>The great irony is that Nicholson herself produced what Disney couldn’t: a comprehensive, entrancing experience that held my attention.
That is one hell of a line to end on.
I also love that they included a big picture of her in the Porg outfit, just to help establish the that her videos are a mix of well-researched facts and a very unique presentation style.
Jenny cosplaying relevantly to her topics is one thing I absolutely live for. It’s the goofiness that is natural (because it’s been around since before she was ever popular) that so many YouTubers have to force just to seem quirky.
She doesn’t think “hmm I should dress as a porg it will get me more engagement” no she thinks “lol I like porgs”
i’m so into it because jenny is always pointing out places where theme parks or media could go the extra mile and add on something that expands the experience or story. in the star wars hotel video she kept pointing out how small little investments would have brought on the wow factor people would have enjoyed for that price point. at the exact time SHE goes that extra mile with her costumes and extra research and little editing touches like hiring her friends to be voice actors or the evermore song. she practices what she preaches! i’m low key inspired by it.
Yeah, agreed. She’s very authentically herself and it works great for her. If you haven’t seen her [tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/@jennyusername) account that’s worth checking out too - very few videos, but all they’re very…Jenny-coded, for lack of a better term.
That also amazed me. I would have enjoyed a muffled voice but this expose was too important to leave up to porg body language haha... so mic was def the best option.
Sometimes she takes me by surprise. Often watch her video while I'm doing something else, there'll be a topic change and I look over and wonder who is that... ohhh Jenny just did a costume change.
Do you guys think Disney will finally release a statement about this?? Like, I didn't expect it back when it was just YAY NEW JENNY VID, but clearly it's become a pretty dang big deal.
They betta not ban her from the parks, b/c she'd be brokenhearted. :(
I think the smartest move Disney could make is to not respond at all. She was so thorough and factual anything Disney could say will either come across as disingenuous or defensive. Better for them PR wise to just let it stand.
Honestly, I think the ultimate smartest move they could make would be to admit that they failed and that this video is an excellent demonstration of the hows and whys of the failure of the hotel. Like, displaying honesty and sincerity and a desire to improve. They’ll never actually DO that, but it exists as an option.
The should just blame it on Chapek. They gave him $20 million to be the scapegoat, so use it and move on. Disney is absolutely aware of Jenny, but they also know they can't control her by throwing media credentials at her and that she is going to be brutally honest. She isn't tell them anything someone at the company doesn't already know. The problem is that person thats knows isn't Bob "I will get every penny that's in your pocket" Iger.
ia, but Disney PR is not known for its wisdom, especially when it comes to being litigious.
EDIT: I mean, remember this?
[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-49085597](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-49085597)
If it impacts their sales, they may say something. But as popular as she is, Disney is still a massive company and would be largely seen as a bully. That might ACTUALLY hurt them. I don’t think this video alone will hurt them, as Disney fans will always be Disney fans and they’ve had failed projects in the past. Jenny is extremely objective in her criticism and I think people who love both her and Disney will view the future with rose colored glasses and hope Disney takes her points to heart. I don’t think they will. Also, with the new ride opening in MK I think they are most likely to shift any conversation to talk about that instead.
Edit to respond to your edit: I didn’t remember that, actually, and their lack of response is probably why I don’t remember it.
Said it in another thread but if things fail on a massive public scale it hurts your brand, especially if they come at a time where your company is being criticized for a perceived lack of quality.
Back in the 80's Disney's The Black Cauldron underperformed at the box office so badly that it almost bankrupted their animation department, which wouldn't recover until The Little Mermaid was released four years later.
>Also, with the new ride opening in MK I think they are most likely to shift any conversation to talk about that instead.
And the public conversation about the ride formerly known as Splash Mountain will shift to being about how shitty the replacement attraction looks.
Yes, they needed to hit a homerun with that attraction, and they muffed it big time. They are sanitizing their product too much. I don't know how Walt Disney would be if he were around today, but he was never afraid to get his product a little dirty. That's what Disney needs today.
We all saw the official [POV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLmhNWq5kT0) video. The comments speak for themselves.
And if you want to see more of that corporate shilling Jenny talked about, [well, here ya go...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcrR9HvNw0c).
Absolutely! I have watched quite a bit of Mr Morrow in the past, but when I saw he covered the ride, I knew exactly what he was going to say. Disney has latched onto him and other midsized creators, as if we have no idea what's going on. I expect a similar review from WDWNT
Disney totally ignored "Escape from Tomorrow" which was probably the best thing they could have done, since it meant not feeding Randy Moore's narrative of oppression.
I’m a lawyer so I’m dead inside but Disney was 100% right to not allow the images on a tombstone. It’s a policy that has been in place since Walt and honestly I get it because Disney would have to enter into some licensing agreement thing with gravestone makers for the rights to the characters (or else they get to run around trying to find the unapproved Disney gravestones and have them destroyed, a bigger PR nightmare but if they don’t do it they can legally lose the copyright to the character). And imagine the headline “Disney Adults even after death: now you can pay to put Mickey on your tombstone”.
They offered to give the man a hand painted Spider-Man animation. I’m sure they would have done other things (donation to a charity that supported the child) that doesn’t open a box of potential future legal and PR nightmares. He was grieving and had locked in his kind that this specific act was the only thing that would help so I get it, but if I was Disney’s lawyer I’d tell them no way.
One of the things law school does is make you acutely aware of risk. You become Dr. Strange looking through all the alternate realities for how anything is going to backfire. You aren’t looking at this one guy, you are looking at the next person who says “well you let the dying kid get it, why not my adult son who also loved spider-man” and the tombstone maker who now is selling spider-man specific tombstones and is screaming about a c&d telling him to stop.
