How did people react to your Lego interest when you were a teenager?

[SpacePolice89]

When I grew up some of my friends started to lose interest in Lego when we were 11-13 years (maybe 50%) and after age 14 me and another guy were the only ones officially interested in Lego. It happened quite fast and I believe many of those who gave up Lego just did it because of group pressure. I remember a friend telling me in confidence that he still kept his Lego in a box and when he was alone he used to open the box and build but I wasn't allowed to tell anyone because he was worried what his bandmates would think about it if they found out. I was a complete Lego fanatic in high school (I still am a complete Lego fanatic) and never cared about what other people thought about it. My notebooks were full of drawings for MOCs I planned to build and other Lego related drawings. When I was 13-14 there were many bullies and other wannabe gangsters in my school and they caused a lot of problems and they tried to bully me because of my interest in Lego. It was customary for them to beat up the "nerds" in the schoolyard. They said all sorts of very bad things to me because of my Lego interest and a couple of times they even tried to physically assault me but I was playing hockey and used to defend myself against such people in the rink so they didn't dare to attack me again after I fought back, I even bit one of them in the thumb when he tried to choke me so that he started bleeding a lot . They were particularly cruel towards smaller kids with interest in anything they considered nerdy. When I got to senior high school everything changed for the better and the atmosphere was friendly again. During the age of 13-15 some people were very unfriendly but before and  and after that no one said anything bad about my Lego interest. My parents supported my Lego interest 100% and were very glad that I put my money and time on Lego because some of my classmates had already come into contact with alcohol and even drugs in one case. Outside of school I never had any bad experiences regarding people reacting negatively towards me because of my interest in Lego. Even during the worst years in high school most people were very friendly. Several of my teachers liked to talk about Lego and one even knew about Blacktron and his favorite set was 6987 Message Intercept Base. All of my true friends showed genuine interest in my Lego hobby and while they weren't Lego fans themselves they often asked me to power up the train in my Lego city or show them the Black Seas Barracuda even when we were 16-19 years old. Those who showed most interest in Lego are actually my cats. One liked to sleep in a pile of bricks, another liked to walk around in my Lego city but he was always very careful. My current cat likes to chew on builds and steal minifigures so I've had to fence off some of my Lego areas and move some shelves higher.

Do you have similar experiences?

 

A Unitron vehicle I built during my youth (I was about 14, sorry for the bad quality image)

[Alexandrina]

Wow, sounds like some people were horrible to you for liking Lego. Always astounds me the depths of cruelty some people can reach.

I must admit, I had an easier time of things! My interest in Lego even as a kid was primarily in using it as a medium for my films (I had a mini-Dark Age between the ages of 7 and 10 before getting back into it for filming) - and my circle of friends at the time was entirely people who either shared my hobby (my best friend at school did exactly the same thing with Doctor Who action figures) or had adjacent hobbies (I had a lot of friends who were actors or musicians). This meant that I was able to avoid any sort of backlash for enjoying Lego, as it was a medium for my films. The only real impact came in the form of receiving fewer and eventually no gifts of Lego from family at holiday times. Up to about age 13 I'd receive multiple Lego sets for birthday and Christmas, and usually get a small one when my school report came back as a reward for doing well. That number dropped and from the age of 15 onwards I don't think I received any Lego as a gift until last year.

Honestly I think my family assumed my interest in Lego was numbered - especially as I pivoted towards live-action film and pursuing it as a career - but of course when 2020 happened I began to buy up people's collections on Facebook Marketplace for excellent prices and ended up catapulting my interest far beyond what it had been before.

[Peppermint_M]

For myself, there was a lot more than LEGO for others to make fun of. Hah. I was never bothered by peer pressure and fetched more jeers for being a bookworm and unfeminine (aka was not interested in chasing boys). I also have a lot of younger siblings, so my parents were happy to leave me to LEGO as it meant I was bonding well with my much younger brother. (And keeping a hyperactive under ten occupied for hours at a time.)

Exo Force arrived just as I might have moved from LEGO to Gunpla more seriously. So I was kept hooked.

The only time I had any comments in school was when I was 17/18 and in the Sixth form (post 16 education was optional when I was that age) and the sum interaction was "LEGO?" As I watched the revenge of the brick animation on one of the PCs. When I replied "Yeah, it's cool." The response was a moment of thought and "Actually, yeah it is". 

