The shift from creativity to consumer fan base?

[Lyichir]

11 hours ago, Lego David said:

I think the epitemy of this newish trend are all the Sitcom sets. I remember seeing on Twitter several posts sounding something like "I am 27 and I just bought my first LEGO set, the Friends Center Perk!" 

This to me kind of goes against the entire point of LEGO, which is creativity. Those people would probably just buy one or two LEGO sets at most because it represents the IP they love, and not care whatsoever about LEGO otherwise. I don't know what LEGO thinks, but this to me does not seem like a viable long-term strategy.  

In the past, the strategy used to be completely about making as big an impact on kids as possible, kids that will end up growing up into dedicated LEGO fans, and therefore, buyers. 

Just look at Ninjago: most of the fan base is almost entirely made up of nostalgic 2011 kids that still enjoy the show and characters to this day despite having grown up, more so because of nostalgia rather than because Ninjago is a genuinely good show. 

Are you really going to get that from continually bombarding the market with one-off sets aimed at collectors, hoping that would draw them in to become long-term customers? I don't really think so. 

I know appealing to kids can be a lot harder those days with continually changing trends and electronics, but if you manage to define someone's childhood, you basically got yourself a loyal customer for life. 

Out of curiosity... why are the sitcom sets the "epitome" of that? Star Wars fans have been doing that for years... for every adult Lego Star Wars builder that MOCs, there's probably dozens or even hundreds of similar "casual fans" who buy the ships they want and leave them as-is.

Kid buyers and their parents are of course still Lego's core audience—including for themes like Ninjago. The older fans you derisively call "most of the fan base" are in fact an outlier, not unlike every other AFOL community—the "target audience" for themes like that is still kids, many of whom are more or less invisible to the AFOL community due to rightfully not being as online at that age. You don't see their impact for the same reason you don't see the massive child audiences for themes like City or Duplo.

I've been thinking that one of the main things this topic is observing has less to do with a change in the types of people buying Lego and more in a change of what the visible "community" looks like. Back in the day, hobbyist forums like this one were the main public space to discuss Lego online. That didn't mean that the online community in those days was wholly representative of the kinds of people buying Lego, of course, just that those were the types of people who had the will to form or seek out that sort of community. In the modern day, social media discussion has grown to dwarf that as a venue for discussing Lego, and includes more of the sorts of casual fans who previously might never have sought out a Lego-specific community like this even if they bought sets. This includes the kind of buyers who still enjoy building sets, and posting pictures of their purchases and completed builds, but don't really engage with the hobby or its fanbase much beyond that. And that portion of the buying audience is probably expanding, as Lego learns to market more toward adults including those who enjoy a set or two as an occasional diversion, but don't have the time or space to make it into a full-on hobby the way AFOLs who have their own dedicated Lego room are able to. That doesn't mean they're neglecting their core audience of kids, it just means a greater recognition of how broad the Lego buying audience can be.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Lyichir

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, danth said:

I think that's a made up excuse, personally.

In my 2.5 decades of being on the internet, I've never read this complaint, and have only read people fondly remembering the back-of-the-box alt builds.

My statement of "not popular" was worded poorly.

Just to clarify this, in many discussions about the back of box (and why they ended) a reason is brought up of "parents calling complaining at LEGO for lack of instructions".

I think kids and AFOL now still mostly loved them.

Out of personal experience however, never happened.

LEGO had the "Remake" website a few year ago 2016-2019 as a project between Rebrickable and LEGO but I can't remember it ever getting big.

 

3-in-1 had downloadable instructions for a 4th or more models but 31088: Deep Sea Creatures from 2019 seems to be the last set that has it.

Edited January 22, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Toastie]

7 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

Selling display models makes more profit than teaching them creativity.

And then your entire - very nice - write-up: I cannot agree more.

All the very best,
Thorsten

[Peppermint_M]

1 hour ago, TeriXeri said:

parents calling complaining at LEGO for lack of instructions

Yup, I have heard that one. Some markets would even call it "False Advertising" and want to file class action!

