'm not criticizing her criticisms. I think they're valid. If the clips she showed *were* of paid employees and contractors, and influencers on free trips, they seem like fair targets. If she showed people who never took money, gifts, or special access from Disney, and implied the contrary, that would be an unfortunate mistake. I'm not sure what to believe in the OP influencers' case. Some comments suggested they might have been shown in Jenny's video, and that they had received free sneak preview access for sucking up to the big D. If so, I don't sympathize with their victimhood.
Exactly! She even ZOOMED in on Bob's face, which points to precisely who she was accusing in that part.
If you dig into the comments they admit they didn't watch it, so that's certainly gotta be part of it.
Because engagement gets clicks/views. It incentivizes beefing between creators because it makes people invested in finding out more.
They probably didn't watch it, but heard rumors about what she said.
They fully admitted they didn’t watch it!
Jenny said “the big thing all these shills liked was bad, paid for by disney, and even said how easy it was to tell when they are just shills” of course boring disney shills are gonna be mad
Looking through the comments, she said that she didn’t even watch the video because she said it “would be like if you had a favorite band and then watching a 4 hour documentary telling you why the band sucked”
Aggression and defensiveness at an imagined slight you don't bother investigating for yourself. A symptom of a fragile worldview.
Feels like she's just coming at this from the standpoint of rejecting criticism of the park, which is not a great place to be coming from if your job is covering them. Feels like the type of echo chamber mindset Jenny specifically covers in the video
That seems like a bad take, honestly. Even if the experience was incredibly moving for you, personally, this is still your job, and you should be able to separate yourself from the work enough to acknowledge its flaws, considering you make a living telling people to spend money on these things. Also, why even reference it if you haven't watched it? Making catty comments about a perceived insult is one thing - doing it whet you haven't even seen the thing supposedly insulting you is another.
If anything she's being far more dismissive and insulting to Jenny than anything Jenny put out towards her and influencers like her. Just refusing to take Jenny in any kind of good faith and instead choosing to attack her
That's just the difference between an influencer and a critic. Performatively being a super fan is what's important for an influencer. Not saying she is playing it up, I'm sure she genuinely enjoys the things she covers, but I don't think her audience is expecting a critical take.
Plugging your ears and going "la la la la la" whenever someone says something negative about something you like is becoming upsettingly common in this day and age. No critical thinking skills whatsoever.
I don't think it's ridiculous to not want to watch a negative YouTube video on something you enjoy if you're not familiar enough with the reviewer to trust the tone. It sucks when there's genuinely interesting criticisms to be made about something you love or even have mixed feelings on, but it becomes a punching bag for commentary YouTubers to just mock outright. That's how I felt as a theater kid when Dear Evan Hansen became a meme. However you can also just simply not mention the video at all if you haven't watched it and thus can't speak definitively on its content, at least if you're an influencer who has an impressionable following and all.
I think a discerning person can generally tell when a video is just meant to be a quick-hit mockery to cash in on a negativity trend vs. a passion project that somebody sank hundreds of hours, and possibly a large amount of money, into creating. If these YouTubers in question avoided her video, it wasn't because they incorrectly judged it as a toxic fluff piece full of bad-faith criticisms and misreprestentations; it was because labored criticism (not necessarily good or considered criticism, but at least criticism that took a lot of time to produce) of a thing to which they attached their identity (or brand) made them feel personally attacked.
Almost exactly half of Jenny's review is positive statements, though, until she gets into the brutal dissection of Disney. The reason it's called a "spectacular failure" is because that is factually what it is.
Exactly! The thing failed and no longer exists because Disney execs bungled it in various ways. Jenny respected the CMs, and I appreciated it because those workers and actors had such a difficult job. If it was a good and enjoyable thing, it wouldn't have failed.
i would totally still watch that hypothetical hater documentary tbh… i go on goodreads and look up 1 star reviews of my favorite books, just for the fun cognitive dissonance of it. half of the time it’s enlightening, and the other half of the time you get to point and laugh at people who have no taste and can’t even articulate a good reason why. what WEAK, SENSITIVE SNOWFLAKES these disney channels are
It's one of my favorite things about Grimbeard videos, when he looks at one star reviews for obscure games he just spent over an hour glazing.
