It's Not ‘Weird’ to Be an Adult Woman Who Loves Disney
Patty Holliday, who’s attended three D23 Expos now, says her first visit to Walt Disney World was on her honeymoon—but after the loss of her son, Jacob, in 2005, the resort took on a deeper meaning. For her, visits to Orlando help keep his spirit alive. “It’s the last place that my entire family can be together, in a sense,” she explains. “I cherish the park visits with the kids because of those early visits with Jacob.” Now a full-time Disney blogger, Holliday is particularly passionate about the seasonal RunDisney events through Walt Disney World. She’s completed nearly two dozen and credits running through Cinderella Castle as her motivation. “Disney means pretty much everything to me,” she says. “It’s where the stories are told, the memories are made, and my bravery was found.”
When I talked with Lisa Basilio, she was wrapped in swaths of sea foam green tulle in homage to Moana’s Te Fiti. It was so elaborate I found it hard to believe she’s never done this before; Basilio has always been a fan—she even got married at Disneyland—but D23 Expo 2019 was her first foray into wearing intricate costumes in public. “It’s such an amazing place where people feel safe,” she says of Disneyland. “They let go of their stress from the real world and adults become kids again. It’s an amazing transformation, and I love to be a part of that.”
For these women, and most people at D23 Expo for that matter, being a Disney fan is more about friendship, community, and sisterhood than any love of the mouse. Below, we talk with more women at the fan convention who break down why Disney is so important to them. Turns out it’s not such a small world after all.
Sarah Sterling and Tiff Mink
Best friends and fixtures of the Disney community, Sarah Sterling and Tiff Mink are an example of how Mickey and co. have helped women discover their creative outlets as well as a chosen family. Shortly after they met five years ago, the two collaborated on a YouTube channel called ThingamaVlogs—a play on The Little Mermaid’s underwater trinket collection—which featured a mix of planning tips, comedy videos, and travel vlogs that clocked over 70,000 subscribers. ThingamaVlogs is no longer active, but the women now have their own individual YouTube channels devoted to all things Disney.
The two are like anthropologists of post-’90s Mickey Mouse culture, and they do so flawlessly. “Instagram truly changed everything for the Disney community,” Sterling says, crediting the platform’s explosive growth and easily accessible format for making Disney cooler than ever before. “Park culture,” as she calls it, has snowballed in turn, yielding its own trends, styles, and subcultures. The more the merrier, Sterling says. “All I ever wanted in middle school were people to talk to about Disney Parks, and now there’s hundreds of thousands of people,” she adds. A life-long goal was finally realized earlier this year when she began working for Walt Disney Imagineering on the Star Wars global portfolio.
Mink, a content creator, says she didn’t visit the theme parks frequently growing up but held a prevailing passion for all things Disney, including an obsession with Disney Channel films that extended through college. As self-described “ride-or-die Disney fans,” as Mink puts it, these friends say they love every aspect of Disney: the history, lore, design, animation, all of it. At D23 Expo, Mink even served as something of a litmus test for in-the-know fans. She dressed as legendary Imagineer Tony Baxter, complete with rolled-up ride blueprints in a leather satchel. While we talked, several stopped her to rave about her appliquéd mustache and Imagineering hard hat. Others strolled past without a word.
But though it’s not exactly niche to be an adult who’s into Disney anymore, Mink and Sterling still feel some judgment come their way. “People just think it’s weird because they have this idea that Disney is for children,” Mink says. But for her, it’s no different than a football fan traveling to see the Super Bowl in person. “Just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s weird.”