The shift from creativity to consumer fan base?

[MAB]

10 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 )

LEGO produces many themes over the years, so different kids will experience different themes in their childhood. LEGO cannot continue to innovate with new products but at the same time reproduce every old theme ever made to ensure that all adults that had LEGO as a child can have the theme in the same colour schemes that they remember as a child. So there is a difference to American sports franchises where teams in leagues tend to remain constant throught years but disappear when owners decide to cut funding or other financial reasons.

Also I don't really see the link between watching and playing as the same as building official sets and building MOCs. Watching sport is passive, building official sets is not. Some people enjoy building official sets (whether licensed or unlicensed) and they are no less of a fan than people that MOC (whether the MOCs are based on LEGO themes or licensed properties). 

Is someone that builds MOCs for licensed themes somehow better than someone that collects and builds only official classic LEGO sets and enjoys placing them and playing with them. To me, they are both LEGO fans, but just enjoy different aspects of the hobby. And people that want to build only current official sets? Just the same.

[MaximillianRebo]

One aspect which I think is a big driver of the consumer side of Lego is the minifigs. More so in the licensed themes, but often discussions of new sets will centre around what minifigs are included. It can often feel like a new set is just a vehicle (pun intended) for the sale of figs - in the case of battle packs this is almost literally the case. Yes a new figure can be thrown together from existing parts, but that often requires the right prints to already exist, plus potentially helmets and other accessories. For all of Lego being a building block construction toy, the one thing that can't be MOCed - or is extremely difficult - is the figs, and they often seem to be what is driving sales. It often seems to be the case that minifigs (again more in the licensed themes) are treated more or less the same as action figures, and for the people that prioritise figure collecting, MOCing or other creative endeavours are probably far down on their list of reasons to buy Lego.

[MAB]

8 minutes ago, MaximillianRebo said:

One aspect which I think is a big driver of the consumer side of Lego is the minifigs. More so in the licensed themes, but often discussions of new sets will centre around what minifigs are included.  ... It often seems to be the case that minifigs (again more in the licensed themes) are treated more or less the same as action figures, and for the people that prioritise figure collecting, MOCing or other creative endeavours are probably far down on their list of reasons to buy Lego.

That makes sense because often it is easy to imagine what the main build of the set will look like if yo already know the source material and of course some people collect minifigures and want to see new ones being done. But that is also true of the non-licensed but specialised themes. For City and Modulars, it seems nobody cares too much about civilian style figures. But look at the buying frenzy for purple motorcyle helmets caused when LEGO release a purple classic space torso or if they do a CMF that contains a classic style figure (pirates, castle or space). There were some complaints about the figures in the Blacksmith set, that one is wasted by repeating the female pirates waistcoat / vest torso. I've been selling off my spares of Kingdoms figures, and they sell for a very nice price now indicating people are willing to pay high prices for unlicensed figures. If they released blue and (modern) grey spaceships with yellow windows but included white astronaut minifigures instead of coloured minifigures with classic space logos on their chests, I reckon there would be some discussion there. Discussions of non-licensed minifigures in specialist themes has gone on for years too. Remember Knights Kingdom II and the "jellybean" knights (usually used in a derogatory way) when some people weren't buying nice looking castle sets because of the colours of the figures.

And the unlicensed themes have minifigure packs too, such as the fun in the park type large sets or the smaller blister packs. I've recently sold my last unopened lion / crown knights blister pack

for £40! They got clearanced at £5.99 each in 2015. I opened up all my dragon knights ones as I wanted the torsos. If LEGO released those these days, they'd probably sell very well to some people, at least for a while, to people that want to build armies even though they were ridiculed for being too cartoony when they were released.

 

 

[BrickBob Studpants]

I‘m not accusing anyone of gatekeeping, but I have a feeling there are some such undertones in this discussion  The way I see it, it‘s more of an expansion rather than a shift. While they used to only cater to the creative side of the hobby (i.e. before instructions existed), they have started to broaden their range by also targeting (adult) collectors and people who want to use their products for decoration. These are all valid forms of enjoying LEGO. It‘s a construction toy, playsets, display pieces, action figures, dolls, and decorative articles all rolled into one. People who only care about one of these aspects are fans nonetheless  It‘s natural for a versatile product to have a heterogeneous fanbase

[koalayummies]

17 hours ago, dr_spock said:

Sell only boxes of random bricks without instructions? 

