Disney+ Mocked Over Subscriber Loss

Disney has been plagued by more drama, after its streaming platform, Disney+, lost more than a million subscribers—and social media users are saying that it's due to the company going "woke."

The poor numbers were the latest blow to the entertainment giant. Its Lucasfilm unit is facing a lawsuit by former The Mandalorian star Gina Carano, while a long-running battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over its right to self-govern Orlando's Disney World continues. The company may also be planning layoffs at its Pixar business, it has faced boycott calls after a dispute with X, formerly Twitter, and many customers have been criticizing its lack of original content and high prices.

Disney+ lost 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023, as reported by Variety.

X account @ScreenTime shared the statement: "Disney+ lost 1.3 Million subscribers in Q4 2023," alongside the brand's logo, which at the time this article was published had been viewed over 221,000 times by users of the app and had them talking.

"It will lose more if they don't stop their wokeness," one user said.

Woke was then a key word thrown at the brand in the comments that flowed in under the post.

A second said: "That what happens when you go woke."

"Go woke. Go broke," a social media user jabbed, with another echoing that sentiment: "Go woke, go broke baby."

Jumping on the "woke" train of insults, an individual said: "That's what you get for your woke s***."

The term woke is a colloquialism that has grown in popularity over the past few years and according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is defined as "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)."

Other concerns and thoughts were shared, with the price of subscribing to the platform coming up: "Hopefully they lower them crazy a** prices now."

The choices available on the platform were not interesting enough for a viewer: "Not enough creative, original content. Can't just rely solely on MCU and Star Wars," while one TV addict pointed out: "We're over streaming services."

Some deserters of the platform did tease that they would return from time to time.

"And I was one of them. I'll be back when more quality Marvel and Star Wars content drops," a hopeful person shared.

It appears fresh content on Disney's biggest franchise would attract one spectator back: "I dropped it then because the content was poor and not enough new quality stuff was being added. I will get it for a month in the summer and catch up on the Marvel and Star Wars stuff then."

Newsweek has reached out to Disney+'s media relations team via email for comment.

Subscriber Numbers Fall

The Variety article reported that the platform's core subscribers made up of U.S. and Canadian customers, as well as international users, excluding the India-based Disney+ Hotstar, "dropped to 111.3 million from the 112.6 million reported in the previous quarter."

It also stated that Disney+ Hotstar "added 700,000 subscribers during the October-December quarter," seeing a rise to 38.3 million from the 37.6 million logged at the end of September. Disney+ Hotstar is India's largest premium streaming platform.

Disney's struggles have been publicly reported for a while, with it disclosing last month that Disney-owned animated studio Pixar could potentially lay off up to 20 percent of its workforce over the coming months. In addition, last November Iger admitted that the company had somewhat fallen short on delivering quality material in its endeavor to pump out content for its audiences.

Disney has also been at the end of boycott calls for several months for multiple reasons, such as when it announced it was removing advertisements from X due to hate speech and antisemitic rhetoric that was being shared on the site late last year.