Happy New Year! As we kick this year off, we are changing some things up a bit. We are constantly striving to analyze and adjust what we do here at Daps Magic. One of the things we are adjusting is Daps Magic (the Podcast). In an effort to make things simpler and provide clarity of purpose, we are going to simply call it Disney and positive stuff moving forward. In this episode of Disney and positive stuff, Mr. Daps goes into the reasoning behind this, the core values that help make decisions like this, and his vision for what Daps Magic is and will become. We hope you enjoy this podcast and will also join in the conversation!

As Mr. Daps mentions in this episode, there are several ways to connect with our community. You can do this by leaving comments on articles on DapsMagic.com. You can also do this by connecting with us on Facebook, Instagram, or Daps Magic HQ! Wherever you join our community, we hope that you find it to be positive and uplifting as we go into the year. We hope that this can be a place to get away from the weight of the world and instead enjoy geeking out about Disney and positive stuff! This is going to be a fantastic year, and we look forward to sharing it with you! Happy New Year!

Disney and positive stuff Transcript

Welcome to Disney and Positive Stuff, formerly known as Daps Magic the podcast. I’m Mr. Daps. Happy New Year. We’re going to change things up a little bit this year. As we head into the new year, I always spend the end of the previous year thinking about who we are, what we’re doing, what we are going to do in the future, and how we can accomplish those goals while also really staying true to what Daps Magic has been since we were founded in 2004. And one of the things I really became compelled about was thinking that this podcast in particular should be a platform that showcases what Daps Magic is about and highlights the stories that really are central to what Daps Magic is about. And at the end of the day, that’s all about Disney and positive stuff. This means tons of Disney stories. But there’s also a few other things that pop in here and there that maybe interest us, maybe are a very positive story that makes the world a better place, maybe it’s something geeky that we just didn’t have time to go into in depth on Geeks Corner. But whatever those things are, this is the place where we can really go a little bit deeper, have more in-depth conversations and very much unscripted conversations and unscripted podcasts

So you’re not going to hear from me the same entry unless I get used to it, but you won’t get that same entry speech that you’ve been getting previously on Daps Magic podcast. Instead, you will be getting whatever is in my mind or whatever comes out of my heart at any given moment. And we will see how this goes. So the way this is going to work, the only way this is going to work really is with your feedback and with the help that you can give me as we dive into this new era of the Daps Magic podcast. This will still be the official podcast of Daps Magic. It just.

We’ll be focused a little bit tighter and we will always be coming back to that Disney and positive stuff focal point that really has been so much fun for me and the team through the years and hopefully also for you. So how can you help us? Let me know what you think of this new format. The format might actually change from episode to episode depending on who’s joining me in the podcast and I hope that will be something that’s fun for you as well. So just let me know.

Also, let me know what specific topics you would like us to cover. If you want to hear more in-depth conversation on a specific thing, let me know in the comments because I am always happy to accommodate things like that. Also, make sure to subscribe to this, share this with your friends that you think might enjoy these kinds of conversations about Disney and positive stuff so that we can all do this together. It’s a whole lot more fun when we’re doing these things together. I think so, at least.

Also, if you see me in the parks, say hi. I love meeting with people, hearing their stories, connecting with them, finding out what they’re up to, maybe what your favorite new food of the parks are right now. I know we have a bunch of new things coming out in a few days, but I love to connect with other Disney fans and maybe even people who aren’t Disney fans yet and just happen to be in the parks. Anyway, I love to meet up and say hi if you see me. I can’t tell you how many times I have people on Instagram reach out to me in private message and say, “Hey, I saw you in the parks. I didn’t want to bother you, but I wanted to say hi.” Always say hi! If worst case scenario, if I’m filming something, just wait a couple of minutes. I’ll be done. I promise. And then I’d love to meet you and chat with you about anything. Like we have fun geeking out about a lot of stuff. So as we are moving forward, if you want to connect with Daps Magic, there’s some really great places you can do this. And these are going to be our focal points.

