SEEMS LIKE DISNEY HATES ALL ITS FANS: Disney Day Drinkers Club (Yes, That Exists) Feuds With Epcot Over Trashy Mascot: Outrage erupts after ‘Binny,’ a symbol adopted by tippling superfans is moved; ‘Oh my gosh—why would they do this?’

For the last two years, Binny has reigned as the official mascot of the Disney Day Drinkers, a fan club based at the theme park. Also known as D3, the group was started by self-proclaimed Disney Adults who enjoy socializing over the signature cocktails at the various bars inside Walt Disney World.

Binny’s founding story—detailed on the trash can’s very own page on the club’s website—starts in late 2021, when some D3 members were “drinking around the world”—a common pastime at Epcot, where nation-themed pavilions line the shores of a man-made lake.

The Rose & Crown Pub at the U.K. pavilion, then operating under Covid-prevention protocols, required tipplers to go outside to imbibe. With few tables in sight, the group congregated around Binny, whose flat top made an enchanted place to set down drinks. . . .

The Disney Day Drinkers culture has ballooned to a group with more than 85,000 members registered on Facebook and at least two spinoff clubs—one for running marathons and the other for singles looking to meet their own Mickey or Minnie. At least four couples who met through the singles group have become engaged, and one is already married.
Disney Day Drinkers have their own merchandise featuring Binny.

Bars around Walt Disney World, including the Yak & Yeti inside the Animal Kingdom park, offer a secret menu of cocktails to club members. “Take me to the summit,” D3 members say to the bartenders—a private password that gives access to the secret menu.

D3 members also started a tradition of visiting Binny to pay homage to a mascot who the club’s website says is “always trashed.” (The site also cautions, “Don’t trust any other trashcan.”)

The group’s Facebook page racked up hundreds of posts showing members posing with Binny. Families plastered Binny with stickers and placed knit koozies on it. The Day Drinkers’s meme-makers adapted the mascot into a famous silhouetted image of Walt Disney holding Mickey Mouse’s hand, substituting Binny for Mickey.

Then, in September, the clock tolled midnight for Binny. In a move only an evil stepsister could love, Disney staffers spirited the can away from its usual spot in front of the Rose & Crown pub sign, to a new location across the street in front of the Sportsman’s Shoppe. . . . Annual passholders, many who enjoy spending hours sitting on the benches in the park’s Main Street, U.S.A. section, objected. “They couldn’t believe that we had made changes to something that was so sacred to Walt,” D’Amaro told the Journal in 2022.

I’m beginning to think that happy fans are Disney’s worst nightmare.