{"id":7607,"date":"2023-05-09T21:22:28","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T01:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/?p=7607"},"modified":"2023-07-11T06:12:29","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T10:12:29","slug":"theres-something-rotten-in-world-of-disney-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/theres-something-rotten-in-world-of-disney-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s Something Rotten in World of Disney (Digital)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a letter to my Zaid (Yiddish for grandfather) Norman Schlaff on what would have been his 95th birthday on June 4, 2023. Zaid died in 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaid,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to Disney World with my in-laws last year for my father-in-law’s 80th birthday. While we had a wonderful time, there’s something that really bugged me. When you used to take us to Disney World, we all trusted Disney to create new and exciting adventures to surprise and delight us. After my last visit, I realized that Disney has lost its courage to invent, deciding instead to join the hoard of technology fanboys.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Disney has gotten a lot more corporate. And when I say corporate I don’t just mean that things are more expensive. I know that you never really cared about things being more expensive as long as you got a wonderful experience. I remember when we would go to the restaurant “Taste by Eli Zabar” on the Upper East Side with its vastly overpriced sandwiches. But the food was good, the people were very nice, and we had a great time. Or the times that Bubbie would go to Il Viola and order fresh fruit for dessert. They didn’t have fresh fruit on the menu. I still don’t know where that fruit came from. My best guess is that they cut up the sangria fruit or ran to the grocery store across the street. But 5 minutes and $20 later Bubbie had her fruit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By “corporate” I mean that Disney World has become less authentically Disney. When Walt started Disneyland he said, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” It was a magical place. Now, like every other big company. It’s trying to be more like Google and Facebook. Walt would be disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s one example. Remember what it was like to walk into the Magic Kingdom? We would walk into the front gate clutching our immersive color-filled maps. The map split the Magic Kingdom is split up into 5 lands, each in different colors. Each land has a major attraction or hero ride, like Space Mountain, that you can see from the gate. While the hero ride was what drew you to the land, there was plenty to experience while you were there including themed rides, food stands, and gift shops. When I went to Disney as a kid, I’d run to Adventureland for the Jungle Cruise but stay for the Dole Whip<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But the wonderfully colored maps have gone away. Maybe it was because of Covid or maybe it was cost-cutting but it’s really hard to find maps now. They’re there but no one really uses them. Now we have the “My Disney Experience App.” Here’s what the app looks like<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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It’s a poor version of Google Maps, that helps to plan your day and shuttle you from ride to ride. Instead of focusing on the larger conception of the parks and the experience of being there, the app is all about efficiency. Because you choose each ride separately you’re going from hero ride to hero ride, you skip all of the stuff in between. It’s like they’ve decided that having a great Disney experience is about seeing the most stuff and waiting in the shortest amount of lines. You just put your preferences into the app, and the AI Genie will figure out the ultimate plan for your day. In the end, the AI Genie fails at its task because everyone wants to go on the same rides that still have very long lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I texted my friend Ross who used to work at Disney. \u201cWhat’s up with this place? I feel like Disney has lost its soul. Am I crazy?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Oh!” he texted back, “You\u2019re seeing the fight going on between the Disney Digital corporate types team and the Imaginaireers. It’s detailed in this 2015 article called The Messy Business of Reinventing Happiness<\/a>. It’s a bit of an old article but it’s fairly unique for the tight-lipped Disney. This was right after a bunch of Disney Digital guys were fired and wanted to tell their story. Even though they left a decade ago, their legacy lives on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disney has always been a technology company. Since the early days of talkies when Walt was pushing the envelope of animation and sound technology. Even before Disneyland, at the World’s Fair, he built audio-animatronic characters<\/a> that somehow skirted the uncanny valley<\/a>. Disney has always used technology to drive the experience of the visitors in the theme parks\u2014to better put its guests in the movies. As Imagineering Chief Creative Executive, Bruce Vaughn, said in the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We want to take experiences that are more passive and make them as interactive as \u00adpossible… We never want to do it just because we can.<\/p>\nBruce Vaughn in The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness<\/a>, Fast Company April 15, 2015<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Then, sometime around 2010, Disney got frightened. Keeping with Disney’s story-telling philosophy, I imagine a young up-and-comer in a white linen suit and blond hair. He personifies the things that have bugged me about the new corporate Digital Disney. He’s tried making it in the movie business but couldn’t tell a compelling Disney-esque story. But he did go to business school and was able to tell a different story\u2014a story of fear and technology that prompted the organization to change. Helpfully, I have a quote from a former Disney Executive that’s perfect for my blond-haired linen-suited villain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were failing to recognize key consumer trends that were starting to influence how people interacted with brands. Inside the company, Disney World became known as a “burning platform.” If we miss out on that next generation of guests, suddenly our burning platform is fully on fire\u2014panic mode.<\/p>\nAnonymous Former Digital Disney Executive Quoted in The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness<\/a>, Fast Company April 15, 2015<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It’s About the Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Visiting Disney World is like being in a movie. Zaid once told me that “Every great vacation should have 3 great moments and no bad ones.” I later learned that he’d borrowed this quote from the film director Howard Hawks.(1)<\/sup><\/a>Hawks famously said, “A great movie has three great scenes and no bad ones<\/a>.”<\/span><\/span>