These people have made consuming an experience a large part of their identity. That's it. They consume the parks. They consume the food. They consume the experiences. They even consume cheap clothes on amazon that match the general colors of their favorite cartoon characters (it's called disneybounding, look it up).
alephnerd•1h ago
There's nothing wrong with targeting a different ICP from who you were previously.
As a business you in fact have an incentive to target these kinds of identity-driven consumers as they are much more likely to spend more on average than others.
And Disney is shifting their entire GTM as a result, but frankly there is nothing wrong with that - consumer tastes change.
That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addicts, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, mechanical keyboard collector, etc.
parl_match•1h ago
I don't really care about Disney's business. The Disney adults, as people, are bleak. Take their money, who cares.
> That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addict, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, etc.
does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? i feel like that way of looking at things is bleak. im a heavy fitness enthusiast and i hardly spend any money besides a basic gym membership and the cost of trail/camp permits
alephnerd•59m ago
> does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume?
Everyone already does. It's called hobbies. Some people make their hobbies their entire identity, others less so.
parl_match•57m ago
a "specific subculture" really elevates "hobbies" beyond what they are, maybe
hobbies don't have to be about consumption. In your post, it seemed like they did.
alephnerd•52m ago
The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, and invariably some people will spend more of their discretionary income on said hobby over others.
And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer.
I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable.
For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it.
As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
coldtea•46m ago
>The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough,
No shortage of very cheap or free hobbies. Walking is free. Cooking is what you'd spend anyway for food (or cheaper if it helps you skip delivery), watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable), coding is cheap, playing 8-bit games is cheap, a book club is cheap, sewing is cheap, drawing is cheap, writing is cheap...
alephnerd•39m ago
In almost all cases you are still purchasing and being targeted in some shape or form.
Literally every hobby has an incentive to target those practitioners who heavily spend and spend time with other similar minded practitioners.
> Cooking
And you see the rise of influencer and performance driven marketing by firms like Hoeckener and Le Crueset (nothing wrong with that) along with those who truly love cooking specific types of cuisine overindexing on unique or subsets of ingredients (Geographic Indicator or bust)
> watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable)
And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics
> coding is cheap
And you see whales who spend inordinate amounts on money on mechanical keyboards, 4K monitors, personal rigs, etc
> playing 8-bit games is cheap
Retro gamers.
> book club is cheap
Book subscriptions and local bookstore-led book clubs
---
Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
glasss•43m ago
The reality actually is you do not need to spend a lot of money to participate in any hobby. Some hobbies are expensive, and may have gotten more expensive in recent years, but at least in my experience and social circles it's very easy to participate in hobbies without spending a lot of money.
parl_match•37m ago
> The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough
No, you don't. Maybe you think you do, because of consumer mindset. But you don't.
alephnerd•34m ago
Everyone has some kind of consumer mindset and is spending more on a specific good or service than others may think is reasonable.
If you want you can show all of us on HN your bills and we will all probably find stuff which you spend on which we may think is unreasonable to us but is reasonable to you.
So long as you are making sure to save around 60% of your monthly income post-401k/IRA and rent/mortgage what you do with the other 40% is literally discretionary, and isn't hurting you.
Everybody thinks they are not a sucker, but everyone is.
parl_match•21m ago
Of course I spend money, I'm not living a joyless austere lifestyle. But you're deflecting and changing the subject. So, let's return back to your original comment
> The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough
All I said is that you don't need to spend tons of money on a hobby. Maybe you think you do, because of consumer mindset, but you don't.
Is that wrong? Do you still think that hobbies require spending lots of money and consuming? Or do you acknowledge that a hobby can be fulfilling and enjoyable without much money and consumption?
mna_•28m ago
I have 2 hobbies: maths and chess. For maths: I borrow books from the library or pirate them from anna's archive and do problems from the books on printer paper. Very cheap hobby overall. For chess: I bought cheap plastic pieces and a board from amazon (cost me £25/$30), I pirate chess books from anna's archive and I play on lichess (it's free).
Also without sounding like an elitist: not all hobbies are equal. I have so much more respect for someone who sits in their room and studies something difficult like analytic number theory, or someone like you who powerlifts over some "Disneyadult" whose life revolves around buying Made-in-China Disney branded products (i.e. their hobby is just clicking "buy" on some site).
coldtea•49m ago
Most people don't base their personality on their hobbies
CharlesW•40m ago
And most adults who like Disney aren't "Disney adults". There are extremists in every hobby and fandom.
coldtea•50m ago
and even calling the things they consume "experiences" is overselling them
glasss•42m ago
I guess that is their hobby, consuming the products or experiences and sharing that with others.
tylerflick•39m ago
They also ruin the experience of trying to take your child to one of these parks.
simon666•24m ago
While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story.