First off, obviously all of the news, all of the shows, you name it, will be found on dapsmagic.com. We connect through there for everything. From there, you can find us also on Daps HQ, which is our Patreon. That is where you get behind the scenes stuff. That’s where you get the special After Geeks Corner show that really just whatever happens, happens and goes off the rails often. But it’s a place where you can get a little bit more regular in person and virtual conversation with the Daps Magic team, whoever it happens to be on. And we have a lot of fun. You also can find us on Facebook and then you can also find us on Instagram. Yes, we are also on X. Yes, we are also on BlueSky. But our focal points moving into 2026 are going to be DapsHQ, Facebook, Instagram, and of course, as always, DapsMagic.com. So.

That’s all the official announcements, I guess you could say about where we’re going this year, where you can connect with us this year, and not really what we’re going to do this year because we do have some surprises in store. Things we do know coming up this year, CHOC Walk. Don’t want to miss it. You want to be a part of our team. This is one of my favorite things that we do every year. And this gives you a chance to interact with us and interact with some really great Disney fans or maybe they’re CHOC Walk supporters or CHOC supporters, I should say, which is the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, who’s recently partnered with Rady Children’s Health, I believe it’s called. But this is a phenomenal opportunity for you to walk with me through the parks as we raise awareness and funds for this children’s hospital that actually was help founded by Walt Disney himself decades ago. And really what better thing could you do with your day? Usually it’s a Sunday morning, then walk through the parks to raise money and awareness for children’s health. So you can help kids who have some terrifying needs sometimes be able to get the care that they need to get the, not just the medical care, but the emotional and the wellbeing resources to really help them and their families navigate some really scary things that kids just shouldn’t have to deal with, but that’s life and they do have to deal with it. And so we get to support them.

We get to be a positive impact in their lives. And as a side benefit of that, we also get to meet a lot of these CHOC kids that have gone through CHOC and they have had their lives dramatically changed for the better. there’s very few things I think that we do throughout the year that are more moving than waking up ridiculously early. on that Sunday and walking through the parks. And anybody who’s been on our team would validate this. And we just, have a blast doing that.

We’ll also be covering all of the Disney and positive stuff stories this coming year. You know, we have the, the, new bluey thing coming then March. also have the continuation of the Disneyland Resort 70 celebration. So we’ve got paint the night coming back. We’ve got the update to Millennium Falcon Smugglers run coming this year, when that will come out with The Mandalorian and Grogu movie, which will be fantastic. And you’ve got new Toy Story movie coming out and a whole lot more that you just won’t want to miss. And we will geek out about these things together every week on Geeks Corner, every day on DapsMagic.com. And then also more in depth here on Disney and positive stuff, the Daps Magic podcast. We’ll see how that plays out a little bit more.

As we look to this year, there’s going to be a lot of fun events: Disneyland after dark. media events, CHOC Walk, other things that I haven’t even mentioned yet. But I do think it’s very important to go back to where we started and really focus on the things that have made Daps Magic so much fun and fulfilling for us through the last almost 22 years. And one of the things you may not realize is DapsMagic has an about page. We don’t highly publicize it. We don’t blast it out in places all the time. But what we do have is a link to it, I think, on the homepage. And we do occasionally go back and reference this. And we also use this to make sure that we are in line with our core values as we’re moving forward. And we’re covering the stories that line up with what Daps Magic is and where it’s going. And really that foundation of what it’s been built on.

So I thought it would be very important as we go into the new year, before we get into all of the exciting things that are happening in the new year, that’s going to be the next podcast. I’m going to look at all of the things that are coming that we know about in 2026 for the Walt Disney Company. And it’ll be a very broad discussion and look at what’s happening. But I also think it’s going to be a big deal. 2026 is going to be a big year for Disney and we’re going to have fun covering that and talking about it together.

