If you hang out on Twitter long enough, you come to realize there are essentially two camps of Disney “fans.” One one end of the spectrum are those who think Disney can do no wrong – everything is happy pixie dust, every new development is nothing short of pure magic straight from Walt’s cryogenically frozen hands.  On the opposite side is a small but mighty group of Disney devotees who take a decidedly less rosy view of the Walt Disney Company. Every new development is met with criticism, if not outright vitriol. Nothing will ever be as good as it was in 1955/1971.

Frankly I find myself falling somewhere in the middle.  I can play ball with the cynics, but I can’t deny my own warm feelings of nostalgia rising out of a childhood shaped and molded by Disney at every turn.  Some new developments (new Fantasyland, for example) I think are pretty great. Others (princess proliferation, Avatarland, interactive/NextGen *everything*) make me want to shake my fist at the sky and pine for the good ole’ days of Disney.  I enjoy the perspective of both diehard fans and diehard fan critics, but there’s one subject in particular that I think both sides need to give a bit on: pin trading.

Disney pin trading appears to be the third rail of Disney fandom – touch it and you die. Few subjects are as contentious, as debated, and as divisive. Saying you like to pin trade is like saying you appreciate Duffy, or like riding Journey Into Imagination, or think that huge South American tour groups enhance your park touring experience. You just don’t say it. Or if you *do* say it, you tend to be outcasted by the “serious” Disney fans, those who show their affection for the company by critiquing it and complaining about it at every turn.  Liking pin trading means you’re a Disney apologist who has fallen for cheap marketing ploys and hollow money grabs.  If you like pin trading, well, then – you’re the reason we can’t have nice things in our parks!

I’ve been thinking about this lately because I happen to be an out and proud pin trader. I resisted it for a long, long time, and then one day – I bought a pin. And then a few more. And a few more after that. Now, I have a small but thoughtfully curated collection of pins I love. Pin trading has fostered more positive interaction with Cast Members than I can recall experiencing in any other way – not every CM loves to pin trade, but when you find the ones who do, it’s impressive to learn of their knowledge of and dedication to the hobby.  Pin trading has kept park touring fresh for those of us who are repeat visitors.  Unscrupulous pin counterfeiters aside, pin trading has brought together a community of fans unified by a shared a product that celebrates some of the best known Disney imagery and iconography. What’s wrong with it, exactly?

A few things. Some criticisms are justified (we’ll get to that), and others, I think, are screens for larger dissatisfactions with a company many of us have loved since toddlerhood. A beloved company, granted, but one not immune from making mistakes. It’s hard to ignore attractions and shows that have been neglected and left in disrepair. Maintenance and custodial shifts have been cut back, leaving us with a World far less pristine than the one we all knew in childhood.  Merchandise variety and creativity has stagnated (although I’ll argue it’s slowly getting better). Questionable investments in NextGen technology, meet-and-greets, and E-ticket bathrooms continue apace, while we haven’t seen a new E-ticket ride in nearly ten years. A company that used to surprise and delight us with new rides, new experiences, and new gates is now giving us…not a lot.

I get that. And I also get that in the absence of real positive change, it’s easy to criticize what Disney *is* doing in addition to what it isn’t doing. And pin trading is a phenomenon that is hard to ignore.  With a presence in every park, resort, water park, and Downtown Disney, you couldn’t escape it if you wanted to.  It’s brought mountains of ancillary pin trading merchandise to nearly every store at WDW. Want a vest for your pins? How about a hat? A binder? A messenger bag? You can pick one up anywhere, which is kind of like pin trading itself: everywhere. And, that, I think, is the biggest legitimate problem with pin trading: its ubiquitousness.

The problem isn’t that pin trading exists. Pin trading isn’t the reason why Disney has abandoned fresh merchandise. Pin trading isn’t the reason that TDO has chosen to make mostly cosmetic updates to Walt Disney World, instead of real capital investment in rides, attractions, and transportation. Pin trading is prolific because it’s popular and profitable.  If I’m Disney, why would I curtail or get rid of this success story? Obviously, I wouldn’t. You’d want to ride this wave for every dollar and new fan it was worth.