The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".
So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.
Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
parliament32•14m ago
You're not wrong, but isn't "consumption" the entire point of every vacation ever? Do you do anything other than consume when you, say, go for a cruise? Road trip across the country? Go be a tourist in a city abroad? What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"?
mothballed•56m ago
You've got to be child-free to afford Disney nowadays. It makes sense for them to shift.
glasss•35m ago
I agree, I think it does simply make sense to cater to the customers with the money. If I were starting a business selling products or services to consumers directly, I wouldn't target a customer base that could only afford to buy it once or twice. It wouldn't matter why they have more money, being child free or being a software engineer from San Francisco, I would just figure out their demographic and target them.
burnt-resistor•49m ago
Sorry, but I can't get out of my mind one of the Monty Python PC games depicting a crowd of faceless people all wearing Mickey Mouse ears. While I can't relate to voluntarily paying money to go consume a corporate theme park media experience, but it floats their steamboat then more power to them.
parl_match•1h ago
alephnerd•1h ago
As a business you in fact have an incentive to target these kinds of identity-driven consumers as they are much more likely to spend more on average than others.
And Disney is shifting their entire GTM as a result, but frankly there is nothing wrong with that - consumer tastes change.
That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addicts, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, mechanical keyboard collector, etc.
parl_match•1h ago
> That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addict, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, etc.
does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? i feel like that way of looking at things is bleak. im a heavy fitness enthusiast and i hardly spend any money besides a basic gym membership and the cost of trail/camp permits
alephnerd•59m ago
Everyone already does. It's called hobbies. Some people make their hobbies their entire identity, others less so.
parl_match•57m ago
hobbies don't have to be about consumption. In your post, it seemed like they did.
alephnerd•52m ago
And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer.
I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable.
For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it.
As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
coldtea•46m ago
No shortage of very cheap or free hobbies. Walking is free. Cooking is what you'd spend anyway for food (or cheaper if it helps you skip delivery), watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable), coding is cheap, playing 8-bit games is cheap, a book club is cheap, sewing is cheap, drawing is cheap, writing is cheap...
alephnerd•39m ago
Literally every hobby has an incentive to target those practitioners who heavily spend and spend time with other similar minded practitioners.
> Cooking
And you see the rise of influencer and performance driven marketing by firms like Hoeckener and Le Crueset (nothing wrong with that) along with those who truly love cooking specific types of cuisine overindexing on unique or subsets of ingredients (Geographic Indicator or bust)
> watching movies cheap (not to mention piratable)
And you see plenty of movie enthusiasts optimizing for 4K displays, high fidelity sound, or falling deep into IP-driven subcultures like Disney-fanatics
> coding is cheap
And you see whales who spend inordinate amounts on money on mechanical keyboards, 4K monitors, personal rigs, etc
> playing 8-bit games is cheap
Retro gamers.
> book club is cheap
Book subscriptions and local bookstore-led book clubs
---
Show me the hobby, and I will show you the whales that all businesses in that specific hobby will target.
glasss•43m ago
parl_match•37m ago
No, you don't. Maybe you think you do, because of consumer mindset. But you don't.
alephnerd•34m ago
If you want you can show all of us on HN your bills and we will all probably find stuff which you spend on which we may think is unreasonable to us but is reasonable to you.
So long as you are making sure to save around 60% of your monthly income post-401k/IRA and rent/mortgage what you do with the other 40% is literally discretionary, and isn't hurting you.
Everybody thinks they are not a sucker, but everyone is.
parl_match•21m ago
> The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough
All I said is that you don't need to spend tons of money on a hobby. Maybe you think you do, because of consumer mindset, but you don't.
Is that wrong? Do you still think that hobbies require spending lots of money and consuming? Or do you acknowledge that a hobby can be fulfilling and enjoyable without much money and consumption?
mna_•28m ago
Also without sounding like an elitist: not all hobbies are equal. I have so much more respect for someone who sits in their room and studies something difficult like analytic number theory, or someone like you who powerlifts over some "Disneyadult" whose life revolves around buying Made-in-China Disney branded products (i.e. their hobby is just clicking "buy" on some site).
coldtea•49m ago
CharlesW•40m ago
coldtea•50m ago
glasss•42m ago
tylerflick•39m ago
simon666•24m ago
The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".
So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.
Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
parliament32•14m ago