Kenversations™
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Why Disney?
Disney fandom intersects with many other hobbies and enthusiasms: theme park addicts, roller-coaster enthusiasts, railroad lovers, film buffs, animation fans, and collectors of animation art, pins, buttons, dolls, and comics.

Disney has a certain mystique that no other major studio company has, with theme parks that are among the most popular and well-known in the world.

Walt Disney was charismatic and excellent at self-promotion. The Walt Disney Company often continues to be effective in marketing.

Disney is often about fantasy and role-playing.

This all makes Disney a magnet for fandom and obsessive fandom.

How Did It Get This Way?
Disney freaks, Disneyphiles, Disnoids, Disneyholics, Disneymaniacs - whatever we have been called, we may be annual passholders to Disney theme parks, fans of Disney animation, Resort or Store cast members, or employees of some other part of the corporation - whatever. Somehow, we got hooked into Disney, and some of us feel compelled to collect materials and/or information related to Disney, whether about Walter Elias Disney, the films, the parks, the characters, or the corporation.

The height of my own personal Disney obsession occurred while Disneyland Park's Splash Mountain was under construction. As an annual passholder who visited the park on roughly a weekly basis, it was the first large attraction that I could watch take shape before my eyes. I wanted to ride that attraction so much, and had to wait until it was finished and ready. As time went by, I was determined to be the first guest to ride, and my focus intensified as the opening of the attraction was delayed for over half a year (that's a long time for a teenager), ride system testing went on constantly before my eyes, and McDonald's ads featuring Splash Mountain ran on television. I've already recounted for LaughingPlace.com the fruition of my fixation.

It became such a prominent part of my consciousness that I was having dreams and nightmares about it, and I would automatically, secretly tune my ears to any conversation in which I thought I heard "Splash" or "Splash Mountain", regardless of where it took place.

Just a Phase?
After the attraction opened and I rode it hundreds of times, my fixation on Splash Mountain waned. But Disney had hooked me, especially the theme parks. I had become interested in the design of the parks, and then wanted to be involved in that process. After becoming a Disneyland Park cast member, I ended up going through the official process at a university to create my own major centered on location-based entertainment design and creative writing. Part of that involved interning for a major design company, and completing a thesis project that involved designing a major attraction.

Do I work for Walt Disney Imagineering? No. Have I ever? No. Do I feel unfulfilled because of that? No. Would I still like to be an Imagineer? You bet your limited-edition lithographs I do. I hold no delusions, though, that such a position would be fun and games. As one long-time Imagineer told me when I was a teenager and expressed my hopes of working for WDI, "I certainly hope you can stand the frustration." And that was from a person who had survived numerous layoff cycles.

If Splash Mountain never existed, I suspect that, with my personality traits and at that age, I would have focused on something else just as intensely. Indeed, there were other hobbies and interests vying for my attention. Disney was only the most prominent.