Generation DCOM

I am a firm believer that everyone’s personality is heavily shaped by the time period in which they grew up. If you are like me, and were born in that funky zone between Millennial and Gen Z, it can be hard to decipher which traits from each generation make up your identity. What I, and many of my peers, identify more strongly with is something that no generation before us really had: Disney Channel.

For me and millions of 20-somethings out there, Disney Channel symbolizes not just a slate of television programs, but an entire content marketplace. It defines my entire generation.

Before the 90s, there was not much programming designed specifically for children. Even movies created with children in mind were meant to be watched by the whole family. Not until Nickelodeon was made was there a place where children could watch content made specifically for them to watch alone. This was revolutionary. It included programming written with a child’s perspective (or the best adults could do at accomplishing that), topics children actually enjoyed, and even ads specifically targeted at kids! This niche environment was not for the whole family, but for kids' eyes only.

While Nickelodeon was extremely important to children’s culture (and definitely deserves its own discussion), Disney Channel went a step further to build a children’s television channel into an entire culture. In the late 90s and early 00s, Disney Channel as a brand emerged. Made-for-tv movies (Disney Channel Original Movies, also known as DCOMs), television shows, and music videos were available at (seemingly) all times of day. Not only that, but these shows weren’t cartoons. They had live-action stars, which meant real idols to look up to and celebrities to follow.

As a child, I was engulfed by Disney Channel. Fashion, music taste, and even my sense of humor were shaped by it. I wanted to wear eighteen layers of clothes like Hannah Montana, listen to catchy pop songs like those sung by the Jonas Brothers, and try to tell jokes as well as Zack and Cody. This complete overhaul of my personality was aided by the fact that I was in the midst of the most formative time of my life. I began watching Disney Channel at the beginning of my consciousness. For instance, I can’t remember a time before “Hannah Montana” existed. Although I was alive before then, the first content I can remember consuming were Disney Channel shows. At the point that I was conscious enough to decide what I wanted to watch and listen to, this is what drew me in.

Disney Channel extended well beyond just a television channel. It was almost a way of life. Just think: we had Radio Disney, clothing lines in Walmart and Target, albums and concerts, brand deals with Danimals yogurt, and plenty (perhaps an excess) of branded merchandise. Name any product, it was probably used to promote a Disney Channel series at some point. The concerts were cultural events. Anyone my age will tell you how big of a deal the 3D Hannah Montana concert was, or the High School Musical: The Concert tour! My friends and I still talk about the Disney Channel Games to this day. Instead of discussing shows at the water cooler like our parents had done, we went to school and talked about our excitement for High School Musical 2. It was unifying and, frankly, awesome.

These tastes follow us to this day. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that some of the Disney Channel stars remain in the spotlight today, acting and making music. When we were kids, Disney Channel stars were really the only celebrities we had access to. It was a whole subset of celebrity gossip for children to follow: Was Miley still dating Nick Jonas? What kinds of girls were the Sprouse twins looking for? All seemingly a little scandalous, yet completely palatable for children. Typically, these stars were also fairly close to our age as well, and therefore were able to gear their image towards an audience of children. However, as we aged, so did these stars. The 2003-2015 class of Disney Channel stars was, from what I can tell, the first class of child stars to transition from kids programming to the adult pop culture world. Sure, other stars may have done it individually, but Zac, Miley, and Raven all grew up together with children everywhere watching closely. This transition into adult content may have been rocky for some, but in their defense, this was uncharted territory. Besides, regardless of how they got here, a majority of the big Disney Channel stars from our childhoods remain relevant figures in pop culture today, and therefore align our adult tastes with those of 2005.

Although my peers and I have had a lot of time since our Disney Channel days to venture outside of our childhood tastes, I still find a lot of my preferences matching up with my past. We see this especially with music tastes. In fact, a lot of us still listen to the old music from Disney Channel, if for no other reason than nostalgia (or in my case, thinking it’s still good music). Nostalgia plays a huge role in the careers of former Disney Channel stars. Look at where the Jonas Brothers are today. Of course, the music they’ve made recently is catchy, but their fame would be nowhere close to what it is now if they didn’t have the added factor of our childhood adoration.

Similarly, there is a whole class of actors whose faces we recognize simply because they were on Disney Channel. Just yesterday, my boyfriend couldn’t figure out why he recognized Austin Butler’s face in the Elvis trailer, only to look him up and conclude that “he’s a Disney Channel guy.” This was also something I noticed when I watched Succession and instantly called it “the show with that guy from Minutemen.” Once a Disney Channel star, always a Disney Channel star, and since they have a built-in fanbase, why not use that to their advantage?

This is not to say that other content did not influence our tastes growing up. Spongebob Squarepants was obviously a huge part of our generation, as was iCarly. However, we can define our generation more easily by this era of television than we can by any other factor. It’s fascinating to see how we shape our adult lives with this uniting factor in our personalities. I am curious to see where this leads us in the future, and how it will affect the generations to come when we show episodes of Hannah Montana to our own kids.