But before we get to any of that, I want to go back to the Daps Magic core values. These have been tweaked a little bit through the years. Maybe the language has been slightly modified. But the basis of what it is has not changed in the 2021, 2022 years that we have been doing this. And we never imagined that when we started this in 2004, which really was just a Yahoo group, that it would become the thing that it is today, which really has been just a wild ride and pinch me. I’m a little kid from Minnesota who never even knew how to use the internet as a kid because it was just becoming a thing. All right, let’s get into the core values. First one is fun. One of my longtime mentors always says, “If you’re not having fun, you’re done.” And really that’s what we…

That’s the approach we take for everything at Daps Magic. If we aren’t having fun with it, then we probably shouldn’t be doing it. We recognize that not all the stories that we tell are the most fun in the world. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about at its core, when we do a Daps Magic event, when we cover a story, when we go to a meetup, whatever it is, even hopping on Daps HQ, anything that we do at its core, especially me, we should be having fun with. Because at the end of the day, I personally believe life’s too short to not make it fun. And yes, life is gonna get in the way. Things happen. We’ve had issues in my family this last year with health. We’ve had, obviously there’s always financial things that come and go. There’s all the unexpected surprises that happen in life that can detract from the fun that we’re having. But…

Don’t you think there should be a few things in life that we can really focus on that can be a lot of fun and can counter all of the weight of the world. And I think that’s really what Disney was thinking, Walt Disney was thinking decades and almost, well, a hundred years ago when he founded the company. But I really think that was a big part of this is he wanted his family fun park to be something that really would be an escape from the weight of the world as you walk through those gates every day. That’s one of the things I love when I get to go to Disneyland is generally I have a somewhat standing, it’s not a hard and fast rule, but I would rather talk about things related to Disney that are fun, that are positive, that are exciting. Maybe they’re even terrifying, you know, as change happens in the parks and beyond, it can be terrifying. But I want to focus on those kind of things when I’m at Disneyland.

And I don’t want to focus on the, you know, brakes on my car going out, or I need to do this chore this week because I’m up against a deadline or whatever. I really do try to get in that head space of this is that Disney bubble where we have fun and we focus on that. And then when I come into do my work on Daps Magic, whether it’s writing a story, recording a podcast, Geeks Corner, you name it, making videos for Geeks Corner or something else, or the songs.

I really also try to come into it with that mindset of, “you know what? We’re going to throw everything else out right now for a couple hours or whatever it is that we’re doing. And we are going to focus on the fun.” Another thing I’ve read and heard mentors say through the years is “what you focus on will grow.” And I think focusing on fun is a very important thing because it is so easy to get disillusioned. It’s so easy to… nitpick to the point where you’ve picked everything away and it’s not fun anymore. And it’s very easy to find the faults in everything. It’s also not fun. It also ends up being one of those things that just drags you down. And as you focus more and more on that, it becomes a thing that’s just not, you know, it’s not happy, it’s not healthy, and it doesn’t make the world a better place.

We firmly believe that having fun helps make the world a better place, especially focusing on it and then sharing it because, you know, what fun is fun if you’re not sharing with people and that’s really what we’re all about. All right, that is the first core value. That went longer than I expected. Sorry. Next one, positivity. We believe that everything we should do should be approached from the perspective of positivity. Caitie always says assume positive intent. Like that’s something she tells me all of the time.

So as we’re coming in and we’re covering stories, we are always trying to be positive, but we’re also trying to be fair. There’s nothing wrong with critical thinking. There’s nothing wrong with critical coverage. But when it becomes not, cause that can be positive. Like we can go into that. That’d be probably a much deeper conversation. But where it doesn’t become positive anymore is when it turns to put downs or turns into attacks or it becomes personal. And or it becomes really just an unkind thing. When it comes to that, if it’s not nice, it shouldn’t be published. It kind of goes back to what your parents, your grandparents used to say when your kids if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all.

There is a fine line that’s walked, especially since we’re covering stories of positivity and also critical thinking, because I think it’s fair. Like not everything is going to be for everyone. Not every movie, not every game, not every short, whatever it is, or even attraction is going to be a home run. Some of them end up being misses and that’s okay. That is how we learn. The worst thing in the world is to not fail.