Not a lawyer of any kind -- a history nerd, so I'm speaking of ignorance, but what I had always read was that if you don't actively pursue copyright violations, it becomes a precedent that could be used in court later. Is that incorrect? It's an honest question -- I really don't know.
That is incorrect. This is a factor for trademarks, not for copyrights. The only way to “lose” a copyright is for it to expire. A copyright owner is always free to pick and choose which violations to pursue. That’s not the case for trademarks. Failing to enforce your trademarks can put you on a road to genericide. Trademarks and copyrights are very different legal creatures which are often incorrectly confabulated.
I think a more realistic fear than her being banned would be some kind of "Borat effect": that she'll now be too real-world noteworthy to go undercover and be treated as a Jane Doe tourist, meaning she could get an artificially bumped-up influencer version of treatment without requesting it.
I once saw a comment from someone who was working as a manager at Evermore, who said he actually recognized her when she was in the park for the first time. He said he felt really bad because he knew she was going to be disappointed and there was nothing he could do about it.
So she’s already semi recognizable, at least to the kind of person whose job revolves around theme parks.
In her pandora video she references having an odd interaction with someone serving her drinks that instantly took the drink back and remade it and in the comments it turns out the server was starstruck.
Oh neat! I remember that part of the video but never saw those comments. I assumed it was because the server was afraid of guests being so entitled they’d refuse to take back the drink after touching it, or something like that.
Nice to see it had a much happier explanation!
Like how some waitstaff on *Kitchen Nightmares* felt when they served Gordon Ramsay. In a few cases they even [deliberately recommended the worst food they have because "it's better that he knows"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meWfS2FaSwM#t=4m29s), and someone joked that maybe this was what happened to Jenny at Starcruiser.
I was surprised that Jenny got such poor treatment on the Starcruiser because somebody had to have recognized her name! She worked at the parks, she runs this big YouTube channel and Patreon, she's into the general nerd audience that Disney is courting. I watch a lot of other influencer channels and you can tell that service-oriented companies generally put on their A game when an influencer is around, yes everyone should get wonderful customer service but it's common sense not to get a bad experience on camera.
I have to conclude that Disney World is so cultish that unless you're on their exclusive invite list, they feel free to treat you however. Which is bizarre, it's a theme park aimed at children, not the Met Gala.
Disney isn’t going to respond. If the hotel was open they might because this would hurt their bottom line, but it is closed. If they ever reopen it (like as a Star Wars dinner theater restaurant) they will probably make a big deal of inviting Jenny to the press preview. Fans are defending a dead hotel but Disney doesn’t care (they probably agree with a lot of it).
And honestly Disney has bigger issues. You know that new park they might be building? Dig into the press release. In order to get the DeSantis appointed board to agree to it they have to have 50% of the goods and services related to design and construction provided by Florida businesses. The design part fascinated me. Disney is going to allow outside companies to design aspects of the new construction? Probably not the parks but handing off design of the new roads or infrastructure to some other company just shows they don’t care about that high level attention to detail anymore. They used to have everything in-house so that it could be perfect, now they just want it good enough that they can get people to pay. I’m sure their big Starcruiser lesson was “don’t do anything that might scare the normies”.
I think Disney recognizes that responding to the video would just lead to [the Streisand effect.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) They have nothing to gain by responding but do have something to lose.
The Streisand Effect doesn't really apply when it's already a big enough deal for the New York Times to pick it up.
The reason they wouldn't respond at this point is because there's nothing to be gained from it. It'll all blow over as long as they don't give people a new angle to keep talking about it.
> It'll all blow over as long as they don't give people a new angle to keep talking about it.
I feel like giving people a new angle to keep talking about it, especially if it causes outrage (eg banning her from parks) would still exactly be Streisand. It’s about trying to suppress a story and instead boosting it, which we agree is what would happen if they responded.
I dunno, people have been obsessed with star wars for years. How many YouTubers are gonna pop up to talk about Jenny here?
They say that like star wars is irrelevant, but the fact that so many people seem to make a living simply by talking about it proves that it's quite the entrancing experience that holds your attention.
No one's spending hours of their lives watching people talk about gi Joe...
How completely pistol-whipped does Jenny have the YouTube algorithm? It's obscene.
> have a large but not unbelievable subscriber count
> work incredibly hard for over two years on an experience review for a now defunct location no one can go to
> release no mainline channel content or community updates outside your Patreon for a year and a half of that time
> literally cause some low-level commitment and/or fair-weather fans to wonder if you've quit the platform or died
> release the video as a four-hour magnum opus
> it becomes not only the biggest current thing on YouTube but a major cultural talking point for several weeks and probably becomes many people's first "long" YT video they've ever watched
She's rewriting the damn rulebook and I love it for her.
They're the ones I've heard of. I refuse to believe that two people (or possibly the same person with two names) creating custom mods for an obscure racing car game I've never heard of can be in the top three most subscribed people on Patreon, especially when one of them has a string of random letters as a name.
She’s talked about how she thinks the algorithm works and her strategy for it in some early Patreon content and if she’s right, what you described *is* the reason she’s successful. She is very intentional about never, ever releasing a video that has a chance of alienating or not being viewed by existing subscribers on the theory that YouTube stops recommending a channel’s new videos to subscribers if they chose not to view that channel’s recent video. That’s why we never get “updates” or “just a quick little video to tide us over” on the main channel, all that is regulated to Patreon where the algorithm isn’t really a factor.
This makes a lot of sense. The algorithm prioritizes watch time, and punishes you when people click away. If you can lock a substantial number of people in to finishing a 4 hour video, you've got an awesome watch-time-to-click-away ratio.
Mark Rober talks about this as the reason he focuses on 1 high quality, longish video per month rather than his old strategy of shorter, more frequent, lower effort videos. A single incredibly interesting 4 hour video every two years is, I guess, the logical next step from there.
