Ever Been Picked on for Being a Lego Fan?

doctorsparkles · Post by **doctorsparkles** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:01 am

Here's a question for all of the teenage and adult fans of Lego out there:
Have you ever been picked on for your hobby or been told that you're too old to be playing with toys? How do you react?
Has anyone gone as far as pretending that they're buying a Lego set for a young relative?
I get picked on all the time, and all I can think of to say is things like "What can I say? I guess I'm just a big kid," or "Well, we already knew I was a nerd!"
Just wondering...

Post by **SavaTheAggie** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:19 am

I get picked on by people who don't know me. But then I send them off to look at what I've been able to do, and they shut up quick. Usually their insults are replaced with hushed 'Woah...'s

Actually to tell the truth I've had more people seem interested in finding out more about what I do as a hobby than I have had people scoff at me for it. Especially in the Wal Mart check-out isle. Go figure.

--Anthony

wlister · Post by **wlister** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:52 am

Before I had children, I occasionally pretended to be buying for younger relatives, but since then I have purchased a lot of stuff for both myself and my kids and now I could care less what people think.

No one has ever bothered me about my hobby, but that is likely more because I don't look like someone you want to bother than anything else.

My wife does razz me once in a while though, she doesn't like Lego all over the house. If it leaves the basement for too long I hear about it.

Will

Commander Redbeard · Post by **Commander Redbeard** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:44 pm

Actually, I've found out that most early to mid teenagers like Legos. It's something you can never grow out of. nobody's picked on me yet.

JPinoy · Post by **JPinoy** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:08 pm

It sometimes happens, but rarely. Once I showed a female friend of mine a minifig of myself. She mockingly applauded, then I showed her pics of my Ancient armies and my Tower. She then gasped and shutted up.

Ruthy on the other hand thinks it "shows Johnny's sweeter side"

and she even liked the pic of the Lego Red Rose I emailed her.

I even made a cheesey poem on FBTB.net forums about it:
"Like a Lego Rose love can sometimes fall apart. But like Lego Rose you can put back the pieces together again."

Green Fox · Post by **Green Fox** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:52 pm

I am young compared to all you AFOLs,

, but where I come from (the wilds of...Belfast), Lego stops being "respectable" when you reach 10

Apart from me and a friend, everyone is off skateboarding or something. It's a cruel world.

Post by **Formendacil** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:36 pm

Never been picked for Lego. Might be because I'm homeschooled (only people my age I hang out with are of my choice), or because I'm an oldest sibling (no big brothers or sisters), or maybe because no one has ever really picked on me for anything. (Look too smart, and can retort quite well, if you ask me!)

Lord_Of_The_LEGO · Post by **Lord_Of_The_LEGO** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:44 pm

Formendacil wrote:Never been picked for Lego. Might be because I'm homeschooled (only people my age I hang out with are of my choice), or because I'm an oldest sibling (no big brothers or sisters), or maybe because no one has ever really picked on me for anything. (Look too smart, and can retort quite well, if you ask me!)

Dude, that is so me! I'm homeschooled too, and I almost never get bugged. All the other people I know that are my age are impressed with what I build (and then go into shock when I show them Tony's dragons

), and they think it is way cool that I am an admin of C-C.com. When talking to adult I always say I 'contruct', 'brainstorm', 'create' or 'build' with LEGO, never 'play'. I then show them a video of one of my Mindstorms robots and some of my bigger creations. I also point out that other growns-ups (and kids) are just about as nuts about LEGO as I am.

Jojo · Post by **Jojo** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 8:38 pm

Hello!

Never been picked. Maybe because I managed to avoid it. When I was younger (about 15) and I went to a shop and bought LEGO I always hoped I'd nobody meet who knew me... And it never happened. However, most likely nobody would have cared anyway.
Nowadays when I'm asked if I buy that LEGO set for a child and if I'd like to have it wrapped I reply with "no, thanks, it's for myself", and everybody thinks that's cool.

Bye
Jojo

doctorsparkles · Post by **doctorsparkles** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 9:32 pm

I wish I had thought of this earlier, but there was one cruel comment by someone named Plumhead in the review of Paul Gerla's Tree Ent.

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/1613?r=173088333

Luckily, I haven't had to deal with anything quite this cruel (not to mention stupid and immature), but I have had to deal with people I don't know laughing at me, and people I do know rolling their eyes and wishing that I would spend my money on something 'less childish.'
I'm also fortunate enough to have a girlfriend that appreciates art in any medium, a father that appreciates architecture and a mother that supports me no matter how weird I am.

Snoopy · Post by **Snoopy** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 9:50 pm

I'm homeschooled too, so I don't run up against to many people besides my friends. Manwe_Valar_of_Air comes over almost every weekday. Also, just about everybody I know likes LEGO's anyway. Come to think of it, I'm surrounded by LEGO lovers!

I can't even remember the last time I was critized for still playing LEGO's. I wouldn't care anyway. What a little criticism compared to LEGO's?

TwoTonic Knight · Post by **TwoTonic Knight** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 9:52 pm

I used to get all my eBay loot shipped to where I worked (so it could be signed for if necessary). No one ever said a word about it. In fact, some would want to see what the latest acquisition was, and some admired that I made the whole process pay for itself.

But it was generally known that Lego was something I did with my son (universal defense) and that I was of an artistic bent anyway (I had a huge whiteboard that I would populate with drawings of various people at work - it got to the point where people would come pose for me). Not to mention Lego was used by many of the scientists at the main facility for visualizing projects.

Snoopy · Post by **Snoopy** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 9:59 pm

What do you mean, TwoTonic Knight, when you said "I made the whole process pay for itself."?

Post by **rogue27** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 10:04 pm

Once. This kid, who was really a bigger nerd than me, started singing that "zack, he's back, and he's a lego maniac!" song from the 80s at me once when he found out that I was into Lego. (this happened at some point in the late 80s or early 90s)

Thing is, he was such a geek that he was probably into Lego too and just didn't know of a "safe" (as in, not getting picked on by others) way to say it.

I'm in my late 20s now, and most of my friends are in their 20s as well, and though only one of them is into Lego in the sense that he still buys stuff, they all think it is a cool toy and have some of their own somewhere.

My girlfriend doesn't have a problem with my Lego - I think she likes it because it makes me smile.

TwoTonic Knight · Post by **TwoTonic Knight** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 10:11 pm

Snoopy wrote:What do you mean, TwoTonic Knight, when you said "I made the whole process pay for itself."?

That's really not a subject for this thread, but briefly, I buy heavily discounted sets, sit on them until their value goes back up, and sell enough of them to cover the ones I keep and for other purchases. It takes a while to get the whole cycle started up, and it means that I usually don't buy much when sets first appear. For example, I bought 20 Adventurers Zeppelins for $5 each, kept one and sold all the others for $20-$30 each (after a year or two of letting them sit in my garage).

Classic-Castle.com

Ever Been Picked on for Being a Lego Fan?

Have you ever been picked on for being an AFOL?

Ever Been Picked on for Being a Lego Fan?