Disney adults have entered their Swinger era

“Who knows me and my longtime boyfriend know we meet a lot of our friends online these days,” Ashley Gill says in a Dec. 21 video, showing a photo of her and friend and collaborator Grant Gibbs taking a sultry selfie with Pluto. . He wears a t-shirt with the image of Remy, the rodent who is involved in cooking Ratatouille, while Gibbs wears mouse ears and a t-shirt with Cars the protagonist Lightning McQueen.

The two proceed to link an app called Swingers Upon Main, advertising it as “for swingers, by swingers….who love Disney!” They go on to describe their favorite locations, such as Cinderella's Castle and the quaint Grand Floridian Resort, before introducing the app's tagline: “Sometimes Mickey wants to take Daisy for a spin!”.

Of course, Swingers Upon Main isn't real, and neither is the ad: if the overly sexualized tagline isn't a dead giveaway (especially given the Disney company's notorious reluctance to associate its brand with anything sexual), then its goofy laugh Gill to Gibbs' Mickey the impression certainly is. Gill and Gibbs are the comic minds behind A Twink and a Redhead, a TikTok account with more than 288,000 followers where they pretend to be, among other things, a Disney couple deeply in love. (Gibbs is gay, as evidenced by, among other things, the channel's title.)

But these obvious markers of satire didn't stop the video from going viral on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, where it was immediately embraced as gospel by legions of enraged Disney half-adults, garnering 10.5 million views at the time of publication. “So many people online make fun of Disney adults,” says Gill Rolling rock. “I think it was just the perfect fodder for it.”

“People were sending us life threats, telling us we should die,” adds Gibbs. “I saw someone say, 'They need to get on Space Mountain.'” (Space Mountain, for those with no mouse brains, is a notoriously fast, bumpy, and low-ceilinged roller coaster.)

The phenomenon of videos that are separated from their original context on one platform and then widely misinterpreted on another going viral is nothing new. But Gill and Gibbs' experience is somewhat unusual in that it coincided with two separate conversations: the ongoing media frenzy polyamory (although it's worth noting that the poly and swinger communities are two separate entities) and the adult's eternal hatred of Disney.

As mentioned earlier by rolling rock, Disney's adults (who range widely in age, gender, and racial background, but are primarily represented in the public imagination by white millennial women) have garnered strong online resentment, with many seeing them as creepy consumers trapped in a state of perpetual adolescence. . “There's a real moral crisis for Disney adults,” an academic specializing in fandom previously said Rolling rock. “It's like, 'How dare you, instead of putting all this money into buying a house or raising a family, put [it] in fleeting experiences?'

To some extent, the content of A Twink and a Redhead capitalizes on such perceptions. The two, who have been best friends since sixth grade, regularly make content that satirizes Disney adults, with their love of fandom becoming an integral part of their lore. (In one video, Gil belts out “Hakuna Matata” in front of the Animal Kingdom's Tree of Life, while Gibbs smiles at the camera and taps his thighs together in rhythm.)

But unlike the angry X-users who hope they'll be decapitated on Space Mountain, Gibbs and Gill say their satirical content actually comes from a genuine love for the fans. Gibbs says his entire YouTube homepage is “all just Disney vlogs,” and Gill says that while she considers herself more of an “adult Disney ally” than adult Disney, she finds fan adoration for “very nice” brand. “I love that adults can love something so much,” she says. “People make fun of them, but I love their passion.”

The Disney Swingers video was inspired by a TikTok-promoted video for an actual Disney adult networking platform: Meet Upon Main, launching in fall 2022 and boasting the tagline “Find Your Magical Match.” In an interview with rolling rock, the app's co-creators, Robby Scharfeld and Kaity Rabinovitch, said they originally intended it to be a dating app aimed at Disney members, Star Wars, and Marvel fandom, but has since evolved into a general networking platform for those looking to befriend other theme park fans. It's not a swingers app, although there are married couples on the site looking for (platonic) vacation buddies, they say.

“One of our core values ​​as a company is inclusion, even if [Disney singles] was the population we originally had in mind, anyone is welcome to the location,” Rabinowitz says.

Last fall, Rabinovitch and Scharfeld posted a paid ad on TikTok with a serious Disney loving married couple in complementary mouse earstelling the story of how they met (according to the video, she was Disney-Bounding, or essentially cosplaying, Ariel from The little Mermaid in her profile picture while it was Prince Eric entering Disney). The original ad for Meet Upon Main went marginally viral, garnering around 82,000 views, including Gibbs and Gill. “The second I saw it, I thought we have to recreate it,” says Gibbs.

Gibbs and Gill posted a parody video in December targeting a swinger-themed app because, as Gibbs said, the original couple in the video looked like they were “having some wild sex” behind the scenes. (For what it's worth, there doesn't seem to be an app specifically aimed at Disney-loving swingers, though the phenomenon isn't unheard of: On Reddit, there are posts from people who want to meet romantic couples at the upcoming Disney cruises.)

When Rabinovitch and Scharfeld saw the parody, they took it for granted: “from a marketing point of view, I had an idea of ​​how it would grow and benefit [Meet Upon Main]Rabinovitch says, adding that the site has garnered more than 1,000 new registrations since the Disney Swingers parody video.

Others, however, weren't so kind, particularly those who thought the Disney Swingers ad was the real deal. “Jail, straight to jail,” the original viral was captioned tweet, with another replying, “this might be the scariest awful shit I've ever experienced.” Those unfamiliar with the duo's brand threw in a dose of homophobia for good measure. “People were calling me gay, like solving being gay is a big math equation,” Gibbs says. “There is literally a hot pink neon sign behind us [in the video] which says 'A Twink and a Redhead''.

The reaction has been so vociferous that Gibbs says he's developed a new empathy for Disney adults in general. “I think people who hate them hate themselves,” he says. “These people are not bothering anyone. Maybe they think it's weird, but I think they just hate to see people happy.”

Gill says the whole experience gave her a new perspective on how fast misinformation travels on the Internet and how deprived many X-users are when it comes to media. A Disney handful indeed histology have attacked their video, reporting it with headlines like “Disney's 'Swinger' Community: Adults Find Controversial Community in Unlikely Place.”

“It really opened my eyes to how people go down more dangerous rabbit holes and believe crazy things like conspiracy theories,” he says. “If they think there are Disney swingers, there's an app for them, and that we are a couple? I'm like, yeah, it makes sense for people to suck [rabbit holes].”

While the two considered making a follow-up video clarifying that the video was a parody, they ultimately decided against it. “Those who get it, get it,” says Gibbs. Their latest Instagram post, featuring the two of them on their knees with light-colored swords, is captioned: “If there's one thing we love more about each other and Disney, it's TALLINING! If there's anything we love more than these two things, it's rocking out at DISNEY!”

As for whether the experience of accidentally going viral as the face of Disney's adult swinging community has taught them anything about that community, or even made them more interested in becoming a part of it? “We've had some feedback,” says Gibbs. “And you know what? We're open to it.”