I think one of my favorite Walt Disney quotes is when he talks about the importance of having a good hard failure when you’re young in life. Because you do learn from that and that’s really the important part is it’s okay to fail It’s not okay to fail and not learn from that and you never really know what better thing a failure is gonna bring and That is part of the the story that we cover in the story that we tell when we’re covering Disney and positive stuff is we’re looking for What’s the bigger picture here? That’s something that I asked our team and I bring it up with Caitie quite a lot, is like, what is the bigger picture of what’s happening right here? Maybe this specific thing doesn’t look so great. Let’s back out a little bit and look at it from another perspective. Let’s move over here and look at it from another perspective. And let’s see if we cannot figure out what the bigger picture is. And maybe the bigger picture is right now, something went wrong. There was a stumble. There was… a poor choice in leadership, something like that. But what’s the bigger picture? What’s the good that’s coming out of it? What’s the potential good that’s coming out of it?

It’s very easy to be all doom and gloom when things happen. It’s a lot harder to look for the bright side when the darkness is there. And that’s something that we try to focus on and we continue to really, like we get flack for it, that’s fine. But it’s something that I really think is important as we’re moving forward. And part of this also is recognizing that as we are covering stories, know, Disney is a prime example. As we’re covering stories, we do not have privy to the same information and the same variables that the people who are making the decisions at Disney have. So I think a very easy example of this is, know, Monsters Inc will be closing down sometime this year at Disney California Adventure to make way for a new Avatar themed area and experience and attraction. And that’s a hard thing for some people. And I get that. That’s that’s one of, think, the cutest family attractions at Disney California Adventure. It’s one you can bring kids of any age, although it did scare, I think, my nephew at one point when he was a toddler. But, you know, he got over it. He’s fine. But I do think there’s a cost to this and there’s a sadness to this and that’s okay. There’s also a potential there.

We don’t know exactly what we’re getting when this new Avatar experience and attraction and area opens up. And this is where, you know, I go back to that assume positive intent. I am going to assume, and this is a standpoint I take basically on everything with Disney, and most companies, to be honest, is I assume most people are in leadership roles and have worked their way up through the company because they want the company to be better. I have an assumption that they do not have whatever role they have to sabotage Disney. I just don’t think that’s how, I don’t think that works that way. Do they always have the best decisions? Do they always have the best motivations personally for, who knows? I don’t know.

I do think people tend to work for a company, dedicate their life and time and energy and heart to a company because they want to make it better and they think they know the best way to make it better. The debate’s open for if that’s true or not, like how effective they are on that. That’s okay. But with that in mind, we bring that into our coverage of like, well, I’m gonna assume that one, they know things I don’t know. Two, they’re trying to make the company better.

With those two things in mind, yes, I have this bummer. Monsters Inc. is closing. On the flip side, they’re investing in the park. New things are great things. A company that’s not changing is going to die. And I don’t want that to happen for the Walt Disney company specifically for Disneyland, cause that’s my home park. And, and so at the end of the day, I’m going to take a positive mindset for this. And even if I’m not a huge avatar fan, which I have mixed feelings on, like I kind of like it. It’s also very long. I love the land in, ⁓ Walt Disney world.

So I’m going to take all those things into mind. And as we approach our coverage, we are going to approach it from a positive standpoint. We will offer the critical thinking. We will offer critical coverage. We also will come at it from a perspective that we don’t think whoever is in charge of this decision, whoever is running things at Imagineering, whoever is the person that’s maybe marketing or communicating what this is. We think all of these people are in it because they want to make Disney better tomorrow than it is today. And I think for the most part, that is what you find as you get to know these people that work at the Walt Disney Company at different levels, whether they’re a conductor on the train or a Jungle Cruise skipper or they’re a manager or they’re an executive.

I have come to find through the years that almost all of these people really do want to make Disney better and generally love Disney as well. All right, that’s positivity. Next one, number three, kindness. We really strive to have a culture of kindness that builds people up, whoever they are. I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t care what you believe. I don’t care how old you are, whatever. What I care about is making people feel better when they walk away from me than when they approached me. And I hope the same goes for Daps Magic. That’s something we strive for.

We want to be a culture of kindness. That’s why we talk about keep kind and I throw those things that were those, I say those two words at the end of a lot of my videos is because the world needs to be a kinder place. There are so many negative things thrown at you and so many put downs thrown out all the time. You know, we hear them here too. And we want to combat that with kindness because we do know that kindness can heal a lot. And it’s funny because after we decided, we really are going to, this is one of the core values.

