Is Disney a religion?

Betteridge’s law of headlines says the answer to both the above questions is no, but bear with me. Apparently writing a mini essay and scattering it with links brings you to the Gmail data limit quicker than you’d imagine, which means fewer memes this week. Subscribe so you don’t miss out on them next time.

“DisneyReligionGate” grips Twitter

About two weeks ago a screenshot from the AITA subreddit spread across Twitter. A couple got married at Disney and their guests got mad about there being no food because the couple spent their entire catering budget on getting Mickey and Minnie to appear in some photos. Twitter loves to hate Disney adults, so it went viral. Normal stuff.

Then, mere hours after I published last week’s newsletter, religion studies professor Jodi Eichler-Levine reposted the screenshot along with a thread arguing “you should stop pathologizing Disney adults” because they find immense meaning in the Disney brand and “Disney is as much a religion as anything.”

It’s worth pointing out that Jodi has been actively researching the intersection of religion, meaning-making and the Disney brand since 2019, and is writing a book about it. An argument for the religiosity of Disney fans isn’t unusual in the religious studies world, but a thread like this is catnip to Christian Twitter in particular, where many users found the idea patently ridiculous or downright offensive.

The whole thing took off again as a new series of religious memes. Basically everyone had a meme or a take, and Jodi unfortunately got a lot of targeted hate including antisemetic abuse. She wrote about the experience and articulated her argument a bit more for NBC News and was also interviewed about it for NPR.

I’m hilariously unqualified to rule on whether “Disney is a religion” is a good, fair or interesting thing to say. I’m probably more familiar with religious studies framework than the average person, but as an outsider to the discipline I admit the way it collapses all kinds of things into the category of religion is bewildering and often feels arbitrary. I don’t know, maybe I will be able to chat with Jodi about it one day. She seems very thoughtful and it would make a good podcast episode.

Outside the backlash, “DisneyReligionGate” sparked a few posts that were really interesting to me. These tweets by Matthew J Kuiper (who ultimately agrees with Jodi) were particularly helpful in forming my thinking about this. He says:

Religion scholars/blahblahs are supposed to be attuned to nuance and distinctions, right? To say that something might *act like* or be *analogous to* or *fulfill some functions* traditionally fulfilled by religions is not the same as saying they *are* religions. As to whether such analogies (whether b/t Disney or sports or nationalism or whatever & religion) are boring or stupid or whatever, if used w nuance, they are definitely useful in the classroom in providing interesting pathways into the study of “religion” & the roles it plays.

I’m sure my opinion about this kind of thing will continue to shift as I learn more.

I love the Pride Month demon

I found this moments after publishing last week’s edition and it’s a crying shame because it’s literally perfect.

My favourite DALL-E creations

Last week in the more links section I posted an AI art creation using a prompt about “Apple’s annual religious ritual”. There have been dozens more religion-y ones that have come across my feed so I thought I’d post a list of some of my favourites.

• Bob the Tomato as medieval manuscript
• Pope Francis vampire hunter anime
• John Piper with a seashell collection
• Cardinal neil degrasse tyson

I can’t include them all, so if you have more please send them to me! I want to see them please!

“How Catholicism became a meme”

This article from Rebecca Jennings at Vox argues that “at least aesthetically and culturally, Catholicism pairs well with this precise moment.” Catholic imagery is cropping up across fashion and social media, even though the Catholic Church in America isn’t growing and Protestant churches of all stripes are shrinking.

It’s interesting, and features an interview with an admin of our old favourite Instagram account, @ineedgodineverymomentofmylife. Give it a read.

Here’s another take on it:

Is there a ghost in the machine?

You’ve probably heard the story about the Google chatbot and the software engineer who claims it is sentient. Is he right? Probably not. But it made a lot of people think about what a soul is.

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day writes that thinking of AI as simply a tool “makes more sense than the idea that an A.I. could ‘wake up’, at least as we understand it.” I’ve joked before that AI is simply demons, but if computer sentience was really possible, would you baptise a robot?

Which reminds me, Derek Webb’s 2012 concept album NEXUS by SOLA-MI is about an AI that wakes up and struggles to find meaning to its existence. Is it a metaphor for each of us grappling with personhood and identity? Or is it God realising it is God and trying to work out what to do about that? It’s one of my favourite albums of his, even though it doesn’t bear his name. Consider this your music recommendation for the week.

The guy on the keyboard is my favourite

No room for any more links this week sorry!