Disney used to be a company. A proper company.
One of Disney’s bluechecked, verified Twitter accounts has come out of a nearly two year hiatus to… slam an unofficial Disney fan site?!
Yes, the Disney | ABC Photo Twitter account felt that a potshot taken at current Disney leadership by a fan blog warranted a public dressing down.
The reply has since been taken down (of course) but DisTwitter has a long memory. Twitter user @ropedropchris captured the moment for posterity.
can someone tell my why a verified Disney account came out of an almost 2 year hiatus to complain about WDWNT pic.twitter.com/O7R8ViTDWD
— chris! at the rope drop (@ropedropchris) December 7, 2021
The “offending” image was from WDW News Today, a Disney fan blog with a long history of public kerfuffles with Disney PR.
The site, which has been very critical of the Disney Parks under current CEO Bob Chapek, posted photos of past Disney CEOs Michael Eisner and Bob Iger and tweeted “We used to be a county. A proper country.“
To which the long dormant Disney | ABC Photo account replied “And where is the photo of Walt Disney? This is a terrible oversight. Walt Disney was a genius and truly loved America and the world. Please update your post!!”
Disney going after WDWNT might be a new favorite for me pic.twitter.com/KhtyGFxyxr
— No Context Christmas Theme Parks (@OOCParks) December 7, 2021
While I think most Disney fans would agree that Walt Disney was a genius, the point WDWNT seemed to be trying to make is that the previous two Disney CEOs were superior to the current regime.
Why it warranted a reply from a long dormant Disney account is beyond me, but given the rocky history between Disney PR and WDW News Today… it was likely a low key diss.
A few years ago, the official Disney Parks Blog publicly discredited WDW News Today’s rumors about The Enchanted Tiki Room, only to be caught in a lie a year or so later.
Since then, Disney representatives have made repeated public digs at WDW News Today, including reprimanding them for speculating as to why Bob Chapek wasn’t at Destination D23.
Objectively, this looks very, very petty.
It’s literally one fan blog. Albeit one with a pretty sizable following. But by constantly using official channels to dunk on them, it leaves the rest of us wondering why they’re such a threat to a company the size of the Walt Disney Company and why Disney is trying so hard to get them to shut up.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And “the Streisand Effect” is a very real thing. Disney might just be helping WDW News Today grow with every public attempt to silence them. Especially since many other Disney fans are turning on the company these days.
Good luck with that.
[Hat Tip: Inside the Magic]
Pirates & Princesses (PNP) is an independent, opinionated fan-powered news blog that covers Disney and Universal Theme Parks, Themed Entertainment and related Pop Culture from a consumer's point of view. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PNP, its editors, affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. PNP is an unofficial news source and has no connection to The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal or any other company that we may cover.