Reducing Disney+’s Massive Subscriber Loss to Culture War Nonsense Is Just … Factually Incorrect

When in doubt, inexplicably popular YouTube movie critic The Critical Drinker will do no amount of critical thinking at all—and don’t worry, he’ll also probably see this and act shocked that we are calling him out. Constantly online just mocking the “woke” culture that Disney has supposedly adopted, the Critical Drinker’s most recent talking-out-his-assholery comes in the form of hinting that Disney+’s recent, huge loss of subscribers was driven by that wokeness—which is just factually incorrect.

Disney+ lost subscribers—2.4 million of them, reportedly—but not because Star Wars let a lady have a lightsaber or because the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now the “M-She-U.” They seemingly lost those subscribers because of sports—and not even subscribers in the United States who might be in any way involved in our ridiculous culture war.

While we here in America are constantly forced to care about sports by every major network, other countries rely on Disney+ for coverage of their favorite games—one of them being cricket—and so, when Disney lost the right to air cricket, it hurt their subscriber count in a large portion of the world outside the U.S. You can read all of this from writer Anthony Gramuglia, who took the “critical” lens of Critical Drinker to task and pointed out what is actually happening over at Disney.

But facts continue to evade the minds of those on the right when they want to try to make a point. It is men like Critical Drinker and Ben Shapiro who get online and just make things up but then sit and pretend like “facts” matter to them. The Critical Drinker and his followers would all rather act like their warped views on fictional space soap operas and superhero stories are the opinions of everyone else.

The reality, as it always is, is simply that sports will always hold more weight than other things. People wanted a place to watch cricket. Disney+ was that source until they lost the rights, and then those who had the app purely for sports didn’t need it anymore.

Your hatred of “woke” Disney doesn’t mean anything

People like The Critical Drinker and all these conservative/non-liberal internet personalities think that their opinions are the true facts. They’re the ones that matter in their own warped realities, so when something like this happens and has nothing to do with them, they just try to make it about their own agenda. The reality is that sports are still a driving force in most streaming content. Without them, the apps might not survive.

So, Disney+ losing subscribers because of sports makes sense, but that’s not the narrative that people like The Critical Drinker want to put out into the world. They want people to agree with them and make their odd claims a reality.

If Disney had really lost 2.4M subscribers because of “woke” culture, that would be pathetic. Disney isn’t doing anything that is “woke” or aggressive. It’s just … sometimes telling stories that are not focused specifically on straight white cis men, and guys like the Drinker are so angry that they have to try to see someone else’s perspective that they will do whatever they can act like others agree with their takes.

The reality is that sports will drive business, and that’s what happened here. No, people did not get rid of their Disney+ subscriptions because Rey is a Skywalker now or because of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The slightly less straight white male-ness of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe did not lose Disney subscribers. Relax.

(featured image: Lucasfilm)