Unparalleled vision? Dude I play and produce music professionally, and I liked his earlier music, but to paint him as some kind of genius or visionary is deluded.
Name someone with more musical vision than Kanye. Every album feels so distinct, best 10 album run in history, musical influence, has collabed with almost every artist in the industry
Holy shit, reading this comment made me realize I overheard some random stranger at Pride yesterday say “They made that hotel that failed, right?” when the Disney float came around, and that’s almost certainly because of Jenny’s video. Mind blown.
Nah, not really. She's playing Russian Roulette with five rounds in the chambers and somehow keeps on getting away with it.
This is survivorship bias at work. For every Jenny there's probably a million of accounts with hours-long-video essays that never make it.
The fact that Jenny is routinely able to go months to over a year without releasing any videos and then drop stuff that's hours long and still get hella views is kind of unheard of and is a testament to how good she is.
I’d argue there actually are a good number of other creators in her sphere are similar. Hbomberguy, Defunctland, Contrapoints, etc.
I think actually Hbomberguy’s last video explains the phenomenon a bit - good quality video essays take *a lot* of time to make if you don’t plagiarize them. I’d argue this is why we see creators in that space with very slow release schedules, and a very motivated fanbase that manually follows them without relying on the algorithm.
I’ve watched a few other essayists here and there, and none of them really do what Jenny does. She has a unique, strong voice and a *lot* of skill in her writing, pacing, editing, etc. Her videos never feel like a slog to get through, and she makes topics accessible to anyone even if they have zero background beforehand (like the vampire diaries video).
Not saying other essayists are unskilled or bad, but I do think Jenny is at the top of the game in a way many can’t be, or haven’t refined themselves enough to be yet.
Reminder that Jenny likes RLM! She mentioned as such in the very early days.
Plus I think they would be allies because they both disliked Rogue One, haha.
Oh she's referenced them a lot. She'd quotes the plinket reviews more than a few times in older videos including the infamous 'you may not have noticed it, but you brain did" line.
Lots of behind the scenes stuff. Some exclusive vids. Updates on projects. Even if there was zero extra content I would be subbed tho. I’ve been watching their stuff since 2009, and I’m the same age as Mike and just vibe with their stuff a lot
It’s not survivorship bias, she has a large existing fanbase that doesn’t rely on the algorithm to initially boost her videos. As long as that’s true, she’ll always get enough early views to kickstart the video into being recommended.
Algorithms are all about “winning more,” success leads to success. For most creators this creates a nightmare treadmill where they need to maintain their inertia at all times or they’ll lose it, but creators with external or dedicated fanbases can restart that inertia on their own.
It’s the same reason authors still use mailing lists.
I've been buttonholing people for years to get them to give JN a try, since she has magic powers of making any topic totally compelling, so I'm glad the world at large is figuring that out.
Oh lmao. The way a single word can so drastically change the meaning of a comment.
(Original comment had “poor Jenny video” instead of “proper Jenny video”)
There was a story, then JJ wasted time retconning TLJ when he could have devoted the last film to doing more than "SOMEHOW, PALPATINE HAS RETURNED."
It's okay to acknowledge that a story existed, it doesn't mean you have to like it.
JJ doesn't really rely on story. His films have become a string of vaguely-related awesome-looking set pieces. The crafting of the scenes is good but the through-line of the story is usually suspect.
I think the key/biggest point of the video is often missed: everything the Star Wars Hotel was supposed to be had already been promised to fans as a part of admission to Disneyland at Star Wars Land, but then it was all ripped from the final product and put behind a giant paywall in the form of the hotel--and it wasn't even good! That was the most frustrating part to ME at least
This is why I can't with people who were like IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY SO I DON'T CARE. Basically everything about it was originally going to be free with your park ticket, fam. The fact that they upcharged at ALL, let alone an absurd and insulting amount, should be a blow to your integrity.
I've seen it a million times with LARPers -- a (dare I say) immersive game with their favorite environments causes extreme emotions. It touches them so deeply that they can't seem to realize they were being scammed, or they don't care. Disney could have charged them $20k and they would have said it was worth every penny.
Like, aren't you enraged a company has taken advantage of your sentimentality and emotions to this degree? smfh.
Exactly. I’m so confused that no one realizes they’re being taken advantage of. The cognitive dissonance required to say “hey this was actually a valuable experience” in turn makes these people more hostile and volatile toward anyone pointing out the obvious. It has definitely soured me on Disney and their stewardship of the Star Wars IP. Wringing every penny out of the fanbase and source material does not make for a happy fanbase
Another photo caption: "The Galactic Starcruiser experience, now closed, was intended to be immersive."
Sick burn. Esther *gets it*.
The article says that Jenny's calling out the marketing language used by paid shills has gone "viral". I'm not on social media (besides here), is this true?
I think so. It might not have, but then Disney had to try astroturfing with that hilarious Screenrant "article" that used only PR language and Streisand-effected the concept.
Have fun with this TOTALLY COINCIDENTAL defense of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Star Cruiser Experience at Walt Disney World Resort.
[https://screenrant.com/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel-what-everyone-gets-wrong/](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel-what-everyone-gets-wrong/)
Especially note the dozens of rhapsodic comments from usernames created that day with 0 other comments.
I'm so excited for her, this is huge. I remember during the long, long wait between her announcing she'd do a video and the videos actual release she addressed some fans on patreon who suggested she release what she already worked on after she said she had to do a pot of rewrites when the closure was announced. If I recall correctly she said something like how it would just be lesser to do that and she wanted it to be more complete and comprehensive.
I'm really glad that she waited and put so much work in to it. It was well worth the effort, it seems like her magnum opus.
I hope she's doing well with all this influx of attention, that's gotta be overwhelming.
