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America is Becoming One Big Consumerist Theme Park
Theme parks are fun family-friendly destinations, but underneath the fantasy lurks a more sinister reality. In this video, we’ll explore the dystopia lurking beneath theme park utopias and ask: Are our cities becoming theme parks too?
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=== Watch More Episodes! ===
How Disney Ruined Culture ► https://youtu.be/_jed8B4L4-4?si=oOK4IenX42-nDnhx
Disney Adults: Is Disney A Religion? ► https://youtu.be/5M9PbubL7Ro?si=Vs3LPy7PDvIFjQXD
Disney Adults Part 2: Disney’s Capitalist Religion ► https://youtu.be/SEybuMZ2YJs?si=DlJEXgGuJl-nDrHg
Written by Amanda Scherker
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Elizabeth Yarwood
Edited by Henry Arrambide
Produced by Olivia Redden
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
#disney #capitalism #disneyland
© 2024 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming
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I'm curious what you think theme parks would look like in a post capitalist society. I hear a lot of leftist critique of theme parks that centers on the white washing of history and forming an idealized version of cultures that sanitizes them in a way that covers for oppressive systems like colonialism. I get where that's coming from. But I also don't think that theme parks are a uniquely capitalist invention that can only serve to enshrine power structures. I think people would like them regardless of what kind of society we have or could have. And I don't think their role in society is analogous to a museum or a library. Showing the honest tragic parts of human history is important in the right context but I think theme parks serve to satisfy a desire for escapism and imagination. It's more the aesthetic that is being enjoyed as opposed to the history.
I guess I don't think that the idealized aspect of theme parks is some kind of nefarious plot. I think it's just innate to themed entertainment and people enjoy that. Even if a ride wasn't followed by a gift shop meant to increase revenues from riders, I think there would still be people who want their own tangible piece of the experience that can serve as a token and memory prompt of their enjoyed moment. Heck, even photographs are technically fake images that only have meaning because they prompt our brains to reflect on experiences of the past. But people still enjoy looking at pictures because they so clearly accomplish that task because they do appear to be a recreation of what we experienced.
I ask this not as a rhetorical question. I am really curious what your (or anyone else's) thoughts are on this topic. Would themed entertainment simply go away if we didn't have capitalism? Or would it be more "honest" in that it wouldn't show safe idealized versions of historic or fantasy worlds? And full disclosure, I consider myself an advocate of nordic style social democracy so I am not hoping for a post capitalist world but that is more a logistical matter and not strictly a moral critique of socialism (but that's a debate for a completely different comment section.)
Zoning laws and other city ordinances, mostly relating to making everything be car centric, have killed good and natural urban design.
This is DEEP
extrapolate this onto the internet and videogames
heck ya bro lets go to disney land and stick it to the man!! Until they see us exhibiting anticapitalist behavior on their cctvs and send police to ask us to put our shoes back on.
Since Disney already owns so much, it's only a matter of time before they acquire everything. No one will complain because it will be fun as long as people behave cohesively. So much pressure to maintain a perfect illusion, but eventually the cracks and dirt will appear. People already exist within bubbles because of the internet. Community bubbles will further dilute people's fortitude and problem solving when there is so much being controlled in such environments.
Bro just don’t do dumb things in public. 💀
This kind of pseudo-intellectual content that uses pretentiousness to cloak really dumb ideas is the bane of my existence.
The part about new urbanism and lifestyle centers was pretty eye-opening to me. I live very close to New Albany and Easton in Columbus, Ohio.
New Albany is a once small, rural town that was completely taken over by Les Wexner, the founder of Victoria's Secret and former Epstein associate. It fits the new urbanism mold perfectly; every building is in a very fake neo-georgian style, even the Burger King, to match Wexner's mansion which sits on a secluded plot of land so that you can't catch even a shadow of a glimpse of it from the road. All the of the somewhat less expensive houses are in cul-de-sacs with walls around them so no one sees them or accidentally drives through them. There is a big emphasis on walkability, which is very good, but you never see anyone walking around who doesn't conform to the New Albany mold. Much of the surrounding rural areas where I live have gone from being cornfields, farm houses and woodland to being warehouses and factories well out of view of the wealthy.