I think something else we need to consider is the change in how people are sharing and interacting. There can be plenty of people building and sharing on Instagram, on private Facebook and Snapchat groups, or Discord (etc) that we do not encounter ourselves as we are not members or are not actively joining in with those communities (I follow some IRL EB friends, fellow staff etc on Instagram, I am in a few facebook groups for LEGO fans but my main space is here on EB). People do not engage with forums so much any more. 

[Darkdragon]

I think a lot of it is actually only a perceived shift.  Since TLG has been releasing a lot more branded or IP sets (as well as the  standard city/etc), they have been drawing in more and more folks. Now most of these newer folks seem to be collectors of the things (Star Wars, Friends TV, office artwork, HP, etc etc) rather than Lego fans/builders. So as the community grows it appears to grow more in that direction even though there are still lots of builders, the builders are starting to become overshadowed by the collectors.  So I don't think there's a real shift, it just seems there is because of numbers....if that makes sense.

 

[danth]

8 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

My statement of "not popular" was worded poorly.

Just to clarify this, in many discussions about the back of box (and why they ended) a reason is brought up of "parents calling complaining at LEGO for lack of instructions". 

I think kids and AFOL now still mostly loved them.

Out of personal experience however, never happened. 

Don't worry, I knew exactly what you meant. I was saying that Lego made that up, as an excuse. And I have just as much proof of that, as Lego has that parents actually complained.

[Mylenium]

On 1/22/2022 at 9:08 AM, Lego David said:

I think the epitemy of this newish trend are all the Sitcom sets.

The mechanics work both ways, though. How many of those terrible "view box" sets are on LEGO Ideas alone and then there's another slew of even more. Everybody & their mum apparently want to have their favorite TV series or movie turned into a LEGO set. Same for people demanding Amazon's upcoming "Lord of the Rings" series to be used as an excuse to bring back older sets from that theme (will never happen, BTW). And at least part of that is driven by AFOLs and MOC builders as well. So in a way, LEGO are sometimes giving fans only what they have been vying for, even if it's just over-commercialized garbage...

Mylenium

[snaillad]

Really interesting topic, a few points from myself.

I joined EB many years ago to comment on peoples MOC's and share my own and feel today it is still a great place for seeing creativity and what people can come up with and think that should always be EB's main focus - personally.

I only tend to use flickr rather than other mediums to browse Lego groups containing MOC's and builders I am interested in. There is definitely a level of control there so I can avoid seeing endless pictures of people making standard sets and displaying them. Nothing wrong with it I suppose as people quite rightly are proud of what they have made and want to share it but I can watch a set review and see the same thing.

The only other social platform I use is youtube - mainly for music but I do watch some Lego bloggers who do news on upcoming sets and also MOC makers. It could be down to algorithms but I find I'm inundated with videos to endless set reviews / my lego setup and other stuff I'm not interested in. Even when I watch people making their own MOC's the next video or related ones are from a youtuber doing a set review with a ton of views. If this is happening to me it'll be the same for many others. Some small talented people sharing build techniques or creative-ness being somewhat shoved out of the way for a 'sponsored' popular vid.

I think the points earlier are valid about TLG's main focus of profit and not creativity. From what I've seen a youtube channel for example gets popular whether its the delivery of the 'host', camera work, personality etc. TLG notices this (sometimes makes them ambassadors) and gives them free sets to review. It's a very easy way for them to get people interested in purchasing sets - a popular youtuber/influencer talking positively about their products. If they cared about creativity why not send these people some parts packs or give them challenges or make them make alternative builds (from complimentary sets) as said before used to be on the back of boxes.

I find there are endless videos with people 'flexing' their immense collections of sets with hundreds of thousands of views, it still doesn't impress me as much as say a blog post of a really great MOC with excellent NPU. It might just be a cultural thing as in the UK flaunting your success is seen as lacking class. Maybe I'm out of touch with the rest of the world!

I think there is still the same amount of creative MOC makers as there were before but with TLG's efforts into providing large exciting licensed sets it has captured the eyes of a lot of people who wouldn't of looked this way before. With all these people sharing their experiences and proud builds via social media or word of mouth perhaps they have overtaken the creative community in volume. Even if some fair-weather fans buy a set or two for a shelf and never return there will still be a core community for us MOC'ers and such to call home!