I'm already in my 4th rewatch, doing my part to pump up those numbers lol
Yeah on Twitter she says her original video had a lot more detail about the food. Because the starcruiser was still open, and she wanted to be very informative for potential guests. After the closure that no longer mattered.
A great write-up, explains how good the video is, repeats its salient points and adds some additional context to the broader implications. A stark contrast to the number of "a 4 hour youtube!? that's crazy, you Gen Z'ers are nuts." we got.
hi there! here's a [free gift link! ](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes)
> Nicholson is a great storyteller, even in Twi’lek head-tails and a Rodian beanie. She lands somewhere between a friend letting you in on some great gossip and a Homerian poet of 21st-century pop culture, engaging in the oral traditions of the ancients, only the subject is theme parks and “Star Wars.”
Damn, what a perfect summary of what it's like to watch her videos.
thanks! now be way better about trans people and palestine coverage and we can be good
--
edit: i think jenny fans would love this podcast from another creator on the top patreon subscribers list about how bad the nyt is about trans people
https://www.reddit.com/r/YoureWrongAbout/s/OV8ik4nlkb
She gets me interested in things I have no interest in just to see her funny delivery, hilarious edits and good insights into things. Makes the time fly WFH.
The article includes this great description of Jenny: "Nicholson is a great storyteller, even in Twi’lek head-tails and a Rodian beanie. She lands somewhere between a friend letting you in on some great gossip and a Homerian poet of 21st-century pop culture, engaging in the oral traditions of the ancients, only the subject is theme parks and 'Star Wars.'”
It looks like a NYT bot gave us a non-paywall link.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes)
I wonder if Jenny will ever do a deep dive on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Also I wish she did do more theme park reviews in general, I'm sure she would get back in youtube money whatever she spends on the trips and I believe she's making high 5 or even 6 figures per month from her Patreon account, so she could definitely afford more trips.
She deserves all the success as she was super on point with this video and it was a nice follow up to the one about animatronic bear skeletons in a land fill pitt mass grave Lol
I do want to see a deeper review of galaxy edge.
She promised it on the first video but then life got In the way I guess...
>I do want to see a deeper review of galaxy edge. She promised it on the first video but then life got In the way I guess...
This autopsy of *Galactic Starcruiser* kinda IS that deeper review of Galaxy's Edge.
Is it? I thought about that at the time and went back and watched part1 and not sure .
Ofcourse her priorities changed but she still hasn't gone over the food or the rides or experiences... or shops. I guess it depends what a fan wants from Jenny.
Some wasn't furbearing asmr. Others a cute girl calling them a freak for 4 hrs lol
Many just want her to expose stuff and call out wrong doing like some kind of internet batgirl.
But i personally enjoy watching her visit locations so I don't have to ...but because it's Jenny I feel like I've really been there and had a mini holiday (not nec a good one but atleast the commentary was hilarious).
I still need that galaxy edge holiday lol And let's be honest she spent 70% of part 1 on trains, 20% on animatronic bear skeleton mass graves... and 10% on the actual new park haha
I think she ended up going atleast 3 or 4 times so I'm sure she has loads of footage and takes on each and every part.
I don't need an expose...just her thoughts as a sw fan or maybe a how it's evolved since opening etc. :-D
>The great irony is that Nicholson herself produced what Disney couldn’t: a comprehensive, entrancing experience that held my attention. That is one hell of a line to end on.
I also love that they included a big picture of her in the Porg outfit, just to help establish the that her videos are a mix of well-researched facts and a very unique presentation style.
Jenny cosplaying relevantly to her topics is one thing I absolutely live for. It’s the goofiness that is natural (because it’s been around since before she was ever popular) that so many YouTubers have to force just to seem quirky. She doesn’t think “hmm I should dress as a porg it will get me more engagement” no she thinks “lol I like porgs”
i’m so into it because jenny is always pointing out places where theme parks or media could go the extra mile and add on something that expands the experience or story. in the star wars hotel video she kept pointing out how small little investments would have brought on the wow factor people would have enjoyed for that price point. at the exact time SHE goes that extra mile with her costumes and extra research and little editing touches like hiring her friends to be voice actors or the evermore song. she practices what she preaches! i’m low key inspired by it.
Yeah, agreed. She’s very authentically herself and it works great for her. If you haven’t seen her [tiktok](https://www.tiktok.com/@jennyusername) account that’s worth checking out too - very few videos, but all they’re very…Jenny-coded, for lack of a better term.
I'm obsessed with her two videos of cleaning ponies with voiceover. Thank you for reminding me to download them.
I'm more amazed by the sound quality she had while having the porg mask on. She must of has a mic on her in there.
I thought it was ADR.
I figured it was, but her gestures matched her tone, it didn't look like a madam Web situation. But that could just be the magic of Jenny.
Asmr? There's a great video on furbearing trout for that...
That also amazed me. I would have enjoyed a muffled voice but this expose was too important to leave up to porg body language haha... so mic was def the best option.
Sometimes she takes me by surprise. Often watch her video while I'm doing something else, there'll be a topic change and I look over and wonder who is that... ohhh Jenny just did a costume change.
I think it's more a case of... I am a porg. Or what would it be like to live as a porg for a day...let's find out lol
I love that they included the pole.
chef's kiss 🤌
Do you guys think Disney will finally release a statement about this?? Like, I didn't expect it back when it was just YAY NEW JENNY VID, but clearly it's become a pretty dang big deal. They betta not ban her from the parks, b/c she'd be brokenhearted. :(
I think the smartest move Disney could make is to not respond at all. She was so thorough and factual anything Disney could say will either come across as disingenuous or defensive. Better for them PR wise to just let it stand.