No! No retail sets whatsoever! Everybody just build what you got on-hand only.

(I'm joking Lego Group please do not sneak up on me and make me step on bricks)

[Mylenium]

On 1/22/2022 at 3:05 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.

Can you, though? There's enough research to suggest the contrary. Some people's brains just aren't set up with a suitable wiring in the first place and learning stuff is intrinsically linked to the development of that big blob of fat with neuro fibers embedded into it. So even if you can "learn" creativity, it is limited by hard physiological factors. And blaming the educational system on shortcomings in fostering creativity strikes me as the lamest excuse I can think of...

22 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

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

Yupp... There's a million quotes from great artists that always state that you can never be 100 percent satisfied with your work. You declare a piece of art finished, but it's never really finished in your mind or else painters wouldn't revisit and touch up images years after they first produced them...

Mylenium

 

 

 

[MAB]

20 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

I‘m not accusing anyone of gatekeeping, but I have a feeling there are some such undertones in this discussion  The way I see it, it‘s more of an expansion rather than a shift. While they used to only cater to the creative side of the hobby (i.e. before instructions existed), they have started to broaden their range by also targeting (adult) collectors and people who want to use their products for decoration. These are all valid forms of enjoying LEGO. It‘s a construction toy, playsets, display pieces, action figures, dolls, and decorative articles all rolled into one. People who only care about one of these aspects are fans nonetheless  It‘s natural for a versatile product to have a heterogeneous fanbase

Plus it has existed for so long, that fashions and styles change over time. In the 1970s I had a bucket of second hand LEGO. I had to be creative as I didn't have that many toys (compared to kids of today) and not loads of LEGO. I was growing out of LEGO by the mid-80s when the so-called Classic themes, with their heavy numbers of minifigures, started coming along. I was more used to building Homemaker maxi-figures but mainly using other companies' small figurines and animals in my builds and I remember having a few of the Legoland style figures with fixed arms and legs but they were rubbish. I remember my younger brother having some Classic Town, but again not that many and he had to break them apart and rebuild if he wanted something different. When I look at how much LEGO my kids had at the same age as I was when I played with LEGO as a kid, they have probably at least 20x as much as I did. They can easily keep the nicer sets together for play and not need to take them apart as they need the bricks for something else. They MOC a lot, but mainly as I give them bags of parts that are not sets. If they get a set, it tends to remain as a set. Some of their friends have LEGO and never free build, they build the set and play. I think this is partly how LEGO markets their product these days, when you complete one then you get another. I know they do the Rebuild the World adverts and they do Classic boxes, but I don't think they promote free building that much. They focus on sets, so the consumer of today focuses on sets. LEGO Masters has helped a bit there, as people see you can be creative although it gives the impression you need access to 1000s of bricks.

So people of different ages, or people that come into the hobby at different times, will have very different experiences and hence want to "do LEGO" in different ways.

And for themes, while there were licensed (movie or TV based) toys in the 1970s and 80s (especially after Star Wars came along), there were many toys that were not movie based. Whereas now many toys are licensed based, so it is not surprising that LEGO, Playmobil, etc have a significant proportion of licensed themes. If I look at my daughter's dolls, probably 2/3rds of them are based on movies and TV.

[Feuer Zug]

5 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Yupp... There's a million quotes from great artists that always state that you can never be 100 percent satisfied with your work. You declare a piece of art finished, but it's never really finished in your mind or else painters wouldn't revisit and touch up images years after they first produced them...

Mylenium

Oh don't I know this one. A MOC is never quite complete. There's always one more thing to do, or new parts that could improve it or... the list goes on forever.

[Tube Map Central]

15 minutes ago, Feuer Zug said:

Oh don't I know this one. A MOC is never quite complete. There's always one more thing to do, or new parts that could improve it or... the list goes on forever.

Botanical Gardens station has been completely stripped down for rebuilding. This time it will be right better

[kibosh]

 

On 1/25/2022 at 7:00 AM, MaximillianRebo said:

One aspect which I think is a big driver of the consumer side of Lego is the minifigs. More so in the licensed themes, but often discussions of new sets will centre around what minifigs are included.

Totally agree.  The minifigure collector is just another type of Lego collector.  I love them because they tend to sell of their bricks cheaply to recoup some of their cost.  :-)

On 1/25/2022 at 7:33 AM, MAB said:

 But that is also true of the non-licensed but specialised themes. For City and Modulars, it seems nobody cares too much about civilian style figures. 