The challenge for Disney, though, is the delicate balance between healthy saturation and suffocating overexposure.  As much as I love it personally, pin trading has taken up far too much valuable theme park real estate. It’s everywhere. Unescapable. Encroaching on themeing and story and everything Disney tells us it values, and wants for its guests. It’s this ubiquity that I think rightly empowers Disney critics to complain about pin trading.  The architecture and infrastructure required to house and maintain pin trading has ruined sight lines, cluttered already crowded park areas, and added a deadening sameness to the Disney parks, parks that used to have their own identity, character, and merchandise.

Let’s look at an example:

If you visited Epcot before 1999, perhaps you remember this lovely view?

EPCOT – 1983. © Jeff Bergman

Beautiful, right? A mix of hardscape and softscape, manmade objects and natural greenery. It’s serene and futuristic all at the same time. Pedestrian traffic moves freely, with no obstructions or bottlenecks.

Have you visited Epcot more recently? If so, you’re probably familiar with this view:

Modern-day Innoventions Plaza at Epcot. ©Scott Hanko

I realize these aren’t apples-to-apples shots, but you get the idea. Gone is the tranquil reflecting pool, integrated greenery, and unobstructed view of Spaceship Earth. Front and center is this monstrosity, the pin trading hub of Epcot. Indeed, outside of Disney’s Pin Traders at Downtown Disney, this is the largest pin trading location in WDW. It’s also an eyesore, and an affront to the futuristic design aesthetic Epcot ought to embody.

There are also these:

©MousePlanet

©disneylandtraveler.blogspot.com

©MousePlanet

©TalkDisney

©guide-to-disney.com

©disunplugged.com

It’s like that old saying: “everywhere you go, there you are.”  You could be at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, or at Epcot, or at the Wilderness Lodge, and there it is…pin trading.  Maybe a pin kiosk in Animal Kingdom has some decorative woodland animals on it while one in Fantasyland has some ornate scrolls, but essentially they are the same pin carts, selling the same pins for the same price each and every day, all over the WDW resort. For those that don’t want to participate in the pin enterprise, you are almost obligated to do just that, whether or not you buy a pin or make a trade – visually, you’re hard pressed to find a place at Disney untouched by pin trading. In making pin trading ubiquitous, Disney has made pin trading less special. It’s nakedly commercial – Disney wants you to buy a starter pack and get hooked. Then buy more…and more…and more. It’s less about the trading and more about the buying. And what you’re buying now is by definition less special and valuable, since Disney floods market with new pins at an astonishing rate. It’s about pushing volume with little regard for what you buy. Therefore, pin trading is less the cause of Disney’s sad merchandise strategy and more another victim of it.

Solution: Let’s consolidate pin buying and trading, with an emphasis on the trading. Here’s my idea – let’s move the hub of pin activity from Epcot to the existing pin trading store at Downtown Disney. An expanded DTD pin store could not only centralize pin buying – freeing up the parks of the manifold pin station eyesores – but could also allow for the dismantling of tacky pin trading architecture that has sullied the parks.  Further, a larger Downtown Disney pin hub could be staffed with knowledgable Cast Members whose sole job it is to pin trade with guests, which in itself is a win-win: guests get the undivided attention of CMs to make trades, and in-park Cast Members could (hopefully!) see diminished distractions from guests constantly wanting to trade with them while they are busy doing other things. Of course, I don’t see how pin trading could be fully removed from the parks, and I don’t think I’d want it to be.  But it’s clear that in-park pin trading needs some reform, as I’ve encountered dozens of Cast Members for whom pin trading was obviously an unwanted burden. A sizable and centralized pin trading center could go a long way toward easing this burden.

The point of my manifesto is really this: let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don’t have to like pin trading, but you don’t have to hate it, either.  It’s not perfect, but it’s not the cause of Disney’s (real or perceived) downfall. I’m the first to admit, pin trading would be a lot more palatable if the enterprise hadn’t encroached on the sacred spaces and cherished architecture of the parks. It’s a program flawed in its execution, another victim of a wayward TDO strategy of park and merchandise management. But I’d like to argue that it’s also a valuable part of the Disney experience that brings enjoyment to children, adults, and the many Cast Members who enjoy it.  I’m all for lobbying Disney to do better, to do more, but pin trading isn’t the sole reason why Disney is doing worse or less.  Let’s focus on what the real, bigger problems are: if we do this, pin trading will be a fixable small problem within a panoply of larger issues, rather than a whipping boy for problems the toppling of a pin program could never fix.