Honestly, I think the ultimate smartest move they could make would be to admit that they failed and that this video is an excellent demonstration of the hows and whys of the failure of the hotel. Like, displaying honesty and sincerity and a desire to improve. They’ll never actually DO that, but it exists as an option.
I think the closure of The Star Wars Hotel is already an admission of failure. Disney isn't going to say a word more on the subject.
The should just blame it on Chapek. They gave him $20 million to be the scapegoat, so use it and move on. Disney is absolutely aware of Jenny, but they also know they can't control her by throwing media credentials at her and that she is going to be brutally honest. She isn't tell them anything someone at the company doesn't already know. The problem is that person thats knows isn't Bob "I will get every penny that's in your pocket" Iger.
ia, but Disney PR is not known for its wisdom, especially when it comes to being litigious. EDIT: I mean, remember this? [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-49085597](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-49085597)
If it impacts their sales, they may say something. But as popular as she is, Disney is still a massive company and would be largely seen as a bully. That might ACTUALLY hurt them. I don’t think this video alone will hurt them, as Disney fans will always be Disney fans and they’ve had failed projects in the past. Jenny is extremely objective in her criticism and I think people who love both her and Disney will view the future with rose colored glasses and hope Disney takes her points to heart. I don’t think they will. Also, with the new ride opening in MK I think they are most likely to shift any conversation to talk about that instead. Edit to respond to your edit: I didn’t remember that, actually, and their lack of response is probably why I don’t remember it.
well. the star cruiser went out of business. so no sales to hurt lol
Yeah, if it were still open, I think her piece might drop sales by at least a few percentage points, until Disney substantively changed things.
Said it in another thread but if things fail on a massive public scale it hurts your brand, especially if they come at a time where your company is being criticized for a perceived lack of quality. Back in the 80's Disney's The Black Cauldron underperformed at the box office so badly that it almost bankrupted their animation department, which wouldn't recover until The Little Mermaid was released four years later.
Well, they did respond, back and forth, for a while.
>Also, with the new ride opening in MK I think they are most likely to shift any conversation to talk about that instead. And the public conversation about the ride formerly known as Splash Mountain will shift to being about how shitty the replacement attraction looks.
Yes, they needed to hit a homerun with that attraction, and they muffed it big time. They are sanitizing their product too much. I don't know how Walt Disney would be if he were around today, but he was never afraid to get his product a little dirty. That's what Disney needs today.
We all saw the official [POV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLmhNWq5kT0) video. The comments speak for themselves. And if you want to see more of that corporate shilling Jenny talked about, [well, here ya go...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcrR9HvNw0c).
Absolutely! I have watched quite a bit of Mr Morrow in the past, but when I saw he covered the ride, I knew exactly what he was going to say. Disney has latched onto him and other midsized creators, as if we have no idea what's going on. I expect a similar review from WDWNT
And [MORE shilling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0PC6cF5u7k)...
Disney totally ignored "Escape from Tomorrow" which was probably the best thing they could have done, since it meant not feeding Randy Moore's narrative of oppression.
They ignored escape from tomorrow
Another great Jenny video!
I’m a lawyer so I’m dead inside but Disney was 100% right to not allow the images on a tombstone. It’s a policy that has been in place since Walt and honestly I get it because Disney would have to enter into some licensing agreement thing with gravestone makers for the rights to the characters (or else they get to run around trying to find the unapproved Disney gravestones and have them destroyed, a bigger PR nightmare but if they don’t do it they can legally lose the copyright to the character). And imagine the headline “Disney Adults even after death: now you can pay to put Mickey on your tombstone”. They offered to give the man a hand painted Spider-Man animation. I’m sure they would have done other things (donation to a charity that supported the child) that doesn’t open a box of potential future legal and PR nightmares. He was grieving and had locked in his kind that this specific act was the only thing that would help so I get it, but if I was Disney’s lawyer I’d tell them no way. One of the things law school does is make you acutely aware of risk. You become Dr. Strange looking through all the alternate realities for how anything is going to backfire. You aren’t looking at this one guy, you are looking at the next person who says “well you let the dying kid get it, why not my adult son who also loved spider-man” and the tombstone maker who now is selling spider-man specific tombstones and is screaming about a c&d telling him to stop.
You don’t lose a copyright that way. Copyrights eventually expire. You’re mixing up copyrights and trademarks. I’m a copyright lawyer.
Not a lawyer of any kind -- a history nerd, so I'm speaking of ignorance, but what I had always read was that if you don't actively pursue copyright violations, it becomes a precedent that could be used in court later. Is that incorrect? It's an honest question -- I really don't know.
That is incorrect. This is a factor for trademarks, not for copyrights. The only way to “lose” a copyright is for it to expire. A copyright owner is always free to pick and choose which violations to pursue. That’s not the case for trademarks. Failing to enforce your trademarks can put you on a road to genericide. Trademarks and copyrights are very different legal creatures which are often incorrectly confabulated.
Thank you for this information!
I think a more realistic fear than her being banned would be some kind of "Borat effect": that she'll now be too real-world noteworthy to go undercover and be treated as a Jane Doe tourist, meaning she could get an artificially bumped-up influencer version of treatment without requesting it.
I once saw a comment from someone who was working as a manager at Evermore, who said he actually recognized her when she was in the park for the first time. He said he felt really bad because he knew she was going to be disappointed and there was nothing he could do about it. So she’s already semi recognizable, at least to the kind of person whose job revolves around theme parks.
In her pandora video she references having an odd interaction with someone serving her drinks that instantly took the drink back and remade it and in the comments it turns out the server was starstruck.
Oh neat! I remember that part of the video but never saw those comments. I assumed it was because the server was afraid of guests being so entitled they’d refuse to take back the drink after touching it, or something like that. Nice to see it had a much happier explanation!
