Adult Fans of Lego-a Look at the AFOL Community

This article is by no means an original one; hundreds of articles have been written and published about the immersion of adults into the hobby of creating models with the Lego brand construction toy. However, the adult fans do enjoy positive promotion of the trend and product regardless; quite simply, they never tire of reading about themselves.

It's not surprising that some adult fans have stories of being mocked and treated like children, and their wives or significant others would say it's well deserved. But the vast majority of the Adult Fans of Lego (AFOL) community doesn't really care; they are doing what they love and having fun.

Rather than going home from a long day of thankless work and drinking themselves into a comatose state waiting for the alarm clock to go off the next morning; AFOLs return home, spend time with their families then go straight to work on their latest brick projects.

Lego fans have a wide range of skills from the ability to piece together very detailed and sometimes lifelike models from a plethora of parts in seemingly endless shapes and sizes to photographing them and publishing their work online. Some AFOLs even touch up their photos with photo enhancing software to add special effects or even produce very complex multimedia presentations of their work.

Most AFOLs will never make a penny, nickel, or dime off of their labors; largely only receiving a "good job!" for their many hours of effort. A select few have actually gotten jobs at the Lego Company and gleefully packed up and made the move.

Some have been skilled and influential enough to quit their day jobs and make a comfortable living by showcasing their skill at public and corporate events. Naturally the financially successful AFOLs are a rarity; if everyone could do it the general public would be far more interested in the community overall.

As it stands, the average AFOL is happy with his largely unknown status; the "movers and shakers" of the community are satisfied with their anonymity outside the building block modeler niche. But when a group gets together an event at a public venue to showcase their talents, spectators might driver many miles with their children to see what can be done with a building block toy.

Not surprisingly, many AFOLs will say that it's great stimulus for their ego when adults come by and show shock and awe at the skill it took to build a model, but when one child comes by and squeals in delight, that's when it becomes apparent who really benefits from the AFOL community; seeing adults playing with toys, what more does a child need?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrickFest

http://www.brickfest.com/about.php

http://www.google.com/search?q=afol+articles&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a, random google search for afol articles

http://www.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx, Lego homepage

http://www.baylug.org/ninja/original/Photography.html, photography tutorial

http://www.brickshelf.com/, online database of public Lego models made by fans and children

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/beatles-album-covers-starring-lego-245924.php, enhanced Lego images

http://www.ericharshbarger.org/

http://www.brickartist.com/