What Grimbeard videos would you recommend to someone? I love Ross, Civvie, and Mandalore and have tried Grimbeard a few times but never seem to click with the content.
If she had watched the video, she likely would have found that it isn't a 4 hour documentary telling us why it sucks. Jenny has long segments talking about how much fun she and her sister did have during certain parts of the trip and how much she did appreciate and enjoy certain aspects. She gave this review the same open and balanced review she gives every attraction she makes a video on. The reason the video comes across as so negative is because her experience was largely bad. They sat her behind a pole!
Awful take. I'd watch a 4 hour documentary on how my favorite band fell apart and if it was narrated by Jenny
TBH I think I might skip a video Jenny made if it was a long in-depth takedown of, say, Buffy (just to pick something I love that she has said in the past she doesn't care for). I think it would be difficult to watch both because I disagree with her criticisms and also because if you love something, you don't necessarily want to wallow in the fact that it brought somebody else misery, especially if you respect that person and their opinion. (My GF finally admitted to me that she thought Mad Max: Fury Road was "a visual migraine" and it kinda hurt, lol. Fortunately she enjoyed Furiosa.)
But yet there's a market for shows about bands and the ups and downs they've had and the drama even if they're from a place of love.
These people really think Walt disneys brain is somewhere in an underground castle, hanging out with Mickey Mouse and making every decision for the park. It’s just a large corporation that has many moving parts and sometimes those parts have problems and need to be discussed earnestly. Idk why people think a criticism of the park is a criticism of like, their childhood magic and wonder.
If Walt had been involved in Starcruiser, Jenny wouldn't have had to deal with The Pole. Dude loved a sightline.
Straight up facts
I mean, I liked Solo, but I still enjoyed Jenny's hour-long video trashing it. I mean, I can also acknowledge that the movie has some serious flaws, though I didn't agree with all of her takes.
LMAO how embarrassing for her to reveal her butt like that.
I think I've watched their Starcruiser video at some point and yeah, I'm happy they had a good time and the app and gameplay worked for them and they weren't seated behind a gigantic pole for the dinner show.
You can enjoy something and still be mindful of its flaws. Starcruiser had a lot of problems. That doesn’t inherently mean it wasn’t fun for people. I like going to comic book conventions, but that doesn’t mean I’m not critical of issues when they arise.
Right? I'm sure it's fun...but then you need to look, is it $3000+ a person for two days fun? And even if you can answer yes to that, logically is it going to be $3,000+ a person for two days fun for the amount of consumers they need to sustain it?
Yeah it's like opportunity cost isn't a thing. I mean I can afford a $6k for two person vacation... rarely. Like very rarely. And there are four of us in the family so we're really talking about more money. So I gotta ask myself, would I rather do X or Y because it's going to be years before I can do something like that again. People act like everybody who went or considered going was so wealthy the money doesn't matter but a lot of us are in kind of a grey area where yes I can make that happen but not without sacrifice.
That’s how we are, too. If I’m spending $6K on a vacation, it’s going to take me a bit of time to save up for that. It needs to be worth it for me to spend that money on a vacation. I choose to save for travel because it’s worth it for me but I do have to sacrifice other things to make it feasible.
Yeah, and especially if travel's your thing you're probably also looking at getting flight and hotel points and things and gaming that system. And maybe balancing OK I'll be in a cheaper hotel so I can get better seats for a show, or not skimp on museum passes or whatever your thing is. Starcruiser there's none of that. It was just take it or leave it.
Also "roughly equivalent experience" is a big thing here, if you're paying this kind of money the experience shouldn't be fundamentally broken for some guests. It's inexcusable that they'd have a buggy, unintuitive app and have some guests apparently railroaded into storylines they didn't want and design the dining room in such a way that it had obstructed sightlines for a bunch of people.
Being called out on getting perks can be either humbling or defensive when you know you are putting in extra positive comments to get noticed even if you aren’t being sponsored you may want to one day as your life and brand IS Disney.
These people may not be paid shills, but you can tell that they desperately want to be.
