Sleeping Beauty Castle is decorated for Disneyland Resort's 70th anniversary celebration.
"Disney Adults" by AJ Wolfe explores the expansive world of some of Disney's most ardent fans.
A guest stands up and applauds a "Tangled"-inspired performance at Disneyland's Royal Theatre.
Guests walk toward the Tree of Life at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Violet Sake from the Japan pavilion is among most popular cocktails at EPCOT, where drinking around World Showcase is a popular unofficial activity among Disney adults.
Lightning Lanes, like this one at Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion, don't automatically get guests to the front of the line. There is still a wait, but it is usually significantly shorter than the regular line.

Swifty. Gamer. Backpacker. Foodie.

All these labels bring vivid images to mind, but one group elicits particularly strong feelings from fans and observers alike: Disney adults.

Whatever you think of when you hear the term, Disney expert AJ Wolfe, owner of DisneyFoodBlog.com and AllEars.net, wants to challenge that in her new book by the same name, “Disney Adults.”

“Stereotypes are there for a reason, but what are the reasons that people are attacking this particular subculture? And what does that say about them versus us, as well?” she asked.

Wolfe spoke with USA TODAY about what she discovered and her own experiences as a Disney adult.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: Disney has been popular with adults from the very beginning. It's not a new phenomenon. Can you tell us about that?

Wolfe: There have been Disney adults for 100 years, really since Walt Disney started his whole empire back in the 1920s. Walt has a pretty well-known quote that says: “You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway." He knew from the very beginning that he had to make sure to entice the people who held the purse strings.

What we've seen Disney adults evolve into though is an online subculture – primarily online, although things are starting to put their tendrils into in-person meetups and communities.

People have this idea of what a Disney adult is. What do you want people to know about them?

Stereotypes come out of truth, right? There are some of us who are obsessed and obnoxious and selfish and problematic, but every fandom has those people. That's called humanity. That's what we are, as a culture in general.

What people aren't really looking at – especially with Disney adults and I think with a lot of subcultures – is what's below the water when it comes to the iceberg.

Online, what algorithms are pushing is what people are watching: the extremes. You're not seeing the reality.

Every culture, every subculture, the majority of what's going on is stuff you don't see, stuff you have no idea about, so that's what we're doing with the book. It’s really kind of showing how broad and extensive this subculture is and also pros and cons of it.

Let's talk about some of those pros.

What's great about this particular fandom is that people are finally finding their tribe. I think a lot of Disney adults don't fit anywhere else, and this is some place that they fit exquisitely. They find their best friends; they find their partners. You can find people you'd never find in your regular community or your workplace or your school.

I think because a lot of us don't fit anywhere, we're very open and and happy to welcome everybody who finds some sort of solace here or who finds Disney to be interesting or compelling or curious or whatever. We're happy to talk to you about it. We're happy to bring you on where you are.

We are also very willing to help each other, so you see a lot of positives within the Disney community of fundraisers, charity work, people helping other people in the community and doing outreach outside of the community.

But the most important one, especially for me personally, is you find your tribe and your community, which honestly you can't be healthy without.

For many fans, Disney brings back core memories and a deep emotional connection that they feel when they go to the places Disney has created.

This is something that I really wanted to figure out while writing this book. How does Disney do this? Like, we’re lining up to give them more money. How did they get such a hold on us?

What it all stems back to for a lot of us as Disney adults is family and emotional connections. I blame our parents and our grandparents 1,000% for bringing us to those Disney movies, for bringing us to Disney World and for having such a fabulous time while they were there that we kind of cottoned on to that and said, “This is when my dad and I really connect. This is when my grandma and I have something in common, and I remember this time.”

And now, with the world doing what it's doing and people just being high anxiety and feeling stressed and just regular life, you're going to want to try to get back to that feeling of safety and predictability and warmth and being taken care of, and so a lot of times people will go back to Disney.

It's a cycle because as you grow up with these things, you want to pass them on to your kids so they have the same experiences, and it raises another generation of fans.

Exactly. The thing that's also interesting about that is when I was raising my son, who's 11 now, we could have gone to Europe for vacation. We could have gone to Costa Rica, but that's harder than just going to Disney because Disney is so easy. They speak English, they take dollars, but it's still this experience you get to have. It's the easier choice.

It can be really hard to try to figure out an entirely different city that speaks a different language. And so I think when you have little kids, sometimes it's just, "We're going to go to Disney for a little while because we know what to expect."

You want your kids to experience what you experienced, but also it's the devil you know.

Can you talk about that feeling of FOMO a lot of Disney adults have about the latest snacks, the latest merch?

The marketing is unbelievable, and I'm not going to lie, the whole Disney adult community is doing this marketing for Disney for free.

Disney has become a 24-hour news cycle. Hungry is the perfect word for the information, details, hot goss on their happy place, and that's exactly what they're trying to key into, because that's going to bring them that dopamine hit, that joy, that little feeling of "I know what's going on and this person doesn't know what's going on."

There's also this weird hierarchy of: "How much do you know, and do you know more than other people? Do you have this pin? Do you have that Loungefly bag? Have you tried that snack? Have you been on that ride?" It's just this wild subculture of one-upmanship and FOMO, and "I have to right now book this trip because I have to be on that new ride." It's fascinating. I'm all caught up in it, too.

Can you speak to some of the cons and address some of the criticisms people have of Disney adults?

Absolutely, and we have a whole chapter in the book about it.

Two main points that kind of keep coming up are, first, people are loving something that general society considers to be for kids. It's like you are not allowed, as an upstanding citizen, to like something that was built and created for children.

We heard Walt's quote. We know it wasn't built and created for children, but people are like: “Disney is for kids. Why do you like something that’s for kids? That's weird.” And so that's verging on a lot of other weird things that people are uncomfortable with.

Sometimes Disney adults can be othering toward other theme parks.

As far I’m concerned, a rising tide lifts all boats. Disney's going to get better because Universal's getting better. Universal's going to get better because Disney's getting better. I do feel like this is great for all of us. Can we just be cool?

I think we shoot ourselves in the foot a lot when it comes to themed experiences because we're not willing to open our minds.

Of course you can love something for free, but a lot of experiences cost money. Can you tell us about the role of money plays with Disney adults?

That's interesting that you say you can love something for free because what Disney has definitely done, even more so in the last couple of years, is there's a lot of their experiences that you cannot have unless you have a certain amount of money.

Can you go to Disney cheap? Sure, but not that cheap. Those tickets cost at least $100, and so I think there is a feeling among Disney adults that Disney is outpricing a lot of people and that they're getting to the point that it's just going to be a luxury item, at least for the parks, and they cannot afford to go anymore.

I think you're starting to see, “Oh, only rich people can go to Disney. Only rich people can have these experiences.” And Disney, in the past five years, has made a lot of their amenities that used to be free into paid amenities. You can't get them anymore unless you pay for them, so it's an evolving space.

People will still pay it. That's the thing.

Is there anything else you want people to know?

Most importantly, the thing about this particular subculture and this book in general is that we are talking about humanity here. It's aspects of any group or community or subculture that you're seeing.

I think you're going to see more and more and more subcultures emerge online, and you're going to see a lot more of our friends and connections and chosen family be people we've never met before.

So just sort of thinking about that and how do we comprehend these communities? How do we involve ourselves in these communities? How do we not be scared of these communities? Realize that there's so much more to these groups than you might think. Give yourself some time to really explore.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What it really means to be a Disney adult, according to an expert

Reporting by Eve Chen, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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