Easton is a typical lifestyle center built within a stone's throw of a very low-income neighborhood. I like going there, simply because it's nice to look at, but it never occured to me to compare it to a theme park.
Great fun listen
22:01 Announcing the Residences at The Lofts at SoDoSoPa, with views of historic Kenny's house…. You can't say excitement without saying… SoDoSoPa.
A walkable neighbourhood? With restaurants and stores you actually want to be at? Shut up, we can't have that here that's capitalism. Back to your concrete bunker and miniature patch of grass where you need a car to go shopping.
at 9:15 did that man throw that balloon at that horse on purpose? was he brought up on charges threatening Merida's life like that? terrifying!
Seriously if you get kicked out of a theme park, the park is probably not the one in the wrong!
This could be a good thing, if it becomes about niche lifestyles. What about a closed community that doesn't allow children, but is clothing optional. Or another for children, with very high security. Or time-period LARPing villages. Where people who want to live in another place/time can blacksmith, or weave, or farm in historically accurate ways, free from the financial burden of turning a profit from their activities, as that would be subsidized by the theme park visitors.
One of the biggest amusement parks in my country had a section called ‘Africaland’, which was changed during the last few years. It used to have a ride called the Hottentot Carousel, with a big racist caricature as the center pole, proper minstrel look. It was removed in… 2018! To much manufactured outrage of course. But another ride called the Cannibal Stews wasn’t removed until much later. European racism is so wild. I visited that place many times as a child. No wonder I had (have?) so much to unlearn.
“The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis predicts this all the way back in the mid 1900’s. It’s a great read!
William Gibson once said "Singapore is Disney Land with the death penalty", problem with that is Disney Land with the death penalty is all of them except the one in Paris.
SoDoSoPa and ShiTiPaTown didn’t even get a mention?!
Not kicked out or arrested but I was turned away from entering a park once because my keys (to my car that I parked) were suspiciously large. I walked out of sight, switched my keys from my front to my back pocket, walked back, and security had no problem letting me in then. Perhaps the lamest story of all time but I felt like a criminal mastermind.
I am not sure I understand the point that was being made. 🤔 I get that you don’t like lifestyle centers/themed areas but I am not sure I understand why.
The security? I get security is elevated at places like Disney world/orlando but most places don’t have that authority over their lifestyle centers and the most their security can do is call the real cops.
Capitalism? Just don’t buy anything at these places. 🤷♂️ pretty simple. Nothing wrong with just walking around in a well landscaped area 🤷♂️
Fake Main Street? Most of these places, as you mentioned, don’t have main streets to begin with so what difference does it make? Also if they never had a main street then who is to say this isn’t their Main Street?
Gentrification? This is a good message but I feel like cities are taking this into account these days. For example, the place in Dallas you mention in the video is currently a demolished mall/mega parking lot so no one will be displaced. I skate around this area frequently and I can even attest to there not being any homeless people using this space.
They have got the UK spot on
I've noticed something about San Francisco, which is spreading to other places. Public spaces degrade, and more places are gated off. You then get a situation where far flung suburbs and enclosed places within cities are very, very nice. The public spaces such as sidewalks and buses suffer.
Dude you are smart and funny
I have visited a few life style centers but before that they were called “factory outlets”. They change the names over time but the goal remains the same, they provide the circus and you provide the 💰 😂
This is probably one of the most important videos I’ve watched. I advocate for cities like this but who knew capitalism would just ruin these ideas to once again make it for itself and not humans.
One of my friends at 17 got busted at DCA for being drunk. They wheel chaired her out and banned her from Disneyland and DCA until she was 21
Main Street USA is apparently based in a street in Fort Collins, Colorado. I only know that because it was the singular fun fact that I was told when I helped a friend move into their dorm at CSU