Disney show appeals to older audiences

Will there be a season four of the Disney Channel sit com, Girl Meets World? Why do I, an almost-woman of 16 years, care what happens to this children’s show?

Girl Meets World is a years-later spin off of the popular 90s TV show Boy Meets World. I was not alive in the 90s, so I have no nostalgic connection to Boy Meets World that would entice me to watch Girl Meets World. Furthermore, the TV show is chock-full of cheesy, overly dramatic messages about growing up and finding yourself.

It features a young teenage girl, Riley Matthews, and her best friend, Maya Hart. In every episode they go on seemingly commonplace adventures, such as looking for a missing childhood teddy bear, or riding the subway by themselves for the first time. Their adventure always ends with a life lesson.

It is possible that this is the attraction of the show. The cheesily innocent lines paired with cringy lessons lay out the infamous teenage internal power struggle between adulthood and childhood: the war of growing up.

I know plenty of teenagers who watch Disney shows in secret. The appeal is the connection to their childhood. “Teenager” is just a word for the period that most people are given to sort out what needs to be kept from childhood, and what should be set aside.

I love Girl Meets World because it does some of the sorting for me; or at the very least, the show assures me that I am not alone.