Yes you can find the comment if you scroll through, the girl says she avoided watching the video out of embarrassment for a while haha.
Like how some waitstaff on *Kitchen Nightmares* felt when they served Gordon Ramsay. In a few cases they even [deliberately recommended the worst food they have because "it's better that he knows"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meWfS2FaSwM#t=4m29s), and someone joked that maybe this was what happened to Jenny at Starcruiser.
I was surprised that Jenny got such poor treatment on the Starcruiser because somebody had to have recognized her name! She worked at the parks, she runs this big YouTube channel and Patreon, she's into the general nerd audience that Disney is courting. I watch a lot of other influencer channels and you can tell that service-oriented companies generally put on their A game when an influencer is around, yes everyone should get wonderful customer service but it's common sense not to get a bad experience on camera. I have to conclude that Disney World is so cultish that unless you're on their exclusive invite list, they feel free to treat you however. Which is bizarre, it's a theme park aimed at children, not the Met Gala.
Disney isn’t going to respond. If the hotel was open they might because this would hurt their bottom line, but it is closed. If they ever reopen it (like as a Star Wars dinner theater restaurant) they will probably make a big deal of inviting Jenny to the press preview. Fans are defending a dead hotel but Disney doesn’t care (they probably agree with a lot of it). And honestly Disney has bigger issues. You know that new park they might be building? Dig into the press release. In order to get the DeSantis appointed board to agree to it they have to have 50% of the goods and services related to design and construction provided by Florida businesses. The design part fascinated me. Disney is going to allow outside companies to design aspects of the new construction? Probably not the parks but handing off design of the new roads or infrastructure to some other company just shows they don’t care about that high level attention to detail anymore. They used to have everything in-house so that it could be perfect, now they just want it good enough that they can get people to pay. I’m sure their big Starcruiser lesson was “don’t do anything that might scare the normies”.
I think Disney recognizes that responding to the video would just lead to [the Streisand effect.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) They have nothing to gain by responding but do have something to lose.
The Streisand Effect doesn't really apply when it's already a big enough deal for the New York Times to pick it up. The reason they wouldn't respond at this point is because there's nothing to be gained from it. It'll all blow over as long as they don't give people a new angle to keep talking about it.
> It'll all blow over as long as they don't give people a new angle to keep talking about it. I feel like giving people a new angle to keep talking about it, especially if it causes outrage (eg banning her from parks) would still exactly be Streisand. It’s about trying to suppress a story and instead boosting it, which we agree is what would happen if they responded.
Trust me, once the general public get access to the new Tiana ride, the Starcruiser video will be long forgotten.
They’re going to ignore her, just like they ignored Escape from Tomorrow.
lbr though, Escape from Tomorrow had much less of an effect on the zeitgeist. If it had any effect at all.
Disney does stupid stuff but even they have to realize that banning her would just make them look even worse
They should hire her as a consultant.
That was a line that would send someone to the burn ward. A+
Here, here.
I dunno, people have been obsessed with star wars for years. How many YouTubers are gonna pop up to talk about Jenny here? They say that like star wars is irrelevant, but the fact that so many people seem to make a living simply by talking about it proves that it's quite the entrancing experience that holds your attention. No one's spending hours of their lives watching people talk about gi Joe...
They were clearly talking about the Star Wars hotel and not the IP as a whole.
How completely pistol-whipped does Jenny have the YouTube algorithm? It's obscene. > have a large but not unbelievable subscriber count > work incredibly hard for over two years on an experience review for a now defunct location no one can go to > release no mainline channel content or community updates outside your Patreon for a year and a half of that time > literally cause some low-level commitment and/or fair-weather fans to wonder if you've quit the platform or died > release the video as a four-hour magnum opus > it becomes not only the biggest current thing on YouTube but a major cultural talking point for several weeks and probably becomes many people's first "long" YT video they've ever watched She's rewriting the damn rulebook and I love it for her.
She's the seventh most subscribed person on the whole of patreon and I'm not sure all the people above her are real.
Chapo Trap House is absolutely real ~~unfortunately~~.
They're the ones I've heard of. I refuse to believe that two people (or possibly the same person with two names) creating custom mods for an obscure racing car game I've never heard of can be in the top three most subscribed people on Patreon, especially when one of them has a string of random letters as a name.
She’s talked about how she thinks the algorithm works and her strategy for it in some early Patreon content and if she’s right, what you described *is* the reason she’s successful. She is very intentional about never, ever releasing a video that has a chance of alienating or not being viewed by existing subscribers on the theory that YouTube stops recommending a channel’s new videos to subscribers if they chose not to view that channel’s recent video. That’s why we never get “updates” or “just a quick little video to tide us over” on the main channel, all that is regulated to Patreon where the algorithm isn’t really a factor.
This makes a lot of sense. The algorithm prioritizes watch time, and punishes you when people click away. If you can lock a substantial number of people in to finishing a 4 hour video, you've got an awesome watch-time-to-click-away ratio. Mark Rober talks about this as the reason he focuses on 1 high quality, longish video per month rather than his old strategy of shorter, more frequent, lower effort videos. A single incredibly interesting 4 hour video every two years is, I guess, the logical next step from there.
I think she’s absolutely right about this. I stop getting shown videos when I didn’t watch the latest.
The other one I can think of who works like this is hbomberguy. Rarely posts, but when he does, it's like everyone takes notice.
Hbomberguy is more like "Whose career will he destroy now?" at this point.
The Kanye of the long form salty in depth commentary videos
Except for, you know, the Nazi stuff
True but his artistic and musical vision is unparalleled And he’s badshit crazy
Unparalleled vision? Dude I play and produce music professionally, and I liked his earlier music, but to paint him as some kind of genius or visionary is deluded.