Regards

[MAB]

On 1/22/2022 at 8:08 AM, Lego David said:

This to me kind of goes against the entire point of LEGO, which is creativity.

Not for everybody. The entire point of LEGO (sets) is to make money for the company. They don't care if you build a set once and display it or make a new creation out of the same pike of bricks every day. They probably prefer the buyer that buys multiple sets and builds them once and keeps them displayed, rather than the person that keeps reusing the same pile without buying new sets.

21 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Out of curiosity... why are the sitcom sets the "epitome" of that? Star Wars fans have been doing that for years... for every adult Lego Star Wars builder that MOCs, there's probably dozens or even hundreds of similar "casual fans" who buy the ships they want and leave them as-is.

 

Not just SW. Some City collectors build City sets and display them as they were built from the instructions. And go back further. All those uncreative people that have Classic Castle, Space and Pirate sets built as in the instructions. Some even spend years finding the original versions of pieces on the secondary market so they can build them exactly as the instructions indicate. How uncreative are they and what's more, they don't even buy up to date LEGO so are bad for the company too.

[danth]

On 1/22/2022 at 11:09 AM, Lyichir said:

Out of curiosity... why are the sitcom sets the "epitome" of that? Star Wars fans have been doing that for years...

You answered your own question. SW fans have most likely been buying LEGOs for years. That's a good way to go from Star Wars fan to LEGO fan generally. Also SW fans are more likely to be into toys/models already which of course could mean LEGO.

EDIT: Although I can see SW fans being the epitome of collecting licensed sets generally. I mean, the biggest most expensive sets of all time are called Ultimate Collectors Series and they're (almost?) all Star Wars.

10 hours ago, MAB said:

The entire point of LEGO (sets) is to make money for the company. They don't care if you build a set once and display it or make a new creation out of the same pike of bricks every day. They probably prefer the buyer that buys multiple sets and builds them once and keeps them displayed, rather than the person that keeps reusing the same pile without buying new sets.

Isn't that exactly what we're complaining about? This isn't really a counter argument. Not sure if you meant it to be.

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by danth

[Gorilla94]

Well... I probably was a very strange kid but the largest appeal to me back then was that minifigs were superior action figures. They had all the same scale and were able to use each others helmets and accessories. I build quite many castles and so on but never saw that as the main fun. It was just the preparation for the roleplay part. If I had a great Batmobile like the Tumbler or the Mystery Maschine I would have build less and played much more with the original model. Never changed anything about the Green Goblin vehicle from the first Spiderman wave because it has been perfection to me.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, danth said:

 

Isn't that exactly what we're complaining about? This isn't really a counter argument. Not sure if you meant it to be.

 

I still don't understand why it is a bad thing that someone who is a fan of X can buy a LEGO set of X, and build it,  display it, enjoy it as it is and talk about how much they enjoy it. X can be a single licensed set all the way through to a whole unlicensed theme.

 

On 1/22/2022 at 8:08 AM, Lego David said:

This to me kind of goes against the entire point of LEGO, which is creativity. Those people would probably just buy one or two LEGO sets at most because it represents the IP they love, and not care whatsoever about LEGO otherwise. I don't know what LEGO thinks, but this to me does not seem like a viable long-term strategy.  

There are so many franchises that LEGO could base one-off sets, (what is it, maybe 2% of their output of sets) for years, each one with a ready made market. Why is that not viable?

[Yoggington]

On 1/13/2022 at 1:45 PM, mikaelsol said:

I notice this on different social media platforms. On YouTube the buying and placing channels gets more views than the MOC channels, and the same with likes on instagram.

<snip>

Or am I just hanging out on the wrong platforms? What are your thoughts about this?

I think so yes - you are hanging around on the wrong channels. This is very easy to do, since these types of videos outnumber more creative ones tenfold. A youtube channel such as your own needs to feed the algorithm - and this in turn means continually making videos that show engagement. A review video is considerably "easier" to make than something original, especially if you get into the pattern of cranking out review videos and that constant churn. It's also quicker. I don't mean to say making a new review video daily is easy - but it's certainly easier than making content that is researched, planned, fine-tuned, passed through several quality edits etc. You see review videos with millions of views that is just some face browsing the lego website and commenting live as they click into things. What even is that?

But they get clicks. It's just an unfortunate side-effect of the way YouTube works that these type of videos will become more numerous, and therefore, more people will make them, and the rare original creative video will get lost like a diamond in the churn.

 

 

One smaller factor I haven't seen mentioned is that these videos have a unifying factor that MOC videos do not. "A video on the new boutique hotel? Oh hey I'm planning to buy that one, might click in here to see if it's worth it" was my thought process last week, along with a few hundred thousand others. That's a lot of clicks.

[danth]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

I still don't understand why it is a bad thing that someone who is a fan of X can buy a LEGO set of X, and build it,  display it, enjoy it as it is and talk about how much they enjoy it. X can be a single licensed set all the way through to a whole unlicensed theme.

I don't think anyone is saying it's a problem.

[Mylenium]

8 hours ago, Yoggington said:

But they get clicks. It's just an unfortunate side-effect of the way YouTube works that these type of videos will become more numerous, and therefore, more people will make them, and the rare original creative video will get lost like a diamond in the churn.

One side of the problem, sure, but the other is simply that LEGO has become so popular that it's easy to ride the wave and try to make a buck off it. Also, as skilled as some people may be in their hobby, they are often terrible presenters and that's also part of the game...

Mylenium

[MAB]

10 hours ago, danth said:

I don't think anyone is saying it's a problem.

So what is the point of this thread?

 

The opening post says: These days LEGO is catering to so many different franchises and pushing out more sets than ever, and maybe the price for this is a lower interest for personal expression and MOCs.

Why is there a price connected to LEGO creating a wider range and quantity of sets than ever before, suggesting it is negative? I'd say it is a good thing that LEGO now create a wider range than ever before, as (more) people can buy sets that interest them more easily. And because they like them, they don't necessarily need to take them apart to make them into something else.

There have also been claims of unsustainable business models if they make sets that appeal to people that do not normally buy LEGO, because these people buy it because of the franchise and not because it is made from LEGO and can be broken up and made into something else.

With so many sets being produced, I doubt many people buy 5% or more of the sets made so most people will focus on what actually interests them rather than buying random sets just because they are made out of LEGO parts that can be made into other things. If other people want to review and talk about the LEGO sets that interest them, that has to be a good thing.

[Lego David]

35 minutes ago, MAB said:

Why is there a price connected to LEGO creating a wider range and quantity of sets than ever before, suggesting it is negative? I'd say it is a good thing that LEGO now create a wider range than ever before, as (more) people can buy sets that interest them more easily. And because they like them, they don't necessarily need to take them apart to make them into something else.

They try to appeal to as many people outside of LEGO as possible, while mostly ignoring all the dedicated fans who have consistently been passionate about the hobby for years. 

Star Wars fans get more sets than they could collect in a lifetime, while other fanbases are constantly outright begging LEGO to give them back the theme they are a fan of. And whenever the opportunity comes for one theme to get a tribute sets, like in the case of the 90th Anniversary Poll, a literal culture war starts, with everyone trying to get their theme to win just to get that one set. 

I think this speaks volumes about the current state of LEGO. They try to appeal to much to people who aren't even that passionate about LEGO in general other than because LEGO represents an IP they like, while the loyal old-timers who have been patiently waiting for another Castle line for almost a decade get next to nothing. 

21 hours ago, MAB said:

Not for everybody. The entire point of LEGO (sets) is to make money for the company. They don't care if you build a set once and display it or make a new creation out of the same pike of bricks every day. They probably prefer the buyer that buys multiple sets and builds them once and keeps them displayed, rather than the person that keeps reusing the same pile without buying new sets.

Not just SW. Some City collectors build City sets and display them as they were built from the instructions. And go back further. All those uncreative people that have Classic Castle, Space and Pirate sets built as in the instructions. Some even spend years finding the original versions of pieces on the secondary market so they can build them exactly as the instructions indicate. How uncreative are they and what's more, they don't even buy up to date LEGO so are bad for the company too.

I mean, that may be so, but frankly, I see far more creativity around the Castle, Pirate, Space and Bionicle circles than SW and other licensed themes like that. If you go to those theme's respective sub-forums, MOCs is kind of the only thing you'll see over there. Not a whole lot of discussing about sets that came out decades ago, but just people simply being creative and actually doing something with the pieces from their childhood. 

 Meanwhile, if you look in the Star Wats and Licensed sections, those forums are overblown with people discussing the latest sets and speculating about what might come out next. There are a few MOCs, sure, but like other people in this thread have pointed out, those tend to be swept under the rug rather quickly by the sheer amount of discussions about the sets and nothing else. 

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, Lego David said:

They try to appeal to as many people outside of LEGO as possible, while mostly ignoring all the dedicated fans who have consistently been passionate about the hobby for years. 

Star Wars fans get more sets than they could collect in a lifetime, while other fanbases are constantly outright begging LEGO to give them back the theme they are a fan of.

Some parts of the Internet has become very "demanding" claiming LEGO ignores everything, just look at any of the Trains, Space, Castle, Bionicle, Pirates, City Animal, CMF discussions here, there's an ever growing demand even in unlicensed themes. (or it just could be a very vocal minority)

(I'm not saying that wishlisting is bad, wanting new sets, parts or animals is fine, I take part in those discussions too, and they are popular, but it's a different tone from making bold claims "LEGO ignores us for not making xxx")

I'm not going to analyze LEGO from 2001-2015 as I wasn't actively following/collecting at that time.

 

I admit 2016-2019 was a pretty dry period for Castle and Pirates (there was Elves and Nexo Knights but often are forgotten as they were different from the "Classic" norm) , Pirates just had a 2015 wave of sets but short lifespan.

2019 City space went in a somewhat different direction from usual, even had a people pack, and at the same year there was LEGO Movie 2 , most notably Benny's Space Squad

2020 was a Pirate year, 2021 a Castle year and 2022 definately a Space year again (Monkie Kid + City this time around) 

And the 90th anniversary thing isn't revealed yet.

 

Now, with some big train sets (disney and crocodile) and barracuda bay retired in 2022 , it's going to be interesting what the future will bring, I do think that the shift to IDEAS/3-in-1 set is at least a new strategy compared to no sets at all.

I do think 3-in-1 is a decent system to get multiple designs for older themes across, but it could've even been better if supported with figure packs or horses etc.

 

Just in the last 6 years many non-licensed or semi-licensed themes came and went , like Nexo, Elves, Hidden Side, LEGO Movie 2 and recently Vidiyo. 

Elves and Nexo had pretty normal lifespans for themes, Hidden Side last wave was cut short , the LEGO Movie 2 sets lingered for a long time on sale ,except the last 3 sets, and now Vidyo got dumped at bargain prices and ended rather quickly. 

 

 

I'm not saying people cannot want themes/sets/nostalgia back, but it's simply the reality that LEGO cannot release their whole 3 or 4 decades of Space/Castle/Pirates/Trains or even Star Wars sets new on shelves at the same time, if we add every single theme, that's thousands of retired sets out of like dozens of different factions and figure/color/print/sticker designs.

 

I'm also not trying to say "Want Castle ? get Harry Potter. Want Space? get Star Wars".

And every time LEGO makes a new landspeeder, the community goes "another landspeeder"

Edited January 24, 2022 by TeriXeri

[JJ Tong (zfogshooterz)]

17 hours ago, Yoggington said:

I think so yes - you are hanging around on the wrong channels. This is very easy to do, since these types of videos outnumber more creative ones tenfold. A youtube channel such as your own needs to feed the algorithm - and this in turn means continually making videos that show engagement. A review video is considerably "easier" to make than something original, especially if you get into the pattern of cranking out review videos and that constant churn. It's also quicker. I don't mean to say making a new review video daily is easy - but it's certainly easier than making content that is researched, planned, fine-tuned, passed through several quality edits etc. You see review videos with millions of views that is just some face browsing the lego website and commenting live as they click into things. What even is that?

But they get clicks. It's just an unfortunate side-effect of the way YouTube works that these type of videos will become more numerous, and therefore, more people will make them, and the rare original creative video will get lost like a diamond in the churn.

A thing I have also noticed with many of these reviews videos is that they are following a very specific format or something similar in fashion. So in the end, yeah, a lot of them can sometimes feel pretty samey or reviewed for the sake of reviewing. At least to me.

I've seen review videos (of other stuffs) done in a pretty creative and humorous format or shown that the reviewer is very passionate about reviewing the item while actually having fun. Those videos can be quite entertaining.

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

They try to appeal to as many people outside of LEGO as possible, while mostly ignoring all the dedicated fans who have consistently been passionate about the hobby for years. 

 

I hadn't realised that they had stopped making LEGO for the "dedicated" fans. I thought I was dedicated, yet they still make sets that I am interested in.

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

Star Wars fans get more sets than they could collect in a lifetime, while other fanbases are constantly outright begging LEGO to give them back the theme they are a fan of.

Star Wars doesn't get that many sets per year, especially if you remove all the promo polybags and other single figure type items. Plus SW caters for a huge age range, from the simple 4+ builds, through kids ship based playsets, battle pack style sets, to the large "adult" ship builds, to the more static display sets such as the helmets. Star Wars fans vary so much (just like LEGO fans), I doubt many collect and display both 4+ and UCS sets. So lumping them all together is like saying fans of Classic themes should be happy they got a Classic Pirates and Castle style set in Creator.

There is also a large range of spaceships that LEGO can do and appear to have done something new, at the same time as repeating fan favourites (landspeeders, X-wings, etc). Yet with Castle, they do a grey castle and then a few years later they do another grey castle and AFOLs complain that LEGO are lazy and that one castle is too similar to the last one (just like real castles tend to look like other real castles).

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

I think this speaks volumes about the current state of LEGO. They try to appeal to much to people who aren't even that passionate about LEGO in general other than because LEGO represents an IP they like, while the loyal old-timers who have been patiently waiting for another Castle line for almost a decade get next to nothing.

I really don't get this at all. How can they be passionate fans of LEGO if nothing that LEGO has done in a decade interests them? That is not exactly loyal to LEGO either. If they were that passionate about LEGO, they would be able to find something that interests them. But no, they only want a specific theme, and in that sense they are just as bad as people that want Star Wars or Queer Eye or any TV show or movie, as they are only buying LEGO when it is "their" subject and not if it is something else. The only difference is that one person wants something specific that is licensed, the other wants something that is specific but unlicensed.

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

I mean, that may be so, but frankly, I see far more creativity around the Castle, Pirate, Space and Bionicle circles than SW and other licensed themes like that. If you go to those theme's respective sub-forums, MOCs is kind of the only thing you'll see over there. Not a whole lot of discussing about sets that came out decades ago, but just people simply being creative and actually doing something with the pieces from their childhood. 

 Meanwhile, if you look in the Star Wats and Licensed sections, those forums are overblown with people discussing the latest sets and speculating about what might come out next. There are a few MOCs, sure, but like other people in this thread have pointed out, those tend to be swept under the rug rather quickly by the sheer amount of discussions about the sets and nothing else. 

Sure, there is more creativity when and where LEGO is not producing sets and it appears like there is even more as there is little to no discussion about official LEGO sets. And very little discussing old sets because that is not very interesting or it has all been discussed before. As to "actually doing something" people that build licensed sets also do something with their sets. They build them, the display them, they play with them, they enjoy them. If the official LEGO model already looks good enough for them, there is no reason to pull it apart and try to MOC the same thing.

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by MAB

[koalayummies]

So no retail sets: spawns creativity.

Cancel every theme! MOC victory.

[Rotbart]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I really don't get this at all. How can they be passionate fans of LEGO if nothing that LEGO has done in a decade interests them? That is not exactly loyal to LEGO either. If they were that passionate about LEGO, they would be able to find something that interests them. But no, they only want a specific theme, and in that sense they are just as bad as people that want Star Wars or Queer Eye or any TV show or movie, as they are only buying LEGO when it is "their" subject and not if it is something else. The only difference is that one person wants something specific that is licensed, the other wants something that is specific but unlicensed.

I think you have to make a distinction here between being a fan of LEGO bricks or LEGO minifigures and being a fan of LEGO the company. I can be a passionate fan of LEGO bricks but don't care or maybe even dislike the LEGO company, because they don't give me new molds, new minifigs, new sets of the theme I like the most. But Star Wars or Marvel fans get that.

Let's compare this to NBA basketball: You can be a fan of the game of basketball. But most likely you will also be a fan of a team. Lucky you if you are from Los Angeles. You even got two teams (=themes) to choose from and you get plenty of games (=sets) and star players (=minifigs) every year to talk about. But if you are from Seattle, your favorite theme gets gets cancelled in 2008 (Supersonics move to Oklahoma). Of course you can still play basketball yourself (=MOCing) and rewatch old matches or talk about TOP 10 players of the 1990. And maybe lose passion for the company NBA in the process. It sucks to live in a small market area (=being a fan of a theme, LEGO thinks is not profitable enough). Being a Clippers or Lakers fan on the other hand offers you a much more comprehensive and exciting fan experience. (Well, maybe the Clippers not so much )

[dr_spock]

 

5 hours ago, koalayummies said:

So no retail sets: spawns creativity.

Cancel every theme! MOC victory.

Sell only boxes of random bricks without instructions? 

[Lego David]

8 hours ago, Rotbart said:

I think you have to make a distinction here between being a fan of LEGO bricks or LEGO minifigures and being a fan of LEGO the company. I can be a passionate fan of LEGO bricks but don't care or maybe even dislike the LEGO company, because they don't give me new molds, new minifigs, new sets of the theme I like the most. But Star Wars or Marvel fans get that.

Let's compare this to NBA basketball: You can be a fan of the game of basketball. But most likely you will also be a fan of a team. Lucky you if you are from Los Angeles. You even got two teams (=themes) to choose from and you get plenty of games (=sets) and star players (=minifigs) every year to talk about. But if you are from Seattle, your favorite theme gets gets cancelled in 2008 (Supersonics move to Oklahoma). Of course you can still play basketball yourself (=MOCing) and rewatch old matches or talk about TOP 10 players of the 1990. And maybe lose passion for the company NBA in the process. It sucks to live in a small market area (=being a fan of a theme, LEGO thinks is not profitable enough). Being a Clippers or Lakers fan on the other hand offers you a much more comprehensive and exciting fan experience. (Well, maybe the Clippers not so much )

Excellent analogy! This is exactly what I've been trying to say all long, but didn't quite know how exactly to put it. Thank you! 

[Tube Map Central]

On 1/22/2022 at 2:05 PM, Erik Leppen said:

The bigger problem is that creativity isn't valued at all, anymore, or so it seems. Creativity is a skill, that can be learned. Education doesn't foster it (the answer is in the back of the book, see the three TED talks by Sir Ken Robinson), so people aren't taught it anymore.

I'm not sure about this, and if you shop around enough you will find an 'expert' psychologist to declare every possible version of reality as the truth.

If we put our minds to it we can all be creative, if you just mean decorating a room nicely or putting some bricks together in a satisfying way. Do we really need to be taught to be able to do this at school?

But if you mean the more motivated expressions of creativity, as per when a hobby gets out of control, then that needs some pre-requisites.

1) Mastery of basic technical skills. So much easier to express oneself with the necessary tools available

2) Passion. One has to love the domain of creativity, want to explore it, find out about it, understand it

3) Restlessness. There has to be a desire to go beyond what is already available, perhaps even some dissatisfaction with it

We are all different, and I can easily understand someone never wanting to create a MoC or paint a landscape. For those who do, education can help with (1) and perhaps (2) by helping the desire to explore. (3) comes from the heart, it is either there or it isn't.

Are (were?) teachers ever in a position to watch individuals closely enough to look for the seeds of passion and the restlessness? The best people to spot this are the parents, and there is so much that they can do to facilitate.

Could talk about all of these for so much more, but will stop there. 

EDIT: I've always found the version of reality put forward by Dean Keith Simonton to be very well argued and make a lot of sense:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Simonton

Edited January 25, 2022 by Tube Map Central
Added some reading