2 CC admins quoted in same article about LEGO!

Daimyo · Post by **Daimyo** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:07 pm

That article was positively awful. It portrayed the AFOL world as fat, ugly losers. But it captured LEGO's supremely annoying marketing strategy.

doctorsparkles · Post by **doctorsparkles** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:24 pm

TwoTonic Knight wrote:Funky Five-Point Pole arm - I still haven't found anything historical quite like this, but heck, it's useful.

I think I may have mentioned this a long time ago in another thread, but there is a Swiss-made partisan of very similar design at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The central blade and the other two top blades are nearly identical. The real thing doesn't have the two bottom blades, but I've seen a lot of pole weapons with hooks or down turned blades, so I don't think the design is too far fetched.
Even if it weren't historical/potentially historical, I'd still love this thing. It's just so darn pretty...

Emperor James wrote:I was just thinking, isn't there a bionicle with a chain saw?

A chainsaw isn't a weapon that would be used in modern warfare, so this wouldn't be a problem.

Daimyo wrote:It portrayed the AFOL world as fat, ugly losers.

How? I don't see a single negative statement, direct or implied, about AFOLs.

Emperor James · Post by **Emperor James** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:31 pm

Lego pins hopes on the "grandparent effect" -- falling birth rates and richer older people meaning that increasingly SPOILT kids will be bought "real" toys rather than computer games.

WTF? So, this article seems to be promoting videop games, and of course making KFOL's out to be spoilt idiots who should be wasting their time in front of a tv screen rather than having a creative hobby, and seems to insinuate that AFOLS's are people who need to get a real hobby like watching football and drinking beer. I'm with Daimyo here.[/i]

JPinoy · Post by **JPinoy** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 10:05 pm

While some of its boys' toys look scary, such as the top-selling sci-fi Bionicle figures, Lego does not make realistic weapons.

So THATS why they made those gawd-awful KK2 swords!!!

I guess the older sword types were too "realistic" to Lego nowadays:
Katanas
Sabres
Broadsword
Scimitar
Greatsword

As for that Chinese Spear... I think Lego was trying to make this... top right halberd head.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ealc/gusweb ... eapons.jpg

Glencaer · Post by **Glencaer** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:30 pm

Glencaer wrote: Some 20th Century War tech has showed up - specifically the Sopwith Camel and the Red Baron's Triplane - suggesting that TLG's policy is to not depict war tech that was used by anyone alive. In other words, TLG may depict WW2 tech - but not until the 2050's or so.

-Lenny

Except for the model airplanes that have guns on them.

Lego will say anything to cover their butts and make themselves look better.

Please re-read my above statement concern the Sopwith Camel and the Red Baron Triplane. They are allowable because no one alive today fought a war with those weapons. They are not 'modern' (except in the academic sense).

-Lenny

Glencaer · Post by **Glencaer** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:41 pm

Daimyo wrote:That article was positively awful. It portrayed the AFOL world as fat, ugly losers. But it captured LEGO's supremely annoying marketing strategy.

I dont suppose you could spell out why you think this. Specifically, give passages from the article that support your view of it. Being one of the AFOLs he interviewed, I think he painted a fair portrait of us - and certainly not "fat ugly losers."

-Lenny

kajo163 · Post by **kajo163** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 1:01 pm

3-7?

What are these people thinking, shrinking the rate of customers will not sell more sets, that should stand perfectley clear at the end of the year...
Any way, we've known for a long time that Lego was Juniorizing things and I guess this is the result of that.

As for weapons, I do'nt mind if they are realistic but maybe the kids between 3 and 7 do (or probably more accurate, their parents) so OK, that's fair.

I actually like the scimitars, they go very good together with the DM's

Let's hope for better things in the future, and that LEGO will hire an AFOL!

-JOEL

TwoTonic Knight · Post by **TwoTonic Knight** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:23 pm

Daimyo wrote:That article was positively awful. It portrayed the AFOL world as fat, ugly losers. But it captured LEGO's supremely annoying marketing strategy.

Fat and ugly? It wasn't complimentary but it said:

Lego fanaticism on the Internet ranges from the nerdy to the bizarre, with unofficial fan sites like www.lugnet.com featuring movies like "Lego Chainsaw Massacre" and "Spiderman" and a Lego Bible with a gruesome circumcision scene from the Old Testament.

Summing up the internet Lego fans in those terms is moronic on the author's part. All the creativity and that's what he fixates on? Pretty incompetent. But no fat and ugly.

JPinoy · Post by **JPinoy** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:39 pm

Leave it to non-AFOLs to call us nerdy (because) of our hobby. I suppose he hasn't seen Bryce's military stuff, or those of mines? Nor has he seen Rob Carney's Castles?

Glencaer · Post by **Glencaer** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:56 pm

JPinoy wrote:Leave it to non-AFOLs to call us nerdy (because) of our hobby. I suppose he hasn't seen Bryce's military stuff, or those of mines? Nor has he seen Rob Carney's Castles?

Actually, the author was at BrickFest.

I don't see "from the geeky to bizarre" as such a lambast. Many AFOLs are geeky, many people in this thread include. And many other AFOLs are bizarre, again, present company included.

-Lenny

LEGOFREAK · Post by **LEGOFREAK** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 4:59 pm

JPinoy wrote:Leave it to non-AFOLs to call us nerdy (because) of our hobby. I suppose he hasn't seen Bryce's military stuff, or those of mines? Nor has he seen Rob Carney's Castles?

Well, speaking as one of the nerdy and bizarre - who gives a rats Megablocks what he thinks anyway?

People are always going to think that if you play with lego - sorry "build" - then you're a geek. They will also think you geeky if you like sci-fi, math, roleplaying games, most video games, or anything outside of what hollywood considers cool.

so [megablocks] them and the horse they rode in on anyway.

for now - lets get back to building.

nerdy and bizarre legofreak

TwoTonic Knight · Post by **TwoTonic Knight** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:23 pm

LEGOFREAK wrote: Well, speaking as one of the nerdy and bizarre - who gives a rats Megablocks what he thinks anyway?

So why draw attention to the article in no one cares what he thinks, then (or more accurately, tries to represent the hobby as)? He meant those as perjorative and demeaning terms, and he selected some rather non-typical stuff as examples to represent all the hobby. It was mean-spirited or just plain stupid.

As to some here defining themselves as geeky, nerdy, or bizarre, that's their own problem to deal with.

JPinoy · Post by **JPinoy** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:41 pm

I agree with TTK's assesment here. Whats the author's hobby? Collecting "adult material"?

Personally... I'd rather be a Lego geek than a pervert.

kajo163 · Post by **kajo163** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:58 pm

Come on, guys!
It's fun to be nerdy and bizzare:D: