Dear Disney....You're Doing it Wrong.

Dear Disney, you’re doing it wrong. 

In 1998 you showed the world what summer as an adolescent could be like. You showed us that puberty is best discovered and tamed within 2 months of confined cabins with severely outnumbered and under-qualified counselors. In 1998, you chose to choose and entered the theme song that I promise anyone who has heard it would not forget it:

BUG JUICE. It was on par with Zenon: Girl of the 21^st Century, Brink!, and Smart House. You gave us three summer camp filled seasons and then……nothing. I WAS A SUMMER CAMP fiend. My favorite movie of all time: Heavy Weights. MTV’S true life: FAT CAMP, I VHS-ed that shit. The Parent Trap: I know every word. SALUTE YOUR SHORTS, don’t make me start singing. DISNEY- you are doing it wrong. EVERY summer camp experience caught on film, whether planned or not, has a gravitational pull like bugs to the pretty purple zapping light of death. YOU NEED to get your shit together and probably bring Bug Juice back. It was your greatest mistake cancelling it. I get it- I have NO idea what kids these days are interested in- but I’ll tell you what, you tore my heart out. Summer CAMP is what brought out my extroverted tendencies, it’s where I had the MOST fun during the summer and would do everything I could to go back for more weeks of awesome. So in lieu of my summer camp deprivation, you gave me a piece of what I was missing.  

 

I’m not going to lie, I still look at summer camp jobs as a 20-something. My shit is like 86.3% together at this point but I’m on the verge of needing a new direction. Summer Camp just feels right. Maybe I should go back to school AGAIN and just go the teacher route and THEN spend my summers as a camp director. That could be on point or a huge mistake that says “bye bye ambition” (NOT that teachers don’t’ have ambition, it’s just not in alignment with my personal career goals aka mah teacher friends are AMAZEBALLS). WHAT I’m saying is, Disney, you’ve done so many things right but I just can’t forgive you for this. I can only watch Heavy Weights so many times….just kidding,  I can watch it todos los dias (that means all of the days in Spanish…you’re welcome).

But what it all comes down to is that YOUTHS of today are missing this. They don’t even KNOW what they are missing!

 

HELP the summer camp economy; help the YOUTHS leave their cell phones behind, HELP the YOUTHS forego childhood obesity and GET THE HELL outside. HELP THEM to help you…this is how this would go:

Step 1: Kids go to summer camp

 

Step 2: Kids have revelations about their experiences: 

Step 3: Kids learn about love:

Step 4: Kids learn about conflict 

Step 5: Kids go home and miss summer camp 

Step 6: Kids are too old to go to summer camp

Step 7: NOTHING. YOU’RE WELCOME.

LIFE LESSONS HERE PEOPLE. LOVE, LIFE, CONFLICT MEDIATION. SUMMER CAMP is like pre-freshman year at college without the booze and with a little more guidance….unless you’re a junior camp counselor. We need to stay away from the Jr. Camp Counselors….too old to be at summer camp, too young to be a boss. 

AND IN CONCLUSION, bug juice doesn’t come in a jar, we hold Camp Anawana in our hearts, you might find your identical twin sister in the next cabin over, and lunch is usually cancelled due to lack of hustle and it’s important that we deal with it. SERIOUSLY, DO IT better Disney: bring back televised summer camp, HELP THE YOUTHS, and make good choices and stuff. HLOCK out *Mic drops*.