Theme Parking: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum War

• About a year ago, I started casting around for a place to discuss all things Disneyland. Somewhere, I hoped, that I could find like-minded individuals who enjoyed the parks and would debate, theorize, and share gossip. I landed on the WDWMagic forums, specifically the Disneyland Resort sub-forum. It has its fair share of kooks, supposed insiders, and all around nice people. It felt like an internet home I had been searching for since the implosion of NeoGAF.


• Fast forward to Sunday morning when someone has detonated a dirty bomb in the community in the form of a Medium post. The gist of author Gary Snyder's claims is that Al Lutz, one of the earliest online critic of Disney and one of the founders of MiceAge, was posting articles provided by a Disney corporate writer starting in the early 2000's. The goal of all of this seems to be poisoning the community against Michael Eisner to help affect his ouster. (I see that I've never posted a review of James B. Stewart's Disney War. I should get on that.) The author further fingers WDWMagic forum member TP2000 as the Disney writer. This all seems to have been provoked by the recent MiceChat article by Lutz which this time portray Disney Chairman of Parks, Experiences and Products, Bob Chapek, as the current architect of Disneyland's woes.


• MiceChat eventually punched back with a number of frequently re-edited statements, eventually landing on:

Folks, as we digest what was alleged in this nearly unreadable hit piece by Dusty's ex-husband and his friend (and banned MiceChat user), we can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the entire gist of the article is wrong. In fact, it's slander. Anyone that has ever read the Al Articles knows the truth.

At this point, we ask that you please support us by not further spreading the falsehoods in this ridiculous article. Our thoughts and prayers are with Al Lutz, who has been so brutally and untruthfully maligned.

Al may now come to the Expo just to tell you in his own words. Please stop by the MiceChat booth to say hello.



• It comes out that Gary Snyder has made a career writing hit pieces about Disney, casting doubt on the veracity of this claims. MiceAge co-founder Kevin Yee eventually reveals that Snyder is forum poster Spirit of 76, a long time antagonist of Lutz's. Along with the MiceChat post, it seems that Snyder and the ex of MiceChat's founder (the successor to MiceAge) concocted a revenge plot to bring down MiceChat.


• (An alternate summary of everything up to here can be found in this Twitter thread from Matthew Panzarino, Editor-In-Chief of Techcrunch.)


• On the WDWMagic forums, TP2000 finally arrived to throw water on all of Snyder's claims. This everyone took in stride as the post had mostly been discredited. At least until MiceChat admin PhotoMatt showed up to accuse TP2000 of lying about all of this (in a now deleted forum post).

This statement is not accurate. I have access to one of the emails you would have used and I have not received any emails. I also contacted Dustysage, and he has not received any emails from you. The claim you are conversing with him is not based on any facts.

Wrong. You registered on the forum I am an admin on with an email that belongs to Troy Porter. You did this in 2005, and you had no idea it would come back to haunt you. Your address matches what was posted previously by another member. Public records indicate your real age, so it's odd that you would enter a birthday on Micechat using the year 1974.

1974.

74.

Does that number ring a bell? WDW1974? Spirit of '74?

Troy, you and your buddies hurt my friends. Why? What did you have to gain from this? You are clearly lying. Stop lying. Tell the truth. Why are you doing this?



• PhotoMatt quickly apologized after all of this, that post was deleted, and TP2000 accepted the apology.


• This, of course, leaves us with a lot of drama, but no actual substance. There is no way to trust any of Snyder's claims. And whether or not we do, we must come away with the same conclusion: we must always interrogate the agenda of any information with which we are presented. The reason why information is shared can be as illuminating as the information itself.