Just saying because nearly every person I know who has ADHD and/or Autism (including myself) seems to care less about people knowing they're into "childish" things.
Also the idea that this is a new phenomenon because Millenials and older gen Z are "soft" or stunted in some way.
I mean, boomers have model trains and and cars. So did their parents. My grandma used to knit herself plushies. This isn't new. You don't suddenly stop having your old likes because you reach a certain age.
Every Disney adult I know was very sheltered as a child, including homeschooling. They weren't allowed to watch anything outside of Disney, they had strict curfews, made straight As in school, and they always have a big smile. I'm not saying that being happy and well adjusted makes you creepy or stupid, no no no. But every Disney adult I've met has a creepy level of positivity and a strong aversion towards thinking about anything negative. They can't watch anything scary, can't speak negatively about anything, won't swear.
And yes, they're complete reactionaries, of the golden era past variety. The mainstreet USA, straw boater hat, women with petticoats, Norman Rockwell. That's the kind of vibe I get from them.
The ones I've met are libs and either had that kind of strict background or were latch key kids with parental locks on the TV etc. I was a latch key kid who'd go rent my own movies unsupervised. Even as a kid I saw the future Disney adults in the making and they all just seemed to occupy this fantasy mindset that usually ends around age 10.
I wish boaters would come back into fashion again. There was this party where the host was giving them out to everyone and I looked good in one. But it's about as socially acceptable as a trilby these days, sadly.
You'll have a lot more fun if you just wear the boater and walk around like it's completely normal answering any questions about it like they're the weird ones, "Where's yours? Did you forget it at home?"
My disdain for Disney Adults comes entirely from my blistering unbridled hatred for Disney, tyvm
yeah it's been said a couple of times here but making your consumption of a product your entire identity is worthy of ridicule. people shouldn't brand themselves with their favorite products
The "childish" things with less corporate worship are better.
Absolutely nothing wrong with having hobbies or being into childish things but to me "manchild" shit starts to arise when you start doing shit like gatekeeping your hobbies from women and poc or attack anyone trying to make it inclusive. Disney, Nintendo, Marvel et all are billion dollar industries after all thanks to adults flush with excess cash.
Who is the prototypical manchild, it's like an older unhygienic dude in a fedora who's an asshole and sore loser (and a even sorer winner) that hogs tables at your friendly local gamestores pokemom tcg event who also manages to turn away any non older unhygienic dudes with hateful rhetoric and antiquated attitudes. Or I guess there's the weird right wing youtube commentators with a cartoon as an avatar gatekeeping TV aimed at children (that was not made with them in mind, like the modern She-Ra or whatever and that they have no personal childhood connection to).
I guess Disney Adult isn't like that, the prototypical Disney Adult is probably a mid 30s lady making 6 figures with an email job who spends tens of thousands of dollars on Disney stuff and vacations and probably talks about Disney a lot. It probably doesn't help that they have theater kid vibes as well. But at least they aren't harmful or hateful like "manchildren." Nintendo Adult is a new thing to me, I don't know which way they swing between God awful manchild or inoffensive Disney Adult.
disney adult and nintendo adult seem way more specific than manchild, like i'm pretty sure a bunch of the disney freaks are perfectly neurotypical.
manchildren are probably a mix of people who didn't get care (and deserve some accommodation if we're not definitionally excluding non-harmful behavior) and "weaponized incompetence" types who could simply make better choices.
it's ok to enjoy things, including childish things. I play video games and watch anime. I always got the impression a Disney adult isn't someone who simply enjoys Disney things, but rather, their personality is consumption and they can't decide who they are without attaching brands to themselves
it would work with any brand. Imagine someone who follows all the news about Colgate toothpaste, wears a Colgate logo shirt, cuddles with Toothy the Toothbuddy™ Colgate® Official Stuffed animal and that's their entire personality. And they're not even a dentist, they just love the brand
I like to make fun of disney adults because the one's I've known were really annoying libs, but I can see where you're coming from. One thing I do really hate is when people rip on disney adults in the context of trying to pat themselves on the back for having "adult/ mature" tastes because they like some lurid dogshit "prestige TV" with terrible writing and unlikable shit-assed characters, but there's lots of awkward violence and sex scenes so therefore it's better.
I'm fairly contemptuous of adults who strongly identify with pop culture, whether it's game developers like Nintendo, movie franchises like Marvel, or pop celebrities. It's one thing to obsess over them as a child, teenager, or young adult, but by the time you're a fully fledged adult, you should have experienced enough of life, made enough friends with radically different upbringing from you, or read enough intellectually and emotionally stimulating books that you can draw from a collection of rich experiences instead of relying on pop culture trash as an emotional and creative crutch.
It's not exactly a case of poorer classes having an impoverished emotional life because they don't have time to read. If anything, they, especially people with lumpen backgrounds, have plenty of life experience to fill books. It's people who come from labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois backgrounds who live completely boring outer lives and emotionally sterile inner lives while making friends with people who also have completely boring outer lives and emotionally sterile inner lives. Add anti-intellectualism that prevents them from cultivating a rich inner life in lieu of life experiences and what you get is a bunch of losers who obsess over some British kid invented by an anti-Semitic terf and who feel personally attacked when you point out how the anti-Semitic terf is anti-Semitic and transphobic.
If you're talking about the terms itself, yes, I do think the terms, especially "manchild," are a bit ageist and better alternatives like "Nintendrone" are better.
To me it's less a matter of what you consume media wise and how you consume it. Being super into something like Disney movies as an adult is fine but to me a Disney Adult is one who still approaches it like a child with no analytical outlook whatsoever and it being the ONLY sort of media they interact with. I know plenty of people who I work with who are adults who pretty much only ever watch kids movies. That's the childish part to me.
approaches it like a child with no analytical outlook whatsoever
This is the perfect way I've been struggling to say it. I know several Marvel adults and tried finding common ground with them, because they're my coworkers and I'm trapped in a room with them all day anyway. I really like the X-men and have since I was a kid, so I tried talking about the social justice allegories, how Professor X is a kind of representation of MLK Jr, how the 2000s movies are clearly an allegory for being a gay runaway in America. They all looked at me like I just ate a live cockroach. None of them had any clue what I was talking about and said I was reading too deeply into it, or that I was just making shit up. It was frustrating, because I like analyzing stuff.
You don't even need to be like, someone who actively analyzes stuff cause I get that's a hobby almost but if you're gonna be surface level then as you get older you should still want a meatier surface level at some point.
It's interesting that you mention your ADHD, because I've always attributed mine to the fact that I can't stay interested in anything for super long.
I know extremely smart and good people who are still obsessed with Harry Potter and Star Wars and I don't think any less of them but personally I have moved on from 50 things since then and it's basically impossible with all this baggage to have any non-superficial discussion about media with these people. I'm not going to turn that into a fucking superiority complex like some dumbass teenager though.
Same goes with music etc. Some of us get stimulated by novel ideas, some of us prefer to deeply engage with something they love and it really just boils down to personality. Most people are somewhere in between.
Yeah I either drop things or hyper fixate. I wish I could choose what I fixate on but sometimes its hard.
I just really like dinosaurs ok lol
Probably
Along with most extremely inoffensive things considered “cringe”
Nah, cause the point of disney adult is that they are adults with full power and autonomy and make poor choices. Same with man child.
People who are actually are messy for reasons other than priveralge, like most of us, get different terms
