This is What Dreams are Made Of
Graphic by Téa Sklar
In a shift towards a streaming era for the new generations, the younger generation has lost the Disney Channel we grew up with. No more romantic subplots dragged over the course of five seasons just for a kiss in the finale–right before the formulaic four-season end. No more students-by-day, popstars-by-night double lives. No more vaguely Italian wizards with werewolf boyfriends long before the Zombies movies with Millo Manheim, and gone are the chaotic, yet charming holiday crossovers with all five of your favorite shows magically end up in New York City, joining forces to get home in time for the holidays.
As the early to mid-2000’s faded, many of Disney’s teen stars broke free from their contracts and shows constructed to exploit young talent. They distanced themselves from their network identities. Hilary Duff, for instance, told Jake Shane on his podcast that she simply wanted a life of her own outside of Lizzy McGuire. Now, nearly twenty-two years after her last appearance as the character, she has announced new music–this time stepping back into the artistic world as herself, embracing rather than outrunning her childhood fame.
We’ve seen this same return-to-roots phenomenon across the last several years. Miley Cyrus’ 2023 single “Used To Be Young” traces her journey from rejecting her Disney past to acceptance: “You tell me time has done changed me / thats fine, I’ve had a good run / I know I used to be crazy / that’s cause I used to be young.”
The Jonas Brothers have also stepped back into the Disney light. Originally starring in Camp Rock (2008) and then Disney Channel original series Jonas, the trio publicly split in 2013, wishing to develop their individual careers outside of both the network and each other. Now reunited, they're touring again with their Greetings From Your Hometown tour, thematically centered on returning to your roots. Between video packages modpodged together from old camcorder footage of their childhood and their set list blending their new music with Camp Rock soundtrack and solo hits, the tour feels like a Disney-healing ritual unfolding in real time.
Not having released a movie since Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam in 2010, the brothers recently returned to Disney once more in A Very Jonas Christmas, a holiday film streaming on Disney+. This homecoming just as their tour celebrates nostalgia, family, and beginnings—only amplifies the heartfelt, returning-to-your-roots rhetoric at the core of their Hometown tour.
Watching the childhood stars we adored reclaim the spotlight in our adulthood sparks a specific type of nostalgia- one momentarily making us feel as young as we were when we first watched them. Seeing them come back from everything they endured, smiling with the same joy we remember, gives us something deeper, too: hope. Hope that we, like them, can get through whatever challenges we’re facing now and someday look back with that same sense of peace.