When we decided this was going to become one of the core values, instead of just being something that was implied, it starts popping up everywhere. And you realize, yeah, this is definitely a theme through so many Disney movies through the years, but more than just being a theme and more just being a nice idea, it’s something that people really crave and they need. And sadly, they just don’t get, it amazes me how many people are not treated kindly. And I hear stories all the time. And just know that when you come here, we will fight quite literally for kindness, maybe not physically, but you that is something we will advocate.

That is something that we look for, whether it’s in comments or conversation or whatever, we want this to be a culture of kindness. And if that’s something that’s not interesting to you because you would just rather put people down or make snide remarks or whatever, that’s fine. There’s probably other websites for you and other communities for you. This is one where we want people who want to see other people succeed come together. This is one where we want to come together.

And we want to look for the good in people. We want to build up the good in people. And we want to thank people. That’s just one of the kindest things you can do is say please and thank you. And it’s amazing how far those things go and make people smile. But we do really want, when people think of Daps Magic and they think of Mr. Daps and they think of our community or an interaction they had with it, we want them to feel like they were treated with kindness, and maybe make them smile, that would be great.

We want that to be a positive thing for them when they think of Daps Magic. Whether they’re other guests like us, whether they’re people that work for the Walt Disney Company, even people that work in other organizations. When you think of Daps Magic, we want you to know that you are cared about and that we hope you have a kind experience with us.

Next thing, number what, four now, magic. This kind of a weird one. It’s a little bit nebulous, but we firmly believe in promoting Disney magic and maintaining the integrity of the Disney magic as Disney is defining it in any given moment. So when Daps started 21 years ago almost 22 in just a couple of months One of the things that was different at the time was you did not get a peek behind the curtain of how projects came to be you know, we call it Imagineering now, gives you some pretty cool looks at how things come to be or what things are coming to be in the future. And it really does give a peek behind the curtain of what Imagineering does, how they do things, technologies, how the magic is made. Those kind of things just didn’t happen 20 years ago. And so at the time, those were the things that we really tried to avoid on Daps Magic.

Now that those things are being shown, that’s more fair game. And we try to do that within the, well, we do do this within the confines of what Disney finds, or Disney says, is acceptable. So we’re not going to go around sneaking pictures backstage. We’re going to take pictures that Disney says, Hey, yeah, these are okay. These are public. Any person walking around the parks or any person walking around the studios could get, and we’re going to always work to be above reproach and protect the magic, whatever that is.

Character integrity is something I think is very important. And I, you know, when we visit Anna and Elsa, we’re visiting Anna and Elsa when we see Mickey Mouse, we’re seeing Mickey Mouse. And when we’re going on, you know, rise the resistance, we get to go and experience the Star Wars story and we get to be a part of that. And we try to really do this because you don’t know who’s around that may be talking, that may be listening, little ears.

I have nephews and nieces that very much love Disney and very much love the Disney characters and love Disney princesses and you name it. And I want them to get as much as they can out of these stories and get to be kids for as long as they can. You know, I want them to experience that magic and the exuberance that comes from that as long as they can. And I don’t want to be ever the one that makes the decision that pops that bubble or say something that pops that bubble. And so we really tried to maintain that as much as we can. And we do that. We follow Disney’s lead on that really, because they do reveal a whole lot more today than they did 20 years ago. And that’s okay. We love it. Personally, as a Disney geek and someone who’s naturally inquisitive,

I love that they’re showing more peaks behind the curtain. I think that’s the best way to do it or to say it. And so that’s something that’s important to us. And that’s something that we will continue to do, keep moving forward and covering things. Fifth one, respect. This one shouldn’t, I don’t know, this one, I almost feel like shouldn’t be a core value, but it needs to be just because of the world we live in.

And we firmly believe that everybody should be treated with respect. Everybody needs respect and dignity. That is something that I don’t think there’s any person on the planet that doesn’t want that. And so this is something that we’ve just decided, hey, you know what, we’re going to put this out there. We are going to put it in our core values that we respect people and we expect our community to respect people. And that means all of us will treat people with dignity and we will respect their dignity. We’ll also respect their privacy.