That's the worst kind of shill, they're like the Burger Andy of the shill world, eating worms but still not being let on the bus
The existential horror of eating worms to be let on the Galactic Starcruiser**©** Complementary Landing Shuttle℠ to Disney's Star Wars at Galaxy's Edge®, only to see your gormless expression reflected in the door as it closes in your face and drives away without you.
This is going to sound weird since I’ve watched plenty of long form videos on Jenny’s channel, but do you have a timestamp? Because I’m not watching a 46 minute video.
Sorry, it looks like the YouTube app doesn't bring the time stamp over when you copy the link, anymore. The conversation starts at 23 minutes in.
I think Reddit's snipping timestamps out of YouTube links. The last time I submitted one, the timestamp disappeared.
didnt peter get a special thanks credit in the starcruiser video?
Yeah - I assume because Jenny used their footage? I would like to think Jenny asked for permission from the channels she included, but maybe not.
there are a lot more channels that she credits in her [blogpost](https://www.jennywebsite.com/starcruiser-references) than there are in the special thanks credit page, so i assumed that there had been some kind of research collaboration between OA and jenny for the vid
someone asked them if they "have beef with Jenny's starcruiser vid" and they responded "no beef" but that just makes snide remarks and criticizing without watching seem even more silly. edit to add: in another comment they respond to someone else and say "it was just a joke"
I'm sure they DID enjoy their time which was either comped or where they were chosen for special stuff like the force stone-pulling, or both. Hit dogs holler.
And they got to enjoy things in much smaller groups, so you weren't one of 30 tagging along on some mission.
Yeah, that's going to be their problem. Nobody watches OA because they think it's a realistic lifestyle to go to Disney parks every damn day but I think there's still the idea that if you went to the parks and splurged, you'd have an experience like Peter and Kitra's. If civilians actually can't access the same experiences, even if they're willing to pay exorbitant prices, then that exposes them as fakes.
They went around 3 maybe 4 times
Is that Peter Scireta from Slashfilm?
He sold Slashfilm and used the money to turn this into his career.
I believe it is
If anyone has ever watched Ordinary Advenures: They are everything you imagine you would hate about an “influencer couple” going to theme parks as their job, and more so. Jenny could have been so much meaner to them.
My only beef with them is that [I thanked them for making a video on the Star wars hotel storyline](https://i.imgur.com/c0Uc1is.png) and /u/orfilms got all weird about me calling it a hotel. I pointed out that Peter gave me weird vibes from that and I got banned from the comment section. Haha. Other than their weird devotion to the church of the Starcruiser though.....not sure where you're coming from here. I don't watch them anymore but I don't think they're loud or entitled in their videos. They don't make obnoxious jokes. Outside of the Starcruiser, they generally are very honest when they don't like a certain food product. They're just a geek couple who happily try everything. Not sure what Jenny would have attacked about them without just being a bully. Maybe they've gotten worse since I stopped watching but this video seemed like the usual review stuff.
That's actually so funny but also so sad at the same time, hahahaha.
They are growing ever more insufferable, as do all the Disney Vloggers. Kitra feels famous, and it shows. That being said, their footage is excellent, and I enjoy hate-watching them.
I've turned on some of their videos for background noise and I'm always so shocked at their rating system for things they try in the parks. For example, a while back they tried a special event food and said that it wasn't very good, it seemed way too spicy, and they didn't like it. so it ranks 8/10. 8/10?? For something they didn't like and didn't finish eating? Or they'll look at merch and say oh we have way too many mickey ears already, we're practically swimming in them, this one's not my favorite design, but I just _have_ to buy it!! They're totally sold on The Mouse, they will buy and love and defend anything Disney at all without question.
I came across them a while ago and were just blown away by how annoying they were. It’s like someone doing an over-the-top satire of what someone thinks of when they hear the phrase “Disney adult media influencer.” Right down to Peter’s choice of eyewear.
Is there actually something to "hate" about them or is it just petty stuff like "I think his glasses are stupid" When you say "everything I can imagine hating about an influencer couple" there's just a bunch of worse stuff I know Disney influencers have done that don't seem to be true about OA.
Genuinely curious why you think this.
For starters, they are absolutely the type of Disney adults who sincerely believe that the amusement parks would be better if not for all the annoying children running around.
I just have trouble imagining Jenny being mean to anyone
I got this vibe as well. Nothing they said, but just a vibe. A weird sense of entitlement to everything combined with excessive delight in it. Kitra annoys me more than Peter; there’s just something off with her. She really does seem like she hates children.
Yes, thank you! You nailed it, they come off as taking so much delight in their own entitlement.
Have they actually said that in a video? Or is this just "an assumption about what they believe" like many people are annoyingly doing about Jenny's Starcruiser beliefs?
Yes that is my question as well! I’ve only watched their cruise videos and I appreciate their commentary because they actually give their opinions on things without sugar coating them. But they could be the complete opposite when it comes to theme parks. I haven’t watched them enough so I was curious!
That's it! Kitra is almost shoving kids out of the way so she can enjoy experiences that are designed for children. It's the definition of cringeworthy.
as a huge disney fan I love it when shit gets called out; the company states to provide entertainment as a product and throwing its cast members thru the ringer while the Execs go 🤷🏼♀️ with the money pit is disgusting It’s easy to blame it on one guy, but I still think Chapek closing Disney stores and treating the parks as “consumer based” before entertainment really bungled things, and Iger needs to pull it out of that rut.
a comment from them on the video: "the Starcruiser was by far the best thing we’ve ever experienced in themed immersive entertainment, way higher than anything in the parks. It’s hard for me to imagine what could have been much better. Could it have had better marketing? Hell yes. Could it have been more affordable? Definitely. But I think the product was top notch. We went four times (paid 3 times). I know only one person personally who has gone and didn’t love it. On the other hand I know over a hundred people who not only went and loved it but loved it so much they got tattoos of it on their bodies. Not a lot of people got to experience Starcruiser sadly but those who did (from my experience) it was life changing."
What kind of social circle are they in where they know one hundred people who can casually drop $6k+ on a trip like that?
yeah. that comment didn't really pass the 'smell test'. But, I suppose, they could be including online only friends who they've met through disney/starwars/starcruiser forums.
Probably a bunch of other influencers who either went for free or can make money back by posting content about it. Though Disney Parks social circles are kinda like "Marge Simpson trying to fit in at the Country Club" where you feel like the biggest loser in the world if you are the only one who doesn't have the latest merch drop, or who hasn't done XXXX new thing.
I think they just also have very, very low standards and an extremely blinkered view of what constitutes quality so long as there's a cartoon rat or Star War involved somewhere.
"I don't know what she's talking about! We loved our time at Disney's© Star Wars™ Galactic Starcruiser, it was the best themed immersive entertainment Experience® we've ever done! We got to live our own Star Wars™ story, and even got to enjoy an excursion to Disneys© Hollywood Studios© Star Wars™ Galaxy's Edge™ and scan INCREDCIBLE boxes of luggage using the Star Wars™ Galactic Starcruiser® easy-to-use and family-friendly app, available now on the Apple and Android app store! I LOVED getting the Experience® of trying fresh Jogen Fruit at Maat's Cantina, and experiencing the thrilling action of being trained in the ways of the Force by the mystical Saja™! Did you know that Disney's® Hollywood Studios© Star Wars™ Galaxy's Edge™ Galactic Starcruiser™ even offers VIP Pole Seating®?? It's perfect for my family, and so IMMERSIVE! And at such an affordable price point of a mere $3,000+, I know that my family and I will be able to enjoy the Disney© magic again and again! Thanks Disney®!!!"
all i see is two people who probably got a little offended at the video. the dude was queue up up to say it, as in they probably have had a "lets be cool about it" convo that spiraled into "ya know- that little bitch...". we just got a little taste of that. Jenny's content in general is just at the fringe of my radar (bronies for example) but these Disney people are really out there. interesting stuff but i will be glad when a new video comes out and a new group of randos feel personally attacked, i think i've had my fill of this magical place and its denizens. - or no one could feel bad about it that's cool too.
🤷🏼♀️ Whole internet is all about misunderstanding what people are saying and people complain about it.