I've been selling off my spares of Kingdoms figures, and they sell for a very nice price now indicating people are willing to pay high prices for unlicensed figures.

Remember Knights Kingdom II and the "jellybean" knights (usually used in a derogatory way) when some people weren't buying nice looking castle sets because of the colours of the figures.

And the unlicensed themes have minifigure packs too, such as the fun in the park type large sets or the smaller blister packs. I've recently sold my last unopened lion / crown knights blister pack

Agreed.  I really don't get excited about City minifigs, and ironically, it's what I build most.

While not licensed, those knights are way more recognizable than another version of a police officer.  And no one is army building City figures.  I think that's a lot of the popularity of Castle and Space.  People love amassing them.  Myself included.

I was one of those that totally ignored the jellybean knight theme.

How did I miss those blister packs???

On 1/25/2022 at 8:25 AM, BrickBob Studpants said:

I‘m not accusing anyone of gatekeeping, but I have a feeling there are some such undertones in this discussion  The way I see it, it‘s more of an expansion rather than a shift. While they used to only cater to the creative side of the hobby (i.e. before instructions existed), they have started to broaden their range by also targeting (adult) collectors and people who want to use their products for decoration. These are all valid forms of enjoying LEGO. It‘s a construction toy, playsets, display pieces, action figures, dolls, and decorative articles all rolled into one. People who only care about one of these aspects are fans nonetheless  It‘s natural for a versatile product to have a heterogeneous fanbase

I think it's an evolution.  Lego is growing and evolving with the times.  They are giving people what they want, and what they've asked for.  And you're right.  What's right for me might not be what's right for you.  But we can both agree some form of Lego is right for both of us.

On 1/26/2022 at 3:05 AM, Mylenium said:

Can you, though? There's enough research to suggest the contrary. Some people's brains just aren't set up with a suitable wiring in the first place and learning stuff is intrinsically linked to the development of that big blob of fat with neuro fibers embedded into it. So even if you can "learn" creativity, it is limited by hard physiological factors.

Yupp... There's a million quotes from great artists that always state that you can never be 100 percent satisfied with your work.

While creativity may not be able to be learned, it can certainly be honed and trained.  I become a better builder with every MOC I build.  I become a better painter with every painting I do.

And, yes, the idea of a thing never being "done" is something I only recently accepted.  In my desire to create something perfect, I would often give up because it was not perfect in my eyes.  I read something that had a profound impact on me.  Done is better than perfect.  Just create something.  Put it out there.  It can always be revised after the fact.

On 1/26/2022 at 8:25 AM, Feuer Zug said:

Oh don't I know this one. A MOC is never quite complete. There's always one more thing to do, or new parts that could improve it or... the list goes on forever.

Man, I feel this one in my soul.  

[MAB]

2 hours ago, kibosh said:

While not licensed, those knights are way more recognizable than another version of a police officer.  And no one is army building City figures.  I think that's a lot of the popularity of Castle and Space.  People love amassing them.  Myself included.

I know one guy who must have at least 500 police. I normally go for just 2 or 3 City style minifigs in obvious trades, so things like the butcher, waiter, plumber, carpenter, etc. It's enough for small vignettes.

I do the same for armies now too, just go for enough for a detailed MOC. I normally stop at 12 or 16 these days. I amassed over 50 Spartans and about 120 Roman soldiers, but never used them. And given their prices, I sold them. Sure they would look great as a huge army on a big baseplate if that's your thing, but I prefer the build to be the display piece and normally only need a small group to make it look good. Too many figs and people just focus on those instead of the build.

[kibosh]

22 minutes ago, MAB said:

I know one guy who must have at least 500 police. I normally go for just 2 or 3 City style minifigs in obvious trades, so things like the butcher, waiter, plumber, carpenter, etc. It's enough for small vignettes.

I do the same for armies now too, just go for enough for a detailed MOC. I normally stop at 12 or 16 these days. I amassed over 50 Spartans and about 120 Roman soldiers, but never used them. And given their prices, I sold them. Sure they would look great as a huge army on a big baseplate if that's your thing, but I prefer the build to be the display piece and normally only need a small group to make it look good. Too many figs and people just focus on those instead of the build.

What is he doing with that many police???

I have the best intentions of eventually building my dream castle and surrounding lands, so I feel I need one army, and the 12 or so you mentioned to represent various realms visiting for a festival or something.  Who knows if it will ever happen though.

