In case you hadn’t realised, we’re all getting old. That 50 Cent album you used to listen to on your flip phone in the school playground? 15 years old. Fidget spinners? A distant memory. Unicorn-coloured food items? Baffling. Half your childhood heroes? Milkshake duck’d. At least we’ll always have Disney though. At least that will always be pure. Right?
Well colour us grey and wither us like a sucked-out raisin, because this is it – Disney have betrayed us. The case in point? A tweet, shared over the weekend from the official Disney account, in which the once-jolly purveyors of childhood hopes and dreams have binned their bright-side outlook. Instead, they’re revelling in depression. Cheery stuff.
Rehashing a clip from Pinocchio (you know, the 1940 classic which taught us all the value of youth and hard work), they’ve instead captioned the transformative sequence – in which the puppet-y protagonist becomes a ‘real boy’ – with the caption “When someone compliments you, but you’re dead inside”, and re-edited it so the transformation is a complete and utter failure. Relatable, indeed.
Disney just deleted the “dead inside” tweet. pic.twitter.com/bebFlBQW3m
— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) April 9, 2018
As if that wasn’t enough, look at the tweet itself. “Makes no difference who you are.” Is this a thinly-veiled acceptance of mental illness’ lack of discrimination; an acknowledgement that we should all be more understanding of the fact that these issues can affect anyone, at any time? No. It’s nothing more than the twisting of a particularly pointy knife. I’ll never be able to listen to ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’ again. Why, Disney? Who hurt you?
Understandably, if you’ll excuse the parlance, MILLENNIALS ARE SHOOK. “This is… very un-Disney?” wrote one, while even Satan himself thought it was a bit suspect. The replies were a smorgasbord of heartbreak and betrayal – so much so that Disney deleted the tweet 24 hours later.
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Who can blame the dissenters? If this is the route even Disney is taking, who’s to say what’s next? Is anything in our childhood safe? Is jelly racist? Are the Teletubbies secret meninists? Does Roald Dahl really think his character are all a bunch of safe-space-peddling soyboys? This is it, people. This is the end of days.
NME’s Let’s Talk campaign aims to tackle the stigma that surrounds discussing mental health, open a dialogue around the important issues, and to raise awareness so that no one feels like they’re alone.
More: ‘Am I depressed’ – help and advice on mental health and what to do next
For help and advice on mental health issues, check out the below organisations: