10 Years of "Think Again": How One Bad Tweet Explains a Decade of Disney Dissonance

2025 has featured several big Disney anniversaries. Not only did Disneyland celebrate 70 years while Hong Kong Disneyland reached 20, but Tangled turned 15,  The Emperor's New Groove reached 25, Toy Story hit 30, and many more. Yet there’s one milestone birthday that’s been on my mind lately: the 10-year anniversary of the "Think Again."

For the uninitiated, on December 16th, 2015, the official Disney Spring Twitter account posted the following message: “Thinking about camping out for #StarWars? Think again. @DisneySprings is not accessible to guests until 8am tomorrow.”

Clearly, the point of this tweet was to inform guests about the important policies that the shopping and dining district had while also acknowledging the excitement surrounding the return of Star Wars with The Force Awakens. However, users were quick to point out the surprisingly rude tone of the tweet, which came from a company so renowned for its customer service that it has a whole institute built around teaching others its ways. On top of that, at a time when you’d expect Disney to embrace fan fervor for the franchise, this poo-pooing post seemed to chastise guests for wanting to celebrate the big day. 

Personally, I expected this tweet to be deleted within hours of it going live. Yet, 10 years later, it remains. Since then, long after a period where the Think Again phrase was memed incessantly by Disney geeks, it’s still something that comes up frequently around LP among my friends. 

Beyond what I’ve already mentioned, the Think Again tweet stands out in my mind as a prelude to the totally misguided Scar Jo lawsuit of 2020. To me, both represent what have colloquially come to be known as “mask off” moments. Behind the pixie dust and magic, these incidents seemed to show that Disney really wasn’t that much different from any other ruthless company.

I’ll also note that, while the relationship between Disney fans and Disney has seen rocky times before, the tumult since that tweet has only increased. That’s part of the reason why the “Think again” mantra has persisted. Think you can simply book a visit at a predictable price? Think again! Think that visit will include FastPass? Think again! Etc., etc. 

Of course, these are all examples of moves that were surely going to be unpopular. The irony of the original "Think Again" message was that they were discouraging fans from being overly enthusiastic about something. So is it any wonder that fan sentiment for both the Disney Parks and Star Wars has trended negatively since? This isn’t to suggest that this single tweet was responsible for that, but I do think it’s indicative of where we’ve found ourselves.

For the most part, Disney knows its fans fairly well at this point. Yet, there are instances — from this buzzkilling tweet of 10 years ago to more recent events such as the Muppet debacle — that prove they are still occasionally perplexed by us and vice versa. So, a decade later, if you think the Disney company and Disney fans will see eye to eye anytime soon, think again.

An audio version of this article can be heard in the latest episode of the Laughing Place "On Balance" Podcast