You’ve met folks who are just a little “too Disney.” Maybe they’re hyper-focused on Figment popcorn buckets, incensed about a beloved theme-park ride closing or using their retirement fund to finance a week in Orlando.

They could be called overenthusiastic enthusiasts. These days, the more common term is “Disney Adult.”

Let’s not judge. Walt Disney World puts food on tables, and its fandom isn’t that far astray from the ones dedicated to college football, “Real Housewives,” Taylor Swift and the ilk.

Or is it?

The new book “Disney Adults: Exploring (and Falling in Love With) a Magical Subculture,” written by AJ Wolfe, delves into why Disneymania is a thing – and why people are mad about it.

It’s a deep dive into the phenomenon and features expert interviews with professors, former Imagineers, journalists and self-identifying Disney Adults, not to mention surveys and the monitoring the demographic makeup of theme-park queues.

The subject begs for the insider knowledge that Wolfe amassed as a Disney fan, once $17,000 in credit card debt that funded WDW excursion trips. But Wolfe is now the owner of Cambrick Yard Media, which operates fan sites including Disney Food Blog and AllEars.

Her book, now on sale, blends light moments and sociological facts, the sweet spot between a funny blog post and a term paper.

Back in the day, “my whole life revolved around figuring out how to get to Disney World because I wasn’t happy in my career, in my life, and that was the thing that I did to get myself happy,” Wolfe said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. “So that was my fix. It was my hit.”

Why the hate?

Disney Adults represent a wide swath of humanity. There are animated-film aficionados, merchandise mongers and theme park watchers. “Star Wars” fans have entered the fold.

“I’ve met all kinds of Disney Adults. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I’ve met them all,” Wolfe said.

She knew ridicule of the superfan base was commonplace and sometimes bolstered by published stories that wonder why grown-ups remain into kid stuff. But during interviews for the book, she was surprised by the vitriol that Disney Adults had … for each other.

“I had not created the book game plan with this in mind – that Disney Adults hate Disney Adults too,” she said.

“Every space, every fandom, you’re going to find obnoxious people,” Wolfe said. “There are going to be people who push their way to the front of the line or who decide to stand with their nose up against the opening of the Haunted Mansion stretching room so that they can get in line first.”

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A Disney Adult subset that was repeatedly the object of scorn, Wolfe said, was resellers, people who buy up limited-release merchandise solely to resell online. That falls into the unofficial hierarchy of Disney Adults, where fans look down on other fans, perhaps pooh-poohing ones who aren’t annual passholders or haven’t stayed in the most chichi hotels or lack international parks experience.

“Once you start to see that, then you start to get why Disney Adults are kind of how they are, where they’re constantly having to attain more,” Wolfe said.

Origin stories for Disney Adults are, naturally, all over the place. Nostalgia, escapism, family fun and fantasy play roles as does a sense of belonging.

“For so many of us who are Disney Adults, community is hard to come by in our day-to-day lives,” Wolfe writes in the book. “A lot of us are ‘other.’ We’re weirdos and outsiders when it comes to more standard or socially acceptable hobbies.”

She said most Disney Adults shrug off criticism from outsiders.

“I think it’s fascinating that, mostly, Disney Adults are like ducks with water running off their back. … It’s almost like you’ve heard it too much,” Wolfe said.

The book counterbalances the weirdo factor with multiple heartwarming Disney Adult interviews, including one with an amputee who achieved a running goal at a Disney race and another in which a woman reprioritized, choosing a church mission trip instead of financing another Disney World adventure.

Moving forward

Of course, Walt Disney Co. benefits from the Disney Adult demo. There are discretionary income, repeat business and compulsive collectors at state. “Clearly, they’ve come up with a billion ways to take money from adults in adult-specific situations,” one of the experts states in Wolfe’s book.

After establishing the fan-friendly Disney Parks Blog, Moms Panel (now called planDisney) and D23, the official fan club, the company moved into fresh social-media strategies, Wolfe’s book notes. That includes the wooing of influencers, who are sometimes paid to preview attractions, attend events and stay at hotels.

That allows Disney to choose informal partners, puts influencers in a position where they may look paid off (or may not be invited back) and readers left to wonder how much influencers are influenced.

“That whole thing is just fraught with peril for everybody involved, and, not least, the audience,” Wolfe said.

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The social media sphere, where anyone can have a voice and following, also gives the company an idea of the intensity of Disney Adults, who might be angered by the removal of Magic Kingdom’s Tom Sawyer Island, the price of tickets or the very idea of Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Or they might be thrilled by the new Disney Starlight parade, themed cupcakes or sets of mouse ears.

“What the data shows is that even frustrated fans remain fans,” Wolfe writes. “The pull seems to be too great for many of us to break ties with the company that is responsible for much of our happiness.”

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