LEGO

About

LEGO is an interlocking plastic brick construction toy brand that can be used to assemble a variety of objects.

History

The Lego Group founder Ole Kirk Christiansen began making wooden toys in 1932, two years before launching the Lego toy company. In the late 1940s, Lego began producing plastic interlocking bricks called "automatic binding bricks." Since then, the company has sold a variety of different building sets, including themes for cities, space, pirates, animals, the ocean and several different time periods. Robotics sets have also been released, with the first line titled "Mindstorms" sold in 1998.

Online History

In 1996, the website Lego.com^[19] was launched, which provides product descriptions, games, videos and an online store. On July 10th, 2000, the website Brickset^[21] was created, serving as an online database for LEGO collectors. On February 11th, 2006, the Lego Wiki^[20] was launched, which accumulated over 24,900 pages in the first eight years. On December 9th, 2007, the official LEGO Facebook^[22] page was created, garnering upwards of 5.19 million likes in the next six years. On March 23rd, 2008, the /r/LEGO^[24] subreddit was launched, which received over 45,100 subscribers in the first five years. On September 21st, 2008, Redditor noname99 submitted photographs of a giant LEGO battleship (shown below) to the /r/pics^[23] subreddit, where it gained over 1,700 up votes and 170 comments prior to being archived.

On May 27th, 2010, YouTuber horseattack uploaded a video of a printer built out of LEGO parts (shown below, left). In the following four years, the video accumulated more than 4.79 million views and 4,100 comments. On December 21st, 2012, YouTuber danmovproduction uploaded a stop motion parody of the game League of Legends using Lego pieces (shown below, right), which gained upwards of 1.57 million views and 3,200 comments in eight months.

Highlights

Bionicle

Bionicle is a line of toys created by the LEGO Group in December of 2000, which initially launched in Europe before being released in Canada and the United States six months later. A significant following for the sets grew online, with several fan-sites launching for custom creations, fiction and artwork. The franchise was moderately successful and continued on for the next decade before it was halted in summer of 2010 to make way for a new franchise "Hero Factory." Following the discontinuation of production, the story was continued by head writer Greg Farshtey^[1] on a official Bionicle website known as BioncleStory in the form of web series and podcasts.

My Own Creation

A custom LEGO creation is referred to as "My Own Creation" (MOC) and MOC creators are known as "MOCcers." Some MOCcers paint, remold or even create custom parts and masks in order to make better looking sets. The MOC database MOCpages^[4] was launched on February 4th, 2003, where users can share their own custom LEGO sets (shown below).

Brickfilms

Brickfilms are movies made with LEGO bricks that are produced using stop motion animation techniques.

Build With Chrome

On January 28th, 2014, Google launched Build With Chrome^[25], a website where users of Google's web browser can digitally construct scale models of objects and buildings with LEGO bricks.

Created in collaboration with LEGO as part of the Danish toymaker's marketing campaign for the upcoming 3D animated feature film Lego: The Piece of Resistance, Build with Chrome also allows its users to geotag their creations to a real location in the world, share them publicly and browse creations made by others through its integration with Google Plus and Google Maps.

Related Memes

I Hope You Step on a LEGO

"I Hope You Step on a LEGO" is an expression often used as a retort in rage comics and reaction images to express resentment towards someone who deserves punishment or ill-fortune, such as accidentally stepping on a LEGO brick.

Lego Star Wars

On January 8th, 2016, the LEGO Star Wars II-Core Facebook^[26] page was launched, featuring image macros referencing the 2006 action-adventure video game Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. On November 29th, the page highlighted an image macro of a patient receiving an MRI while their doctor plays a Lego Star Wars game (shown below).^[27] Within one week, the post gained over 1,200 reactions and 300 shares.

In early December, several Lego Star Wars memes reached the front page of the /r/me_irl subreddit (shown below).^{[28][29][30][31][32]} On December 5th, Redditor acfman17 asked about the recent "influx of lego star wars memes" in a post on /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[33] receiving upwards of 730 votes (87% upvoted) and 60 comments in less than 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References: