Christina Toni Kulusich is a Disneyland superfan who extensively documents her trips to her 91,000 followers on TikTok at @babytoni99.
Every year, she photographs and films herself with Peter Pan, who is played by various actors. "10 years ago, I met the lost boy who changed my life," her caption reads on a 2025 photo slideshow documenting these photos she's taken since Jan. 2015.
And this is what's brought her a lot of attention online in the last week. After one of her recent videos with Peter Pan received over 29 million views, many gave her the nickname "Peter Pan Girl" while critiquing her interactions in viral videos and memes, and speculating on how the performers feel about them.
"People can take something really small and turn it into
something big without even knowing what it's truly about," Kulusich tells USA TODAY in an interview Friday, Aug. 14.
The discourse was sparked on July 31 when she shared a video of herself giving a Peter Pan actor a handmade crochet keychain. Some edits of the clip show the character in black-and-white, staring at the camera, emulating a horror movie scene.
"I know he went on a cigarette break after this," reads a comment with over 1.5 million likes on Kulusich's original video.
@babytoni99 Another adventure with the green bean💚🫶🏻✨ #peterpan #disneyland
♬ original sound - Toni
Kulusich is proud of her Disney fandom
Kulusich, 27, said it's "been a little rough" this week with the internet making memes of her. "I've never expected to, like, blow up this much – of like, the entire internet to know I exist."
She is a proud "Disney Adult," a subculture of grown-ups who make pilgrimages to Disney parks. "I think being a Disney Adult means letting out your inner child," she says.
She says she's been going to Disney parks since she was little, but she's only had an annual pass since 2015. She says she tries to go to Disneyland once a week.
Kulusich says she relates to how Peter Pan is canonically "the boy who never grew up," but her love of the character started because of her relationship with the actors. A Peter Pan she met in 2015 had a positive impact on her. "He just made a really magical experience for me the first time."
When asked what's her favorite thing at the park, she said, "Surprisingly, it's not 'meet Peter Pan,'" with a laugh. "My favorite thing to do is actually go on Astro Blasters. It's the game where you, like, shoot things."
Kulusich says that despite online rumors, she was not banned from the park. "I actually was there yesterday," she says. She said she didn't seek out Peter Pan.
"I don't even always meet him," she says. "I held a [crochet] dinosaur for nine weeks 'cause we didn't see each other ... I wouldn't have had it for nine weeks if I was that crazy trying to find him."
Not all interactions from fans are welcome
Andrey Lull, an actor who portrayed Peter Pan and other characters at Walt Disney World in Orlando in 2015, says that during training, Disney instructors warned him about adult patrons who might figure out his real name, address and social media accounts.
"I had people that learned my schedule," he says. "They would just show up, and they would be like the first one in for every single one of my sets. But after a while, you learn how to deal with them."
A "set" refers to a block of time that character actors are on stage and interacting with guests. Lull says they involved taking pictures and having improvised conversations, which often circled back to learned character catchphrases and movie references. Lull says he typically had five 45-minute sets a day.
Sarah Daniels, an actress who portrayed a host of characters at Disney parks and on Disney Cruise Line from 2006 through 2017, previously told USA TODAY that her interactions with children were "just so magical."
Lull also spoke highly of children. "It wasn't the kids that were weird. It was mostly the adults and the teenagers."
In 2021, an actress playing Tinkerbell claimed she was harassed by several married men at Disney World when she was 16. Disney said that it provided “multiple resources to protect cast members’ wellbeing,” in a statement to The Independent, including on-site law police, and encouraged them to report problems. They said that repeat offenders can be banned permanently from all Disney parks. (USA TODAY reached out to a Disney representative for comment but has not heard back.)
Kulusich says she's witnessed other Disneyland patrons touch character actors or ask them inappropriate questions. She says some male visitors "meet the princesses over and over and over, and take photos. They do that every week."
She insists that she treats the actors with respect, largely because she used to work at Disneyland in 2018 at the California Adventure Park and various food venues. "I strongly believe that because I'm someone who has worked for Disney, when I go [there], I always ask them, 'Can I hug you?' ... I allow them to lead the interactions. So I'll wait for him to be like, 'Let's go take a walk.' I'm not gonna initiate the walk."
Kulusich says she's kept in touch with the original Peter Pan she met in 2015. But she tries not to think of them as individuals – the character is singular. "I [try] to keep the Disney magic, as like, there's only one, and he's the Peter. But I do have favorites."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: She went viral as 'Peter Pan Girl.' Now she responds to the memes.