I faced more of an issue with my father when I was an adult (post twenty years old) but once I started travelling to Billund etc, he settled on it as I had friends with respectable careers I was meeting with and also in an era we AFOLs were still something of a puzzler to the company, I met up with TLG Community Engagement once or twice in various events. Those minifig business cards changed his tune right away 

Now it's an accepted part of who I am, a talking point on my CV and instant cool credits with my friend's kids.

[MAB]

I think LEGO is much more acceptable now for teens and adults than it used to be. Now there are specific sets aimed at adults and older teens, whereas in the past the sets were always "kid's toys" even if an AFOL was MOCing. Celebrities with LEGO have probably also helped. David Beckham has said in the past that he built the Taj Mahal and maybe the Disney Castle or something similar. Orlando Bloom has been pictured with a large collection of sets. British "Hard Man" Danny Dyer too ... you can see Buckingham Palace and the edge of Yoda here.

And TV shows like LEGO Masters have shown there is more to LEGO than just kid sets to a mainstream audience.

I think times have changed from even 10 years ago, but definitely from 30 or 40 years ago.

[Yperio_Bricks]

50 minutes ago, MAB said:

David Beckham has said in the past that he built the Taj Mahal and maybe the Disney Castle or something similar.

And Hogwarts!

[Alexandrina]

27 minutes ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

And Hogwarts!

All these mega rich celebrities are so unimaginative buying the biggest currently available Lego sets. If I had Beckham bucks I'd be looking for a copy of 1309, or 6990, or one of the other yesteryear classics I'll never be able to afford!

[Peppermint_M]

It is also helping that LEGO is known for its Mindfulness properties. In the UK we even had an ad campaign highlighting it. 

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

Wow, sounds like some people were horrible to you for liking Lego. Always astounds me the depths of cruelty some people can reach.

They tried to bully everyone that wasn't like them, it wasn't just fans of Lego, Even if you just stood out a little bit from their image of "coolness" you could become targeted but fortunately nothing serious happened and the incidents were few and far between. After I fought back they left me alone.

[DelQuinn]

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

When I grew up some of my friends started to lose interest in Lego when we were 11-13 years (maybe 50%) and after age 14 me and another guy were the only ones officially interested in Lego. It happened quite fast and I believe many of those who gave up Lego just did it because of group pressure. I remember a friend telling me in confidence that he still kept his Lego in a box and when he was alone he used to open the box and build but I wasn't allowed to tell anyone because he was worried what his bandmates would think about it if they found out. I was a complete Lego fanatic in high school (I still am a complete Lego fanatic) and never cared about what other people thought about it. My notebooks were full of drawings for MOCs I planned to build and other Lego related drawings. When I was 13-14 there were many bullies and other wannabe gangsters in my school and they caused a lot of problems and they tried to bully me because of my interest in Lego. It was customary for them to beat up the "nerds" in the schoolyard. They said all sorts of very bad things to me because of my Lego interest and a couple of times they even tried to physically assault me but I was playing hockey and used to defend myself against such people in the rink so they didn't dare to attack me again after I fought back, I even bit one of them in the thumb when he tried to choke me so that he started bleeding a lot . They were particularly cruel towards smaller kids with interest in anything they considered nerdy. When I got to senior high school everything changed for the better and the atmosphere was friendly again. During the age of 13-15 some people were very unfriendly but before and  and after that no one said anything bad about my Lego interest. My parents supported my Lego interest 100% and were very glad that I put my money and time on Lego because some of my classmates had already come into contact with alcohol and even drugs in one case. Outside of school I never had any bad experiences regarding people reacting negatively towards me because of my interest in Lego. Even during the worst years in high school most people were very friendly. Several of my teachers liked to talk about Lego and one even knew about Blacktron and his favorite set was 6987 Message Intercept Base. All of my true friends showed genuine interest in my Lego hobby and while they weren't Lego fans themselves they often asked me to power up the train in my Lego city or show them the Black Seas Barracuda even when we were 16-19 years old. Those who showed most interest in Lego are actually my cats. One liked to sleep in a pile of bricks, another liked to walk around in my Lego city but he was always very careful. My current cat likes to chew on builds and steal minifigures so I've had to fence off some of my Lego areas and move some shelves higher.

Do you have similar experiences?

I've had similar experiences like this growing up. I'm sorry to hear about the more physical issues you dealt with, I never had to deal with that level.

I am in my 40s now, when I was a teenager, Lego was looked down on by anyone over the age or 12 and so I hid the fact that I still built with it.  Admittedly, I was always the quiet, geeky, nerdy kid at school and the attitude around school always made me a bit ashamed I was still into Lego. It was hard to talk to my friends about it that have moved on.  At the time, I foolishly gave 90% of my sets to my brother which I regretted ever since.  (I have been able to recover them from him but the condition of some of it was a bit disappointing, but on a side note i have restored almost the entire collection in recent years)

I was amazed a few years ago then I learned of the whole AFOL community and have fully re-embraced it. Even though that stigma is still sticking to the back of my mind, I am trying to ignore it and have as much fun in the Lego community.

Earlier this year we were at a mall and saw my local LUG have a display set up.  My wife urged me to join and I did shortly after that.  This past weekend I participated in my first show and had a lot of fun interacting with club members as well as the public checking out everyone's work.

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, DelQuinn said:

I've had similar experiences like this growing up. I'm sorry to hear about the more physical issues you dealt with, I never had to deal with that level.

I am in my 40s now, when I was a teenager, Lego was looked down on by anyone over the age or 12 and so I hid the fact that I still built with it.  Admittedly, I was always the quiet, geeky, nerdy kid at school and the attitude around school always made me a bit ashamed I was still into Lego. It was hard to talk to my friends about it that have moved on.  At the time, I foolishly gave 90% of my sets to my brother which I regretted ever since.  (I have been able to recover them from him but the condition of some of it was a bit disappointing, but on a side note i have restored almost the entire collection in recent years)

I was amazed a few years ago then I learned of the whole AFOL community and have fully re-embraced it. Even though that stigma is still sticking to the back of my mind, I am trying to ignore it and have as much fun in the Lego community.

Earlier this year we were at a mall and saw my local LUG have a display set up.  My wife urged me to join and I did shortly after that.  This past weekend I participated in my first show and had a lot of fun interacting with club members as well as the public checking out everyone's work.

Sorry to hear that you had similar experiences. Such people that bully others are morons and should be ignored. I was fortunate to have great friends that supported me and I supported them when they were in trouble. The people that caused all the trouble in my school were like Biff Tannen from Back to the Future and that made some of the incidents almost comical. I really like those Classic Space and Blacktron spaceships in the picture. You should consider participating in Lego Ideas with them.

[Jack Sassy]

I have had a similar experience in the past, though not as extreme as yours.

 

You see, here in modern Latvia, people tend to look at LEGO merely as a childrens' toy and nothing more. Most people move on from it around early teens (like with many other toys). So here be I - a shy teenager who loves all things LEGO (I became interested in LEGO around the said time, in 2005). Clearly, people around me (schoolmates, family, friends) found my hobby weird and often laughed about it, sometimes even shaming me for buying a childrens' toy at such age. Fast forward some 13 or 14 years later - some people still cannot accept my hobby (mostly family) while others are fascinated by it. I meself see LEGO as a potential tool for artistic creations. I have got used to people looking at me strangely on the street with a LEGO set, or perhaps insulting me because of the hobby. I believe it is largely a regional issue - many people in our country still live by old fashioned (in a bad way) values. 

[SpacePolice89]

1 hour ago, Jack Sassy said:

I have had a similar experience in the past, though not as extreme as yours.

 

You see, here in modern Latvia, people tend to look at LEGO merely as a childrens' toy and nothing more. Most people move on from it around early teens (like with many other toys). So here be I - a shy teenager who loves all things LEGO (I became interested in LEGO around the said time, in 2005). Clearly, people around me (schoolmates, family, friends) found my hobby weird and often laughed about it, sometimes even shaming me for buying a childrens' toy at such age. Fast forward some 13 or 14 years later - some people still cannot accept my hobby (mostly family) while others are fascinated by it. I meself see LEGO as a potential tool for artistic creations. I have got used to people looking at me strangely on the street with a LEGO set, or perhaps insulting me because of the hobby. I believe it is largely a regional issue - many people in our country still live by old fashioned (in a bad way) values. 

Sorry to hear about your experiences. For me the negative stuff came from the group in my school that I mentioned. In general people didn't have anything negative to say in my area. I live in the Swedish part of coastal Finland, actually not that far from Latvia. Some people thought it was a bit weird but most accepted it except the bullies in my school because they liked to target anyone that was a little bit different. If I take the morning ferry from Helsingfors, I'll be in Riga in the late afternoon. I have visited your country several times and most recently during the hockey world championships. I stayed at the same hotel as the Latvian hockey team and I watched a couple of games. Team Latvia was amazing and I'm so happy that you got a medal. If people give you a hard time about your Lego hobby you can tell them that several NHL players are also Lego fans. Danish NHL goalie Frederik Andersen even had a Lego themed helmet when he played for the Anaheim Ducks.

  

Edited November 6, 2023 by SpacePolice89

[1963maniac]

I have been loving LEGO for sixty years, not only that, I am a woman. Believe me when I started this hobby Lego was a boys toy! I was considered by everyone to just be nuts!! I loved Lego before minifigures before Technic, before GBC even  There was a time when I was no longer a kid and had no kids of my own ( my reasons for playing with Legos) So then started my so-called dark age of not enough Lego. Then, I had my kids and a new excuse to play/build with Lego. Nowadays when I tell older girls that I make building instructions for fun, they just look at me and say "REALLY???" I don't even care to find out what that means. I just keep doing my habit (I mean hobby).

[MAB]

4 hours ago, 1963maniac said:

Believe me when I started this hobby Lego was a boys toy!

That's interesting.  I'm a little younger than you and in the mid to late 70s there was LEGO aimed at girls (or boys and girls) such as the Homemaker range. And quite a few adverts back then had girls in them. But they seemed to lose it again going through the 80s and 90s, increasing the gender divide and splitting off the Scala/Belville for girls and 'proper LEGO' for boys.

[Feuer Zug]

The group I was with mostly still embraced LEGO through our teens. We'd still build MOC spaceships and the like. Yes, we were the nerdy computer geeks that ran the lab and played all sorts of "questionable" games over the LAN. Nobody cared enough to tell us we were uncool for playing with LEGO. We got enough of that for other reasons.

[DelQuinn]

22 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Sorry to hear that you had similar experiences. Such people that bully others are morons and should be ignored. I was fortunate to have great friends that supported me and I supported them when they were in trouble. The people that caused all the trouble in my school were like Biff Tannen from Back to the Future and that made some of the incidents almost comical. I really like those Classic Space and Blacktron spaceships in the picture. You should consider participating in Lego Ideas with them.

Thanks :) I have done some stuff on Lego Ideas before.  I digitized the Blacktron ship and the grey with green canopy for a Ideas contest years ago.  I might be fun to send them in as product ideas and see how they do.  I should take some more pictures on the ships before I digitize them and disassemble them soon.

https://ideas.lego.com/s/ca:62d8b2574bff49e0b06a8d762de58e91

https://ideas.lego.com/s/ca:48d18cd46ce843bcbe621f19c70b6ef2

I used the digital files to recreate those two ships.  I'm glad that I did, I think the Blacktron one was the most popular of mine at the show.

(I am also working on a few other ideas for sending into Lego Ideas, its hard to find time to work on them lol)

[Jack Sassy]

22 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Team Latvia was amazing and I'm so happy that you got a medal.

Aye, everyone cheered as if we got a golden medal instead of a bronze one. 

22 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

If people give you a hard time about your Lego hobby you can tell them that several NHL players are also Lego fans. Danish NHL goalie Frederik Andersen even had a Lego themed helmet when he played for the Anaheim Ducks.

I didn't know that, the helm certainly looks amazing. 

[Toastie]

16 hours ago, 1963maniac said:

I have been loving LEGO for sixty years, not only that, I am a woman. Believe me when I started this hobby Lego was a boys toy! I was considered by everyone to just be nuts!! I loved Lego before minifigures before Technic, before GBC even  There was a time when I was no longer a kid and had no kids of my own ( my reasons for playing with Legos) So then started my so-called dark age of not enough Lego. Then, I had my kids and a new excuse to play/build with Lego. Nowadays when I tell older girls that I make building instructions for fun, they just look at me and say "REALLY???" I don't even care to find out what that means. I just keep doing my habit (I mean hobby).

Hey, that is - almost my story! OK, not in love since 60 years, but 58 - and I am a man. And yes, it was a boy's toy, for sure. So I was not considered nuts ... everything else is the same, though. Our kids (OK, now grown-up women) never made it into LEGO (I tried, but then sooner than later realized that this "trying" is a very elegant way of acquiring LEGOssss >for me< without much of a notice in the accounting department - in the beginning that is. Soon enough, I was busted . Nowadays, when I tell kids, teenagers, university students, grown-ups - regardless of gender - that I do play with LEGO, I happily go with your approach.

Best,
Thorsten

[ForgedInLego]

Luckily, my experience has been much more kind than many others. Yeah, people thought it was a little weird as a teen, but my friends were supportive even if they weren't interested in Lego and it helped me bond with my younger brothers. I think building Lego MOCs eventually inspired me to become an engineer and since I started working a couple months ago at an aerospace company so no one can really criticize me about it. Several other people even decorate their desks with Lego stuff in the office!