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.
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.
There is nothing wrong with liking ‘childish’ things. However, if you still like and cling to the exact same things that you did as a child, the exact same way as you did as a child, you risk being something worse than ‘childish’, you are ‘boring’.
Like, I have a friend who is really into Superman. When I say this, I mean the motherfucker is into every version, iteration and era of Superman and can tell you storylines that I have never even heard of that actually make me want to read Superman comics, which are usually my least favorite. It is very unlikely that his favorite Superman is the same now as it was when he was 10 or 15 or even 20. Most importantly, he even knows about writers and ownership disputes and why things changed over time. He loves the concept and history of the product, as a consumer product.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to have that level of dedicated nerdom to any specific topic for it to be ‘legit’, but that is, to me, what distinguishes it as an adult passion from a childish hobby. The meta level of understanding and conscious consumption.
Disney adults are weird because they rarely know that much about Disney outside of the products. Like they don’t want to acknowledge the absolutely shitty things that Disney does to their employees, or how Disney completely guts the IP’s they buy, and their obsession with the ‘Disney magic’. That is ‘childish’ and ultimately, boring! Because they view it literally as a child would. That being said, portraying Mickey as a bloodthirsty vampire is also getting cliche, but at least it’s an accurate cliche.
Yeah, I have to agree. I hate when people act like a company is some special pioneer or hero. Almost like a religion. It’s probably just because I’ve seen the term “Disney Adult” thrown around as a catch-all for anyone that enjoys animation that I became defensive.
As far as animation as a whole is concerned I actually don’t like Disney, funnily enough (Except maybe Owl House and Gravity Falls?). I have a hard time separating it from the horrible man that it’s named after. Especially after learning that the fucker exploited his friend’s labor.
And, like, I’m pretty sure he was a Nazi.
No. This is coming from someone with ADHD and anxiety and a myriad of sleep disorders. At least, “disney adult.” The other two maybe, since it’s also used by reactionary sources. But regarding disney adults, it’s usually referring to bougie adults whose entire lives revolve around loyalty to disney products. I’ve never seen “nintendo adult” before, but if it’s the same thing it’s no different than “sony ponies” or “xbots” or “nintendrones”. Just blind loyalty and obsession over a product to the point of anger if criticized because they’ve made it their identity.
In my experience, disney adults are always richer than the average person. I mean, that makes sense, why else would they be able to go to disneyworld every week and make their whole lives disney? Game fanboys tend to be more diverse since games are relatively cheap compared to planet tickets, hotel fees, and disney tickets
Doing childish things is fine. I have plenty of stuff animals. I even share pics of them with some people. But if you’d be uncomfortable walking into a house where every inch is covered with funko pops, then you’d probably be uncomfortable with someone who can’t shut the fuck up about disney and toys after they stop being 13