[kibosh]

On 1/22/2022 at 2:09 PM, Lyichir said:

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.

I totally agree.  I used to read Lugnet religiously.  Then I read EB religiously, but I drifted away the past few years.  I spend way more time in Instagram and TikTok these days.  And I will say this.  The old guard who generally prefers channels like EB tend to be the gatekeepers.  The newer channels are by and large far more welcoming on new fans.

On 1/22/2022 at 5:01 PM, Peppermint_M said:

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. 

Agreed.  I only recently came back to EB because I stumbled upon an old post of mine somewhere.  I think Lego fan websites in general are waning.  I can't be bothered to update a website anymore, but I'll post almost daily to TikTok and Instagram.

On 1/22/2022 at 5:27 PM, Darkdragon said:

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.

 

I don't think it's a shift as much as an expansion.  But the new breed of "collector" certainly seems to overshadow the "builder" in most social media channels.  The question why, I believe, is what started this whole thread.

On 1/23/2022 at 3:31 AM, Mylenium said:

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...

A company giving its customers what they want in the hopes that it will increase revenue?  Are they crazy?

On 1/23/2022 at 10:49 AM, snaillad said:

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.

What they care about when they send those YouTubers free sets is the free advertising.  People watch those channels to see what's coming.  Sending them random bricks doesn't help generate sales.  In may inspire creativity, but that's not their business.  Their business is to sell as many bricks as possible and make money.  Nothing wrong with that.

On 1/23/2022 at 11:50 AM, MAB said:

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.

Why is this bad? I would LOVE to be able to build my old Galaxy Explorer as it was and display it, unaltered, proudly.  It's the nostalgia for me.  Is it creative?  Maybe not the model itself, but what it represents, certainly is.

On 1/23/2022 at 1:03 PM, danth said:

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.

Is there a non-Star Wars UCS set?

On 1/23/2022 at 7:24 PM, 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.

This is exactly what's going on.  It's way easier to do a review than create new content every day/week.  It's formulaic.  You buy a set.  You build it.  You might even do a time lapse of it.  And then you review it.  That could be three videos right there without even having to think about it.

On 1/24/2022 at 8:38 AM, MAB said:

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.

The thing that could be unsustainable is the number of new parts they keep introducing.  Unless they're retiring pieces at the same rate, they could have the same problem on their hands that almost ran them out of business not so long ago.

On 1/24/2022 at 9:30 AM, 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 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.  

This is gatekeeping at its finest.  Lego is not ignoring anyone.  They are being inclusive and broadening their appeal.

Those new fans are passionate.  Just not passionate about the things you're passionate about.  And that's ok.

You say it's not about the creativity or the MOCs anymore.  Why can't you buy Star Wars sets and creatively find a way to use those bricks in a castle setting?

Sounds like you are stuck in your ways.  Castle or bust!

On 1/24/2022 at 12:46 PM, JJ Tong (zfogshooterz) said:

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.

Yep.  They're formulaic because they get views.  

On 1/24/2022 at 1:03 PM, 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.

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.

Exactly.  It's good old elitism.  My way is the right way because I've been here longer.  It's that attitude that pushed a lot of people away from places like this.  And the whole clique mentality.  If you weren't one of the anointed builders, you were nothing.

[Peppermint_M]

24 minutes ago, kibosh said:

but I'll post almost daily to TikTok and Instagram.

I do not have any idea 'bout TikTok, (I was stumped by Vine too...) but I am a fossil in some respects. I get what they are, but never engaged with the platforms. 

I do share on Instagram, but never often, I keep meaning to change that but so far I post quick MOC photos once projects are done. 

Never ever would I gatekeep, I just want to share my passion for creativity and encourage it in others!

[dr_spock]

On 1/26/2022 at 3:05 AM, Mylenium said:

Yupp... There's a million quotes from great artists that always state that you can never be 100 percent satisfied with your work. You declare a piece of art finished, but it's never really finished in your mind or else painters wouldn't revisit and touch up images years after they first produced them...

Mylenium

Like those Star Wars movies? 

 

[Lego David]

10 hours ago, kibosh said:

Why can't you buy Star Wars sets and creatively find a way to use those bricks in a castle setting?

That's what we've all been doing for the past decade or so, lol. 

[kibosh]

17 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

I do share on Instagram, but never often, I keep meaning to change that but so far I post quick MOC photos once projects are done. 