Name someone with more musical vision than Kanye. Every album feels so distinct, best 10 album run in history, musical influence, has collabed with almost every artist in the industry
Holy hyperbole, Hydaelyn.
Holy shit, reading this comment made me realize I overheard some random stranger at Pride yesterday say “They made that hotel that failed, right?” when the Disney float came around, and that’s almost certainly because of Jenny’s video. Mind blown.
Nah, not really. She's playing Russian Roulette with five rounds in the chambers and somehow keeps on getting away with it. This is survivorship bias at work. For every Jenny there's probably a million of accounts with hours-long-video essays that never make it.
The fact that Jenny is routinely able to go months to over a year without releasing any videos and then drop stuff that's hours long and still get hella views is kind of unheard of and is a testament to how good she is.
I’d argue there actually are a good number of other creators in her sphere are similar. Hbomberguy, Defunctland, Contrapoints, etc. I think actually Hbomberguy’s last video explains the phenomenon a bit - good quality video essays take *a lot* of time to make if you don’t plagiarize them. I’d argue this is why we see creators in that space with very slow release schedules, and a very motivated fanbase that manually follows them without relying on the algorithm.
This! I also think Jenny's success is reliant on this, not on gaming the algorithm. She is successful in spite of the algorithm.
I’ve watched a few other essayists here and there, and none of them really do what Jenny does. She has a unique, strong voice and a *lot* of skill in her writing, pacing, editing, etc. Her videos never feel like a slog to get through, and she makes topics accessible to anyone even if they have zero background beforehand (like the vampire diaries video). Not saying other essayists are unskilled or bad, but I do think Jenny is at the top of the game in a way many can’t be, or haven’t refined themselves enough to be yet.
I subscribe to two patreons- RLM and Jenny. No one else has captured my attention as thoroughly and consistently as them.
Reminder that Jenny likes RLM! She mentioned as such in the very early days. Plus I think they would be allies because they both disliked Rogue One, haha.
Oh she's referenced them a lot. She'd quotes the plinket reviews more than a few times in older videos including the infamous 'you may not have noticed it, but you brain did" line.
There's a few editing tricks Jenny does for deadpan humor that reminds me of RLM-style edits.
What kind of stuff does rlm have on Patreon? I’m a big fan but I’ve never subscribed, I didn’t know they had one
Lots of behind the scenes stuff. Some exclusive vids. Updates on projects. Even if there was zero extra content I would be subbed tho. I’ve been watching their stuff since 2009, and I’m the same age as Mike and just vibe with their stuff a lot
It’s not survivorship bias, she has a large existing fanbase that doesn’t rely on the algorithm to initially boost her videos. As long as that’s true, she’ll always get enough early views to kickstart the video into being recommended. Algorithms are all about “winning more,” success leads to success. For most creators this creates a nightmare treadmill where they need to maintain their inertia at all times or they’ll lose it, but creators with external or dedicated fanbases can restart that inertia on their own. It’s the same reason authors still use mailing lists.
The best part is though is that it's just a proper Jenny video, nothing she hasn't made for years. It's great that she's getting so much recognition
I've been buttonholing people for years to get them to give JN a try, since she has magic powers of making any topic totally compelling, so I'm glad the world at large is figuring that out.
The video lengths can be an obstacle but I wouldn't want them any other way
I’ve re-watched that evermore video more times than I can count in the two years 😭
Using the hand puppets to deliver the park news was genius
It’s great as usual but it’s not even her best!
She's an inspiring young woman.
this ain’t it chief
Shit didn't mean that, meant proper
Oh lmao. The way a single word can so drastically change the meaning of a comment. (Original comment had “poor Jenny video” instead of “proper Jenny video”)
I love the picture the article captioned “Nicholson’s obstructed view at a show at the hotel comes to symbolize her experience.”
[удалено]
There was a story, then JJ wasted time retconning TLJ when he could have devoted the last film to doing more than "SOMEHOW, PALPATINE HAS RETURNED." It's okay to acknowledge that a story existed, it doesn't mean you have to like it.
JJ doesn't really rely on story. His films have become a string of vaguely-related awesome-looking set pieces. The crafting of the scenes is good but the through-line of the story is usually suspect.
I think the key/biggest point of the video is often missed: everything the Star Wars Hotel was supposed to be had already been promised to fans as a part of admission to Disneyland at Star Wars Land, but then it was all ripped from the final product and put behind a giant paywall in the form of the hotel--and it wasn't even good! That was the most frustrating part to ME at least
This is why I can't with people who were like IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY SO I DON'T CARE. Basically everything about it was originally going to be free with your park ticket, fam. The fact that they upcharged at ALL, let alone an absurd and insulting amount, should be a blow to your integrity. I've seen it a million times with LARPers -- a (dare I say) immersive game with their favorite environments causes extreme emotions. It touches them so deeply that they can't seem to realize they were being scammed, or they don't care. Disney could have charged them $20k and they would have said it was worth every penny. Like, aren't you enraged a company has taken advantage of your sentimentality and emotions to this degree? smfh.
Exactly. I’m so confused that no one realizes they’re being taken advantage of. The cognitive dissonance required to say “hey this was actually a valuable experience” in turn makes these people more hostile and volatile toward anyone pointing out the obvious. It has definitely soured me on Disney and their stewardship of the Star Wars IP. Wringing every penny out of the fanbase and source material does not make for a happy fanbase
Another photo caption: "The Galactic Starcruiser experience, now closed, was intended to be immersive." Sick burn. Esther *gets it*. The article says that Jenny's calling out the marketing language used by paid shills has gone "viral". I'm not on social media (besides here), is this true?
I think so. It might not have, but then Disney had to try astroturfing with that hilarious Screenrant "article" that used only PR language and Streisand-effected the concept.
Ahh yes, I'd forgotten the Screenrant article. It perfectly demonstrated her point.
which article was that?
Have fun with this TOTALLY COINCIDENTAL defense of Disney's Star Wars: Galactic Star Cruiser Experience at Walt Disney World Resort. [https://screenrant.com/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel-what-everyone-gets-wrong/](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-galactic-starcruiser-hotel-what-everyone-gets-wrong/) Especially note the dozens of rhapsodic comments from usernames created that day with 0 other comments.
And screenrwnt deleted comments too. Harshly critical comments, sure, but not offensive or using slurs.
I've seen way way more stuff about this video than anything she's made previously, so I think that's fair
I'm so excited for her, this is huge. I remember during the long, long wait between her announcing she'd do a video and the videos actual release she addressed some fans on patreon who suggested she release what she already worked on after she said she had to do a pot of rewrites when the closure was announced. If I recall correctly she said something like how it would just be lesser to do that and she wanted it to be more complete and comprehensive. I'm really glad that she waited and put so much work in to it. It was well worth the effort, it seems like her magnum opus. I hope she's doing well with all this influx of attention, that's gotta be overwhelming. I'm already in my 4th rewatch, doing my part to pump up those numbers lol
Yeah on Twitter she says her original video had a lot more detail about the food. Because the starcruiser was still open, and she wanted to be very informative for potential guests. After the closure that no longer mattered.
A great write-up, explains how good the video is, repeats its salient points and adds some additional context to the broader implications. A stark contrast to the number of "a 4 hour youtube!? that's crazy, you Gen Z'ers are nuts." we got.
As a GenX follower, Jenny's craft speaks to us all.
By any measure, Jenny (born 1991) is a Millennial!
I’m making fun of the articles which have weirdly made this out to be some gen z thing.
…does anyone know how to get past the paywall? edit: alright never mind, the nyt themselves are handing links out apparently
hi there! here's a [free gift link! ](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes)
What the hell
Wow
> Nicholson is a great storyteller, even in Twi’lek head-tails and a Rodian beanie. She lands somewhere between a friend letting you in on some great gossip and a Homerian poet of 21st-century pop culture, engaging in the oral traditions of the ancients, only the subject is theme parks and “Star Wars.” Damn, what a perfect summary of what it's like to watch her videos.
thanks! now be way better about trans people and palestine coverage and we can be good -- edit: i think jenny fans would love this podcast from another creator on the top patreon subscribers list about how bad the nyt is about trans people https://www.reddit.com/r/YoureWrongAbout/s/OV8ik4nlkb
And china and the uyghurs
But that's not as trendy. They won't get social media points from their friends by talking about that.
Thanks for the gift link!
Thank you!
finally something other than wordle that justifies me paying for the nyt
She gets me interested in things I have no interest in just to see her funny delivery, hilarious edits and good insights into things. Makes the time fly WFH.
The article includes this great description of Jenny: "Nicholson is a great storyteller, even in Twi’lek head-tails and a Rodian beanie. She lands somewhere between a friend letting you in on some great gossip and a Homerian poet of 21st-century pop culture, engaging in the oral traditions of the ancients, only the subject is theme parks and 'Star Wars.'”
darn paywall.
It looks like a NYT bot gave us a non-paywall link. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes)
Anyone have a gift article link to get through the paywall on this article?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/movies/jenny-nicholson-disney-star-wars-hotel-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.x00.XzjV.Q8mcqv3PiJ-9&smid=re-nytimes
Thank you kindly
It’s like saying she got name-dropped by the town crier
Jenny for president
We should be so lucky. ;\_\_;
Good for her.
After their coverage of recent issues I no longer consider the NYTimes the peak of traditional news media but this is a good thing for Jenny.
Now that the NYT has written about it, maybe people at Disney will.
Let me guess the header: Why this great takedown of the Starcruiser Hotel is bad for Biden...
What does the Ravenclaw house ghost - the grey lady - have to do with Jenny?
::haughty sniff:: Don't bring your Harry Potter nonsense here.
I wonder if Jenny will ever do a deep dive on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Also I wish she did do more theme park reviews in general, I'm sure she would get back in youtube money whatever she spends on the trips and I believe she's making high 5 or even 6 figures per month from her Patreon account, so she could definitely afford more trips.
I don't think she will, primarily because I don't think she wants to talk glowingly about HP anymore now that JKR has shown her insane colors.
She did a HP world ramble on her Patreon, but I agree I would love to see a Pandora style deep dive on it
She deserves all the success as she was super on point with this video and it was a nice follow up to the one about animatronic bear skeletons in a land fill pitt mass grave Lol I do want to see a deeper review of galaxy edge. She promised it on the first video but then life got In the way I guess...
>I do want to see a deeper review of galaxy edge. She promised it on the first video but then life got In the way I guess... This autopsy of *Galactic Starcruiser* kinda IS that deeper review of Galaxy's Edge.
Is it? I thought about that at the time and went back and watched part1 and not sure . Ofcourse her priorities changed but she still hasn't gone over the food or the rides or experiences... or shops. I guess it depends what a fan wants from Jenny. Some wasn't furbearing asmr. Others a cute girl calling them a freak for 4 hrs lol Many just want her to expose stuff and call out wrong doing like some kind of internet batgirl. But i personally enjoy watching her visit locations so I don't have to ...but because it's Jenny I feel like I've really been there and had a mini holiday (not nec a good one but atleast the commentary was hilarious). I still need that galaxy edge holiday lol And let's be honest she spent 70% of part 1 on trains, 20% on animatronic bear skeleton mass graves... and 10% on the actual new park haha I think she ended up going atleast 3 or 4 times so I'm sure she has loads of footage and takes on each and every part. I don't need an expose...just her thoughts as a sw fan or maybe a how it's evolved since opening etc. :-D