I think you got it exactly. A similar cycle ran through the 70s and 80s, before the Animation Renaissance, where Disney was focused more on architecture and merchandise than art and storytelling. Just like then, the non-Disney artists are outperforming today.

And it’s always tied to “masculinity.”
Like, “Buddy, if we’re subscribing to your worldview, YOU were the one who went into STEM! You should have done the masculine thing and enlisted!”

Secrets to the foundations of society lost, like the Roman concrete recipe.

What!? No! It’s just…. Never mind…

I never understood why the whole takeaway from Bros was “cheating is okay if you’re really really sorry at Christmas”

Just TRY the worm juice that’s only for girls.

This shit, 24 hours later:

Alexa+ truly just said “it would be even funnier if you spent MORE MONEY on Amazon!”