This applies to celebrities. You will not see us going around and snapping pictures and videos of celebrities who are on a vacation at Disneyland. Unless Disney puts something out, in which case I’m going to, well, we know that there’s something that’s now been, there’s a deal been made basically or a gift or something, where Disney has said, hey, we’re going to take these pictures and share them. That’s very different than walking up randomly and snapping a picture and when they’re not looking or whatever it is and then posting it. Like that’s the difference, I think, between a media organization and paparazzi. And we’re not going to do the paparazzi thing. That’s just not cool to anybody. It’s not treating them with dignity. It’s not treating them with respect. And it really is detracting from their experience at Disney. So we’re actually detracting from the magic.

So those kind of two intertwine a little bit when you think about that. So we’re not going to do that. We are going to treat people with respect, and we are going to continue to advocate for that. And that’s just something to know as we move forward that you can expect from us.

Next thing, family friendly. Our coverage and our publications are always family friendly. We want this to be a place where you are safe, showing the website to your kids or whatever that is. We are recognizing since Disney has grown and they continue to add more things, not everything is the same level of family-friendly that it was 20 years ago. We have Deadpool in the parks now and for some people that’s hard and other people it’s not. We try to basically live by the idea that if you’re seeing it in the parks, if you’re seeing it in a family-friendly movie, so maybe it’s a trailer or something before a movie that’s PG. If you could find those things there, that’s kind of our bar right now. And this is something that’s a little bit fluid and it changes, you know, it kind of changes as we watch things happen and as the world progresses, but that’s the goal. And we really try to keep it as kind and family, like they all are intertwined.

Hopefully we succeed at that. I don’t have kids, so I can’t 100 % say that we do, but I do talk to people who do, and so we try to use them as gauges for if we’re hitting or missing on that.

Next, we only have two more guys. We’re almost there. Quality. We want our coverage to be quality coverage. That means it’s current, it’s accurate, and we really strive for journalistic standards. We really want to reflect a high level of, of excellence. Like when you go to our, our, our content, whether it’s a video, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s an article, who knows. We want it to be something that’s like, okay, you guys got it. That makes sense.

Does that mean it’s flashy? Does that mean it’s the best, produced most eloquently written, whatever it is? No. We’re not that. are, despite the hat and bow tie, Trilby and bow tie, we are very much normal people. And we want our quality coverage to be normal. We don’t want to be elite. We don’t want to be unapproachable. We don’t want it to be hard to read. We really do. Like there are times where I will start into an article and realize, hey, you know what? I’m going too far with this, or I’m going too deep with this. And some of them still make it up because sometimes I just geek out too much. But the goal really is quality, accessible, simple, and accurate. Like we want it to be something that you can count on. And that’s probably the best description of what quality means for us is when you go to Daps Magic, you know you can trust it.

And you can know that we are going to do our very best to stay right in the middle and share with you what is happening without pushing an agenda or something. I don’t know. What I do know is we really try to keep the story the story, stay out of the way of the story as much as possible, and really let you see what we see.

That’s really the approach we take with our videos, we take it with our articles, we take it with our shows, whether they’re podcasts or web shows, whatever. We want you to see what we see. And I think that’s a lot of fun. Hopefully you like this as well. This is particularly true on YouTube. But we think it gets us out of the way and lets the story always be the story. And that’s really what we’re aiming for with the quality thing.

Last one, integrity. We really, and these all go together, as I look back over these every time, I’m like, wow, these really are all intertwined and really create a web that holds us together, if you want to think of an analogy that way. But we try to maintain the highest level of integrity in every way that we run the website. We want to be above reproach. We want to be honest. We want to be ethical. And we want to really create a safe space for people to come and geek out about Disney and positive stuff.

You know, whether you’re coming just to get news, whether you’re coming for the community, whether it’s because you like to watch our videos, we want them to really be presented in a way that you feel good about what’s being presented to you. And that really comes down to all of these things lining up together and you can’t have them happening without integrity. And hopefully we succeeded that. And I think we do. You know, if we don’t, make adjustments and we will be the first to acknowledge that every person who runs every website, including ours, is human. So there’s good days and there’s bad days, but we need to have most of the days lining up with these eight core values. And that is how we can continue to share Disney and positive stuff, not just this year, but many years into the future.

