No Sex, Please, We're Gen Z
Plus: Daily Disney Disaster

I know some of y'all hate the Disney updates so I'm smuggling it in under a sex story. Sex sells, I've heard.

A new story claims that Gen Z doesn't want any sex or romance in movies. What they want, supposedly, is more stories about platonic relationships.

I mean, yes, we'd like to see young people not having casual sex like animals but it is probably not a good thing when a generation loses a normal healthy interest in sex altogether.

A new study about young Americans' entertainment consumption habits shows that Generation Z is far more interested in seeing stories of platonic relationships on screen than those featuring sex and romance.

More than half of the 1,500 young people who participated in the University of California Los Angeles's (UCLA) Center for Scholars and Storytellers "Teens and Screens" survey said they want to see more content focused on friendships. Nearly 40% said they particularly want to see more non-romantic relationships or asexual characters on screen. The majority of respondents said they felt that romance in media is overused. (The study in its entirety included youth aged 10-24, but questions relating specifically to sex and romance on screen were only asked of a subset aged 13-24.)

The research team is labeling this trend as "nomance."

"When there's media with too much sex, me and my friends often feel uncomfortable," said survey respondent Ana, age 16, in a video released by UCLA to accompany the study.

"My friends are I maybe awkwardly bear through it," said 20-year-old respondent Joseph.

A male 20 year old feels "awkward" when he sees sex or mere romance in a movie?

I've felt that way when I saw the nude bath scene in Death Race 2000 when my dad was in the room, but assuming my parents aren't around, I've generally been able to handle it since at least my early to mid tweens.

The surveyors claim that kids lost opportunities for friendships during the covid lockdowns and now want to see those on screen. Okay, but didn't they also lose opportunities for romance?

I don't know how to evaluate this poll because, while "over 50%" seems like a big, meaningful number, they don't provide the comparative to previous generations. Yes, one would assume that prior generations were not this sex-averse and pro-asexuality, but that's only an assumption without an actual number.

I find this alarming because of what's happened in Japan -- entire generations can in fact lose interest in dating, mating, and procreating, resulting in a slouch towards civilizational oblivion.

I heard two takes on this from the right-wing entertainment podcasts I listen to: 1, we're doomed, Gen Z are a bunch of sexless shut-ins like those hikikomori in Japan, or, 2, this survey was conducted by UCLA researchers, who may have had an agenda in pushing the idea of pushing Hollywood towards pushing asexuality on young people.

Here's a description of the founder of UCLA's "Center for Scholars and Storytellers," which sounds a lot like "school for advanced puppetry:"

"My passion is to bridge the work of researchers and entertainment executives in order to help storytellers access useful science that can help them create impactful content and affect social change. This is why I founded the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA."

Social change. Got it.

In Disney Disaster news, another group holding a lot of Disney stock is calling for a negotiated settlement with the Peltz group: they want Disney to avoid a proxy fight by giving Peltz a seat on the board which would protect shareholder interests.

Yet another group, Ancora Holdings Group, LLC, is joining the proxy fray. The group, which invests in the Walt Disney Company, has sent a letter to shareholders urging them to put another investor on the Disney Board, specifically Nelson Peltz or someone from Trian.

The letter indicates that due to the "extended period of absentminded governance, ineffective succession planning, polarizing actions and sustained value destruction" the Company has underperformed and caused Disney shareholders "meaningful losses" as the Company underperformed.

They urge shareholders to pressure the board to find a "viable compromise with Trian Fund Management, L.P. and Nelson Peltz."

Ancora also mentioned that the company has gotten into politically driven situations that have created "division" instead of "delight" among its customer base. It is argued that having a "sizable owner in the boardroom" would "bring the market's perspective and serve as one of many voices that would only benefit shareholders."

In case you don't know what a proxy fight is: Everyone who owns voting stock in a company has a vote in the company's affairs. Votes occur at company shareholder meetings. Most shareholders cannot be physically present at these meetings, but you are allowed to give your vote by proxy to someone else -- hence, your proxy vote.

A proxy fight occurs when a faction conducts what is very much like a political campaign soliciting shareholders' proxy votes, so he can take those votes to the shareholder meeting and use them to press for the changes he wants.

Disney has a board of directors which is supposed to oversee the actions of its actual executives, like CEO Bob Iger. But all of the members of the board are hand-picked by Bob Iger and are seen as his woke cronies. They have all rubber-stamped his every action as he as greenlighted one woke initiative after another, and Disney has lost over $70 billion in value.

So what Peltz wants to do is place someone sympathetic to the shareholders on the board -- himself or his son, or maybe both, and maybe former Marvel owner Ike Perlmutter -- who will actually fight Bob Iger's woke agenda and even fire him if he refuses back off its war on traditionalist America.

Via ClownfishTV.

You may have heard that a report dropped last week accusing the Iger-installed board of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Disney-controlled board that oversees a big chunk of Florida, of corruption.

The district overseeing the land where Disney's theme parks sit is releasing a report Wednesday that accuses Disney of providing benefits "akin to bribes" to employees of the district.

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District hired outside experts to examine the Reedy Creek Improvement District's past practices. It repeatedly targets Reedy Creek's practice of buying annual Disney passes for its employees and retirees, a popular perk that would be worth thousands of dollars.

"For years, the company treated district employees like Disney employees by, for instance, providing complimentary annual passes and steep discounts--benefits and perks that were akin to bribes," the report says.

The three experts hired by the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board to look into the practices of the former Reedy Creek Improvement District presented their findings at a meeting Wednesday.

They claim Reedy Creek passed measures that only benefited Disney -- after receiving a number of benefits.

"Disney controlled the old Reedy Creek Board," Chair Martin Garcia said.

"The audit documents the clever, creative, and even inappropriate tactics that were used over the decades to yes, outmaneuver and co-opt politicians," Garcia said.

Along with receiving Disney annual passes, the findings also show hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on parties for personnel, events, and entertainment.

They say Disney even covered some property taxes for government officials.

"The audit shows that Disney even paid real estate taxes for some of the government officials who were charged with regulating business practices," Garcia said.

There might be a criminal investigation of Disney's practices -- which would implicate Bob Iger, of course.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:30 PM

| Access Comments