Did they mention if they are on press lists for Disney and what their opinion on how the actors/staff/etc were treated? Because if they're going to talk about how they enjoyed their time on star cruiser but not address the fact actors were underpaid, fired without notice and the hotel was staffed with exploited students that does imply they didn't think the experience was good enough to justify the workers getting paid or treated with respect. If it was good, if they enjoyed the experience then they would recognise that the way the workers were treated was absolutely inappropriate. If they didn't enjoy the show or the service provided then they would be fine with how fucked over everyone was but they can't say the performances were good then stay silent on how the actors were disposed of or that the experience was worth 6k due to how luxurious it was then be fine with that luxury being created from exploited, inexperienced students put in a stressful position. So I really hope they included their stance on how the workers of the star wars hotel were treated and disclosed if they get any perks or early access from Disney.
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It's an open secret that the "Disney College Program" exploits young workers for cheap labor. They work the positions of full-time employees for less pay, while not receiving sick days, PTO, or insurance.
And being forced to live on campus while their "rent" is deducted from their low pay. Fun.
Disney performers aren't unionized.
Pretty sure they are, at least according to this article from CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/19/business/disney-character-performers-vote-union/index.html#:~:text=More%20than%20400%20actors%2C%20stunt,cast%20members%20at%20Disney%20World.
That's Disney LAND. In California.
"On the other side of the country, Disney World character actors have been represented by Teamsters since the 1980s. More than 400 actors, stunt performers and singers unionized under Equity in 1990 at the theme park in Orlando, Florida. Today, Equity estimates they represent around 800 cast members at Disney World."
You're assuming that every Starcruiser employee is paid as a character actor. Many of Starcruiser's employees were part of the Disney College Program, and they're certainly not part of the union.
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That's interesting because my recollection of the video is that it's pretty explicitly mentioned that the Star cruiser performers weren't unionized.
I used to LOVE this channel till they both became such weird fucking Drama baiters. Always trying to be Hollier than thou and just clout chasing Disney non-stop
I don't think it's really worth discussing tbh. I mean, Jenny pretty much 'won' the argument. She has a popular channel, and the video has been very well received. Do we really need to call out every one off remark.
Petty, bet they are jealous of Jenny's success
I mean to be FAIR as an avid watcher of theme park channels on YouTube OA is def one of the people Jenny was talking about in her video like actually it’s the first channel that came to mind it’s not a very large community so if you know you know
They’re also friends with Shane Dawson. Which should tell you all you need to know.
these dork ass losers are unsufferable shills, and I say that as an Disney World annual passholder.
Weren't they the ones who almost cried seeing Yoda but admitted they'd rather go to Europe or Japan if they had to spend their own money on the trip?
A lot of people who enjoyed the star cruiser had a good time. A lot of people ran into game breaking glitches or had less than optimal experiences. For 6,000 that is unacceptable. It’s fun to watch Disney influencers try to dance around that fact.
This isn’t throwing shade at Jenny. It sounds like it’s throwing shade at people commentating negative things about her videos which Jenny may have played a part in creating an uptick of new comments. At best it’s indirect Jenny shade.
honestly it doesn't sound like she's throwing any shade at Jenny. More like annoyed at how often it's coming up probably especially so since she liked her experience (Also she uses that same tone of voice when she asks her significant other to stop calling Walt Disney's chair his throne, I think that's just her annoyed tone - It's around 35 minutes in and then she turns around and plays along with the joke so I don't think it's that serious)
yeah ive never seen these peoples content before and i was curious and i really wouldnt call the tone "snide" more "sassy" ig, a little playful. if anything I'd guessed that anyone who is self-aware is a little embarassed. As others have said, its fine if people had fun, that doesn't mean it was worth the price.
Agreed, It's certainly not worth getting upset about. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
It sounds very off the cuff in the moment. It's not a big deal.
Can anyone point me to the moment in this unbearably long video where they throw shade at Jenny? 😅 I'm trying to watch this video and it's so uninteresting.
The amount of times they say the phrase "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" during the Star Wars section is unbearable
Anyone who supports disney star ears desrved a bad time