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Hi, everybody!
I’m from south of Pittsburgh in Washington County, and I’ve been playing with Legos for about 15 years, give or take. I have yet to build anything that’s all that impressive, but hey, it’s all relative.
I found your website mostly because I am currently writing an essay on the culture of AFOL’s for a college class, but also because I wanted to get to know some fellow Lego fans.
I look forward to making all of your acquaintances!
-Andrew TaylorP.S. For those of you who are interested, I’m conducting interviews to get a better idea of what it means to be an AFOL. Please email me if that’s something you’d like to do.
Welcome, Andrew! Your project has some similarities to Liam’s documentary he’s shooting… what’s your timetable for your interviews / essay? I’m open to an interview, but not sure how my next few weeks will shape up…
I’m hoping to have finished with interviews by the end of March, or early April at the latest. My schedule is very open this particular week, but I understand if that’s too short notice. I can also interview you over email, if that would be more preferable.
Here is a nice easy question to start your interview: “So is it true that AFOL’s are just people who wish that their real life job was more fun and who use their pent-up creative energy to build things out of plastic bricks?”
Here is a nice easy question to start your interview: “So is it true that AFOL’s are just people who wish that their real life and / or job was more fun and who use their pent-up creative energy to build things out of plastic bricks?”
This.
Here’s one for everybody: Is it Legos, LEGOS, or legos? Someone else I interviewed says AFOL’s generally use LEGOS, and that he uses that to tell if someone’s an actual AFOL or not. Then I realized that the questions I had given him all said “Legos”. Oh well.
They are LEGO bricks. There is no plural form of the word that is acceptable by the manufacturer and mostly AFOL’s try to follow this guideline. The LEGO Company is very keen about protecting the brand name.
Incidentally, there are LEGO Ambassadors who are liaisons between AFOL’s and The LEGO Company, often referred to as TLC. There are probably official statements that have been circulated about the use of the LEGO name.
TLG. The LEGO Group. http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group
LEGO is a company, not an item to be pluralized. They make elements, bricks, etc.
TLG. The LEGO Group
I suppose this is where I diverge from convention because TLC sounds nurturing. 🙂
TLG. The LEGO Group. http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group
I found a mistake on an official LEGO page and I am going to write to them. They mispelled the company founder’s name!
http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/the_lego_history
The current owner’s name was spelled incorrectly on his birth certificate, so his initials unfortunately became KKK, but his father and grandfather had the last name Christiansen. The person who did the history page online then magnified the birth certificate mistake, worked backward and wrote the grandfather’s name with a K also. Doh!
I found a mistake on an official LEGO page and I am going to write to them.
Despite what I’ve read and heard before (including Wikipedia) I received this explanation, which I consider a reputable source:
“Thank you for your e-mail.
Actually Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s surname is spelt with a K. The name on the birth certificate is spelled correctly. I is a misunderstanding, that the name should be misspelled on the birth certificate.
In Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s day, however, it was common practice for the surname Kristiansen to be spelled with either Ch or K – and Ole Kirk Kristiansen did indeed use both versions, although mostly the Ch style. When signing legal documents, he used the Kristiansen. In our archives we have several documents with both signatures: Ole Kirk Christiansen and Ole Kirk Kristiansen.
Both Godtfred Kirk Christiansen and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen – like Ole Kirk Kristiansen before them – were baptised Kristiansen, and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen has always used this spelling. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, on the other hand, used the Ch version all his life, except when signing legal documents, and was in fact popularly referred to as GKC. With the amendment of the Danish Act on Names in the 1980s, it became possible to change one’s surname – and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen did exactly that, formally adopting the name Christiansen.
The reason the names Ole Kirk Kristiansen and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen are written with a K is simply that it is how it is spelled in their birth certificates. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, on the other hand, is spelled with Ch because he himself always used that form – and because he officially changed his name to Christiansen in the 1980s.
Kind regards
Tine Froberg Mortensen
Records Manager
LEGO Group Archives, LEGO Idea House”That is interesting history on their names and also really neat that TLG would take the time to answer with such a detailed response. Neat!
I don’t know how many of you frequent the BrickBlogger website, but they featured the ethnography mentioned above. Here’s a link: http://thebrickblogger.com/2014/05/grow-up-and-brick-on-a-lego-ethnography/
Mini-plug for the SCLUG with my profile link, I suppose.
the ethnography mentioned above
Rather long (at least for someone with my attention span) but a fun paper to read … and SteelCityLUG looks pretty good in this light. 🙂
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