I post a lot of work in progress pics, and I get a lot of good feedback.  Other builders will have ideas I never thought of, and it helps me refine my work.

[MAB]

On 1/27/2022 at 8:52 PM, kibosh said:

Why is this bad? I would LOVE to be able to build my old Galaxy Explorer as it was and display it, unaltered, proudly.  It's the nostalgia for me.  Is it creative?  Maybe not the model itself, but what it represents, certainly is.

My point was building and displaying a Classic Space/Pirates/Castle set is no more or less creative than someone building and displaying a Queer Eye or The Office set.

[Mylenium]

On 1/27/2022 at 9:52 PM, kibosh said:

A company giving its customers what they want in the hopes that it will increase revenue?  Are they crazy?

C'mon, don't be so lame! Of course everyone around here understands that we're talking about a commercial product and the company behind it trying to make money. However, why should that stop people from discussing whether they could achieve the same based on a different business approach? It's all in good fun. Pulling tired platitudes therefore isn't really that interesting...

Mylenium

[LegendaryArticuno]

Speaking from my own experience its an aging issue. As a kid I basically moc'd 100% of the time, as an adult the only moc'ing I do is further detailing or hiding spare parts into the build to add more mass/density.

Your creativity and imagination just isn't the same as you grow older, and you're far more critical. That said, I love sets specifically meant to customize like the Daily Bugle and Razorcrest.

[CP5670]

I actually got more into mocs as I got older. New sets are nice but I've seen a lot over the years in terms of sets, and new sets rarely excite me. The mocs are what keep me engaged in the hobby.

As for other social media communities, I'm on Flickr and a couple of Discords (and Lugnet way back in the day), but never used FB/Instagram or Tiktok. I prefer forums over any of those social media sites that track your behavior. Lego social media has always been fragmented across several different places. At least with Flickr, people who are not registered there can see the mocs.

[jodawill]

This is an interesting discussion. This is something I've been noticing over the past decade also, and I have a lot of thoughts on it.

I've been in the AFOL community for quite a few years. I never had a dark age in the sense that I stopped building, except a couple years as a teenager. But I stopped following new sets around 2001 because I didn't like the stuff they were producing. In hindsight, I really regret missing out on the rereleases in 2002. But I completely stopped paying attention to new Lego sets from about 2001 until 2009 when I saw new pirates sets in the stores, and that's around the time I found the AFOL community.

Other people may have different perspectives, but I think there's been a marked change in the AFOL community since I found it. MOCs used to be the primary focus. The Lego subreddit used to be filled with cool creations. When I joined our local LUG, the meetings had a positive atmosphere. Everyone got together to discuss their latest creations and spend time with nice people.

At some point, there was a shift. I think it was when the Lego movie came out. The Lego subreddit became turned into a stream of pictures of Lego boxes and people bragging about their "hauls." On social media in general, the discussions became dumbed down. Instead of people discussing building techniques and so forth, it turned into a bunch of consumerism. Our LUG saw a large influx of new members, largely people who are just collectors. A few bad apples (selfish, loud mouthed people) ruined the experience for me. Our meetings turned into a group of 40-50 people sitting around watching a small minority argue bitterly over how to distribute stupid freebies from Lego. One of the last times I went to one of the meetings, they spent most of the meeting arguing over how to distribute some dogs. I was so disgusted by it, I didn't come back for 6 months. Then when I returned, they were having the same argument again. I had a few other really sour experiences with people, so I eventually just left completely. (I'm thinking about going back now, several years later, because I miss the good people. I shouldn't let a few bad apples ruin it for me.)

I don't know if this marks a change in society in general. I remember when I was a kid, my parents didn't have money to buy me Legos, and I'd go to other kids's houses and see their extravagant collections just sitting on the shelves. It always made me upset because I would have spent so many hours building with those things, and they didn't appreciate what they had. It's the same way I feel now about the "collector" community.

I have a great appreciation for Lego sets as they're presented to us. There's nothing wrong with buying a set simply because you love the design. It's no different from buying a painting because it's beautiful, or listening to music that someone else wrote. The problem I have with this shift in the AFOL community is that, from my perspective, it doesn't seem like most people are really appreciating what they have. People buy things simply because they need to add to their collection. People build their sets once, then let them collect dust, or they set them on a shelf next to hundreds of other sets. Fewer people are buying sets merely for the parts and to enjoy the creative process. It's just consumerism. A company releases a product, they convince us we can't live without it, then once the newness wears off, we rinse and repeat. I think there's something different here from merely being someone who enjoys Legos and appreciates the official sets. This is an unhealthy relationship with our stuff, and I think it reveals the brokenness within us.