And one of the things that I think could go in here probably too is like a creativity thing. We are very much into creativity, whether that’s coming up with a new segment for Geeks Corner or maybe writing a new song or covering things in a new and unique way or doing a fun vlog covering something. We have no problem trying new things. We love that innovation and coming up with new ideas because that keeps us from being stagnant as well.

But that’s not one of our core values because I think that kind of goes with the fun component of it. Like that’s part of having fun as we’re building up Daps Magic, as we’re getting to share it with everybody, and as we’re getting to ⁓ push off into the future, which is it’s crazy to think we’re already to 2026. So we have now covered the foundation of what Daps Magic is about. This is what we’re about. This is where we’re going.

These are the guidelines, I guess you could call them, for where Daps Magic is going in the future. And as we do that, we want you to come with us. We would love a community that’s about these eight core values that just permeates through the entire Disney community. And when you wear a DapsMagic button or have a sticker on your iPad or whatever, people feel better and, you know, maybe it’s a wave of happiness because they’re like, I know that group. They’re good people. They have good news. They have fun shows. They have good videos, whatever it is. I like how their team makes me feel or their community makes me feel. We want to have people feel better and happier and are treated kinder because Daps Magic exists.

We really want to make this something that reaches out and grows and hopefully changes the world in our little sphere of it for the better as we move into 26 and beyond. And really that only happens with people who are actively willing or willing to actively step up and participate. The world is changed by those who show up for better, for worse.

We need people to show up this year. We need people that wanna engage in conversation, whether it’s on DAP’s HQ or in Facebook or Instagram or you name it, or even leaving comments on articles that you find interesting. But we need people to step up. We need people to help build this community even stronger. There’s an 80-20 rule that 80 % of the people just… experience things and they’re very happy to just absorb them and whatever. And then there’s 10 % of people that detract and 10 % of people that really make a positive difference and push things forward. And we’re looking for that 10 % who really want to help create this kind community of Disney and positive stuff as we’re moving into the new year and beyond and really expand this because we we firmly believe that this is too good to not share.

I love our little community that we have with Geeks Corner and Daps After Dark. We have so much fun together. I want to share it with everybody, and I hope they do too. And you could be a part of that, and we’d love to have you as part of our community moving forward, making things better, having a blast doing it as we move into the new year, and talk about all of the exciting things that are going on in the realm of Disney and positive stuff.

So that’s what I’ve got for you for this first podcast of 2026. This was pretty free-ranging. Like I had the eight core values in front of me so that I didn’t miss any of them, but there’s no script. There might be outlines in the future or questions written out if I’m doing an interview, but this is going to be a very free-flowing podcast. It’s going to be very much who I am and hopefully plays to my strengths. You can let me know how well I’m doing.

Hopefully we can have a lot of fun geeking out about Disney and positive stuff a little bit more in depth here than in Geeks Corner, which really is the big delineation. And as we move into the future, I hope that you will join the conversation, whether it’s through the comments, whether it’s through Facebook group, or if it’s through the DAPS HQ. I hope you will join us. I hope you will say hi to me when you’re in the parks. I love saying hi to people. I love connecting with people. I can’t say it enough. ⁓ There’s nothing

I’m not going to say it’s disappointing, but it is kind of a bummer to get those messages saying, I saw you in the parks, but I didn’t say hi because I didn’t want to bother you. You’re not a bother. Just say hi. It’ll be a blast. And then let’s have a lot of fun sharing our love of Disney and positive stuff in a kind environment, in a fun environment, in a safe environment as we move to the future. And as we make this world a little bit better, one interaction at a time, whether it’s virtually or in person. But that’s what I got.

Hope you’re having a very happy new year. Hopefully you have subscribed by now. If you haven’t, I’d love it if you did that. I’d also love a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you’re listening to. Heck, even YouTube, I guess. And we can move into the future together and hopefully share this love of Disney and positive stuff together. Happy new year, everybody. Make it a great one and keep kind.