When it comes to Disney adults and consumerism, what’s less commonly talked about is social class. Whilst working class Disney adults do exist, given how pricey both Disney parks and a good number of Disney merchandise are, that the average Disney adult is far likelier to have this much disposable income to spend on these things to begin with. A good number of Disney adults might be upper-middle class themselves, with a minority being truly working class in any way. There are Disney adults who’re content with buying cheaper merchandise like stationery, pirating media and the like, though they do exist and possibly in greater numbers than one realises, but with other Disney adults being pressured into collecting rarer or more valuable merchandise, that it’s going to lock out working class people from these activities.
Even if not all Disney adults are this rich either, but some of these activities would definitely alienate working class people from being in such fan communities like these, especially if such merchandise some of them pursue is really rare or expensive. Then we get to realising that if one were to subscribe to Disney Plus for long, they’d have to pay for something that could get expensive on certain days. This would further alienate working class people from participating in Disney fandom, even if Disney films can be streamed for free online (which would help things in their case). If being a Disney fan means having to buy this much merchandise, I don’t think it’s something even most Disney adults may be able to keep up with consistently. Especially if they have other things to do, other priorities to attend to and so on, that it’s inconvenient.
It’s likely that Sanrio adults could be just as materialistic as their Disney counterparts get, but they’re less commonly talked about in the media. There’s no doubt that Sanrio media emerged more recently and there seems to be less quality Sanrio films and series getting put out, but even if some Sanrio adults might exceed Disney adults in consumerism, this is somewhat less common (or less commonly reported) as Sanrio’s not as deeply familiar as Disney is. So the average Sanrio adult, if they do exist, would be content with some Sanrio media and merchandise. They could be of any social class but it seems consumerism isn’t that deeply embedded in Sanrio fandom the way it is for Disney fandom, even if Sanrio characters were created to be mercantile from the get-go.
I said before that working class Disney adults do exist, but the fandom they’re part of aggressively pursues consumerism, especially towards more expensive merchandise that it’s not a lifestyle they can consistently keep up with. I even think most middle class Disney adults can’t keep up with this either, so it’s clearly a lifestyle meant for a certain Disney adult really. This might not be unique to Disney fandom as a good number of geek fandoms are very consumerist, even if some participants content themselves with piracy. If there’s ever a fandom that I can think of that rivals Disney adults in materialism, it would be Star Wars adults in some way. Much like Disney films, Star Wars films were also heavily merchandised. Though film merchandising did exist before, Disney either pioneered or more likely popularised this.
If it weren’t for Disney blazing a trail for this, Star Wars wouldn’t have taken off as it did in the late 1970s. Even if Star Wars as a brand isn’t hugely successful anymore, it’s clearly past its peak and is currently a well-established brand at this point. It’s got years of enduring unpopularity and then repopularisation, it can certainly endure these periods well. Similar things can be said of its current owner Disney and both of them are no strangers to extensive merchandising of their films for years, so they pretty much complement each other real well. Not unlike its current owner, Star Wars merchandise encompasses both the cheap and the expensive, the rare and the common, the low end and the high end. Much like Disney Star Wars is no stranger to print adaptations of its filmed world.
If the earliest Disney characters like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse both get to appear in comics/print cartoons, so do Star Wars starting with its current co-brand and sibling in arms Marvel. Marvel’s no stranger to merchandising but it’s clearly rooted in publishing, so it would have years of adjusting to changing trends in the wider publishing industry. Disney with its roots in filming, would need another brand that’s rooted in publishing from the get-go as well as having a rooster of characters viable for further merchandising and future animated aaptations, so it bought Marvel in the late 2000s. Though Marvel adults could be comparable to both Disney and Star Wars adults in consumerism, Star Wars adults are more comparable to Disney adults when it comes to both Disney and Star Wars being rooted in film.
Even if Marvel merchandise did exist before and was fairly extensive before it got bought by Marvel, but Star Wars is more comparable because its trajectory closely resembles that of Disney than Marvel did and still does. If you think Disney merchandising is ridiculous, Star Wars is no different at other times really. There were things like Ewoks soft toys, Star Wars annuals, Star Wars branded refridgerators, Star Wars themed musical instruments, Star Wars fishing rods, Star Wars rugs and waffle makers, so if Mickey Mouse themed caps aren’t annoying enough Star Wars could’ve done something similar before it got bought by Disney. Not to mention you have a substantial contigent of the Star Wars fandom that’s dedicated to collecting merchandise that makes them even more comparable to Disney adults in a way it’s not with Marvel adults really.
In this way working class Star Wars adults are also a painful rarity when consumerism’s baked into both Star Wars fandom and Star Wars itself, it’s possible to be a Star Wars fan and be content with not much else. But when other Star Wars fans feel compelled to get more Star Wars merchandise and even making a show of it online, then it does parallel Disney adults in some ways that it’s not with sports fans. Well sports events do get streamed for free online, they also get broadcasted on radio for free just the same. You could easily be a sports fan and be content with not much official sports team themed merchandise and also watching sports clips for free anywhere one goes (like TikTok for instance), but with both Star Wars and Disney you have to provide hard evidence to prove your fandom.
Maybe that’s my experience with something like football, but even then Star Wars fandom is a proper parallel to Disney in a way it’s not with sports fandom. Star Wars fandom is also majority male but it parallels Disney fandom when it comes to similarly high levels of consumerism that might as well be redundant with other fan communities, again this is speaking from my experience regarding my other interests. One could easily be an Ace of Base fan and be merely content with reading scanned, translated or transcribed magazine articles and streaming their music, or Massive Attack just the same whereas in Disney and Star Wars fandoms some fans feel the need to show their fandom through buying merchandise to prove this.
Even if one can buy Disney or Star Wars merchandise without being too strongly attached to either one or both of them. Or at least being a Disney/Star Wars adult who’s content both with some merchandise and having consumed some Star Wars/Disney media for free, though given how consumerism’s baked into these brands that it’s terrifying to realise how rare working class Disney and Star Wars fans are. Which means most Star Wars and Disney fans are more likely to have a lot of disposable income to spend money on such merchandise, and a good number of them are going to be richer than average even. Materialistic Ace of Base and Massive Attack fans do exist, but others are merely content with transcribed magazine articles and streaming each band’s music.
So it would be odd to think that it’s easier being a working class Ace of Base fan, especially in the age of online streaming and piracy at this point, than it is being a working class Disney adult. Not helped by that if you were to find a way to legally consume Disney media, you’d have to buy or subscribe Disney media which involves paying for it either way. Maybe not all Disney media, especially if it’s on YouTube, free websites like National Geographic or online radio when it comes to Radio Disney. But when Disney Plus is a thing, chances are you’d have to pay the House of Mouse to officially watch things like Twisted Wonderland or Andor. And you’d have to pay for it regularly if you were to continue using it in any way you like or wish, which will shut out working class people from Disney (or Star Wars) fandom even more.
So it can get hard being a Disney fan on the cheap, so the best case scenario without (or with minimal) piracy is to buy cheap merchandise, buy fewer merchandise and merely watch free official Disney short clips. From my personal experience being into Ace of Base at various points, especially in an age of free official streaming that it’s going to be this easy being an Ace of Base fan on the cheap. All you have to do is to stream Ace of Base music and filmed appearances on YouTube, Spotify and the like, if you’re going to go the extra mile you can either read free articles about Ace of Base or mirror articles about them (I’ve done this before earlier this year) and even pirate books mentioning them in any capacity. Or other bands like Massive Attack and the Prodigy for another matter just the same.
It’s not wrong to like Disney but it seems when consumerism/materialism is built onto it and also the fandom to an extent, that it’s going to be hard being a Disney fan on the cheap that if all else fails, then piracy would do. And even then it’s going to be hard trying to measure up to other Disney adults when you don’t earn this much, that your Disney fandom’s going to be restricted to whatever you can readily afford within your limits and also whatever that’s for free. Or any other fandom where materialism’s built into it just the same like with both Marvel and Star Wars, if you can’t afford it then it’s going to hinder your participation in the fandom at times, despite your best wishes to do so. Because of this that working class Disney adults are going to be a rarity, which would be the same for working class Star Wars fans really.
It would be horrifying to think that upper class Disney fans might be far better represented numerically and economically than working class Disney fans, that it’s going to influence the direction of things and something Disney chooses to consider. It makes sense that upper class Disney adults are the ones who can afford more expensive pieces of merchandising, whereas working class Disney adults would have to content themselves with what they can find for free and afford. Upper class Disney adults are the ones who can afford to hang out at Disney ships, constantly attend Disney parks and afford pricier Disney merchandise, so Disney will pay more mind to them than it would with their working class counterparts within the same fandom. They’re the ones who can afford a lot more official Disney merchandise, the more one thinks about it that’s going to alienate working class Disney adults by design and function.
This may not be unique to Disney fans either but it’s kind of telling that in any fandom that’s saturated with rampant consumerism that working class fans will be alienated by this in many cases, preventing them being fans of these things for long and so on. It’s even weirder to think the fandoms that needn’t much consumerism, especially at present, are more likely to be musically orientated (i.e. something like Massive Attack, Ace of Base and The Prodigy, speaking as a fan of all three bands) and therefore it’s easier to be a fan of these bands or musicians on the cheap. This may not always be the case for all bands and musicians, but when you can officially stream their music for free, even when you can’t be bothered to attend their concerts that it’s pretty economically satisfying in the long run. You may not pay much, but at least you can listen to their music for free legally.
Whereas with fandoms that are heavily orientated towards consumerism that it’s something only people of a certain socioeconomic class can get away with being this committed to these things, which is the majority of geek fandoms because they’re oftentimes fans of media brands like Dragon Ball and One Piece. Admittedly this may not always be the case with them either, but it can be hard being a Disney fan on the cheap when you’re tempted to buy more than what you need or really want…on a budget. Buying Disney themed fabric and turning them into clothing, whilst saving the rest of it for more important things, is a nice way of showing one’s interest in Disney without breaking the bank this badly. But when others can’t afford Disney Plus subscriptions and still want to legally consume Disney media, that they’re going to be left with merely watching officially free Disney clips instead.
Listening to Radio Disney online could count, but it’s got nothing on watching Disney series at times. There was a time when one can be a Disney fan or a Disney adult for free, but largely when cable television was widely used by people. It’s increasingly no longer the case due to online streaming that Disney and the like would have no other choice but to join the club instead, but when it comes to legally watching Disney films that they’re left with curated clips and select uploads instead. It’s a kind of tradeoff that in the days where cable television reigned supreme, that for awhile one’s chance of listening to a band or musician legally for free is to either play somebody else’s album copy or listen to them on the radio. Now it’s more likely to be the reverse where you can legally listen to the likes of Ace of Base and the Prodigy for free on Spotify, but you have to pay for a Disney Plus subscription to legally watch Pinocchio.
This may not always be the case where online ministries do stream their sermons for free (on good days, from my experience), but it seems when it comes to the likes of Disney they really want money so badly they’ll find ways of making people pay for it if they legally watch something like The Little Mermaid. Even then it speaks to a kind of consumerism that makes it harder for working class people to attain or acquire it in any way they like, without finding ways of climbing the ladder. And even then considering how consumerist a good number of geek fandoms are (including Disney fandom) that working class fans will often be alienated by this.
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