I think there's room for people who both love creating MOCs and for people who are simply passive fans who appreciate the sets. The question I have for you, if you're reading this, is do you really take the time to appreciate what you have? Do you stop buying things long enough to smell the roses? Or are you just obsessed with accumulating more stuff? And if you're a builder, are you building because you enjoy it, or are you building because you're waiting for the next notification that someone "liked" your photos?

[Karalora]

As I was reading @jodawill's post, a thought occurred to me: maybe people respond more to community threads and videos than ones about MOCs because they want to participate. If you like an official set, you can go out and get one for yourself, build it, adapt it, play with it...and meanwhile talk about your experiences with it. If you like someone's MOC, you can't do that (unless you are skilled enough to reverse-engineer it from the images alone and have the parts for it).

Honestly some of the comments on this thread are very discouraging. There seems to be a consensus attitude of "If you don't build MOCs, then you aren't a real fan, just a consumer," but at the same time you've got people turning up their noses at any MOC that isn't the biggest, slickest, most complex and detailed thing on the block. How is anyone new to the hobby supposed to develop the skills they need to get good, unless they can get constructive feedback on the stuff they make while they aren't good yet? I don't post photos because I have stalled out at a very low skill level, and that's largely because it's intimidating to try sharing my work when the lion's share of the attention goes to the experts.

[jodawill]

13 minutes ago, Karalora said:

As I was reading @jodawill's post, a thought occurred to me: maybe people respond more to community threads and videos than ones about MOCs because they want to participate. If you like an official set, you can go out and get one for yourself, build it, adapt it, play with it...and meanwhile talk about your experiences with it. If you like someone's MOC, you can't do that (unless you are skilled enough to reverse-engineer it from the images alone and have the parts for it).

Honestly some of the comments on this thread are very discouraging. There seems to be a consensus attitude of "If you don't build MOCs, then you aren't a real fan, just a consumer," but at the same time you've got people turning up their noses at any MOC that isn't the biggest, slickest, most complex and detailed thing on the block. How is anyone new to the hobby supposed to develop the skills they need to get good, unless they can get constructive feedback on the stuff they make while they aren't good yet? I don't post photos because I have stalled out at a very low skill level, and that's largely because it's intimidating to try sharing my work when the lion's share of the attention goes to the experts.

Yes, the amount of skill required to gain anyone's attention is a very high bar. Not only do you have to know how to build, but you have to know how to take good pictures of it also, which I'm terrible at. But you know, we don't need to build in order to get approval from other people. It's all about having fun. Whether you're a MOC builder or just a collector, we shouldn't be doing it for anyone else. We should be doing all of it for our own enjoyment, and when we share our work with others, it should be to have a discussion, not to feel approval from random strangers on the internet. Of course, the irony is that for all I know, people who do it only for enjoyment could be the vast majority of people, but we don't see them on the internet. They're off living in the real world.

Don't feel discouraged if you don't get a lot of feedback on your MOCs. If you're having fun and exercising your mind, that's all that matters.

[Karalora]

5 minutes ago, jodawill said:

Yes, the amount of skill required to gain anyone's attention is a very high bar. Not only do you have to know how to build, but you have to know how to take good pictures of it also, which I'm terrible at. But you know, we don't need to build in order to get approval from other people. It's all about having fun. Whether you're a MOC builder or just a collector, we shouldn't be doing it for anyone else. We should be doing all of it for our own enjoyment, and when we share our work with others, it should be to have a discussion, not to feel approval from random strangers on the internet. Of course, the irony is that for all I know, people who do it only for enjoyment could be the vast majority of people, but we don't see them on the internet. They're off living in the real world.

Don't feel discouraged if you don't get a lot of feedback on your MOCs. If you're having fun and exercising your mind, that's all that matters.

This advice is fine as far as personal enjoyment and enrichment goes, but the community aspect is all about sharing...and you can't share if no one wants to take what you've got. You say it should be about discussion rather than approval, but in order to have either you have to be able to draw some eyeballs.

If the attitudes in this thread are typical, then the AFOL community is going to wind up gatekeeping itself out of existence. If you disdain the entry points into your hobby--in this case, official sets (particularly licensed ones that can attract people via their non-LEGO interests)--people will stop entering.