Subject:
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Re: The AFOL mind
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sun, 4 Apr 2004 02:33:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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752 times
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In lugnet.general, Felix Greco wrote:
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I’ve found a conversation seems to come up a lot in reference to AFOLs. Are
we a bunch of dorks? Is what we do just nerdy? I have had this conversation
with AFOLs and nonAFOLs alike.
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Funny you should mention that...I had a conversaton sorta like that at our post
LUG dinner a couple of weeks ago.
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I think I’m a cool guy. I can relate to other guys- I workout, play
guitar, scratch my head about female behavior, I work hard. Yet, the people
I interact with in these other areas have said they just “don’t get” what I
do with lego. They appreciate that I enjoy it, and usually get a laugh out of
the stuff I make. These are the same people who kept telling me “Hey, they
did a room in legos on While You Were Out!”- Yah, I KNOW... Jeeesh. But, I
digress.
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I have that same situation, except I don’t work out, play guitar and work
hard:). What’s been funny to me is that this is another phase to my
‘geekness’...I’ve been up until recently, a computer geek, a Star Trek geek
(Classic, thank you very much!), a gadget geek, and a science geek. Now I’m a
LEGO geek...another feather in my geek cap:)
And I had the hardest time with my parents with this..they really didn’t
understand what I was doing, until they asked me about the LEGO convention in DC
last year and I replied that I was there. From that, I’ve earned a certain
amount of respect.
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My wife was over at Toys-r-Us and told me she saw a bunch of kids trading
Yu-Gi-Oh cards. She said they fit every stereotype of a dork you could
imagine. Knowing I was once one of those kids, she started asking me
questions; Does the interest in those things make those kids that way? Or
are those kids already that way, so they’re attracted to those things? You
know- the old chicken or the egg question. I think the same arguments were
had about violence in cartoons.
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I think that’s a bunch of different factors that play in different ways. I was a
comic book collector (yeah, a comic geek) and I was pretty much interested in
the stories first, then the art, then it became a want to get everything...which
is the perfect collector’s mentality. Card games have different things that make
kids want to collect them, like making the perfect killer deck (yep I was a game
geek. For a really short time:))
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I don’t know what to think of it. It makes me happy, and thats all that
matters. But I do ponder it. I think Eric Sophie put it best when we were
driving down to Texas for the SciBrick Houston gala. He was sitting there
thinking for a while and then he asked “Hey, do you think they’ll take us
seriously down there? Or do you think they’ll just pass us off?” It became a
legitimate concern for us because we were showing our stuff to a lot of VIP
AFOLs and we were representing SciBrick for the first time. In the end, they
seemed delighted with us and our display.
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I used to ponder it, but for me, this is another form of exploration and
expression. Some people draw and sculpt and perform. I build. And what’s neat
for me is that all the skills that I have learned and used has helped me in one
way or another, so my building has become to a certain extent, the sum of all my
parts.
And the exploration happens in more than a few ways...exploring a form, looking
into functionality, even trying to understand the hows and whys to the Sea
Monkeys:)!
As for the Houston event, I wasn’t too concerned about us being taken
seriously. They extended an invite, and that was a statement to me. And having
our items get one of the higher prices and be the object of a price war on the
silent auction was an endorsement to me.
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I think this argument is the basis of a lot of the motivation around here. I
recognize it every time someone at lugnet says something like “Why doesn’t
TLC take us more seriously?”. I recognize it when we get together for
meetings and listen to stories about nonAFOLs and their reactions. I
recognized it when news crews were out at Brickfest and we all cheered when
we hit CNN.
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I think that one of the most exciting things happening now is seeing the
community growing and achieving to a point where we ARE being recognized. It’s
certainly a dynamic and fun time to be here!
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I have no point to make or anything. I have a lot of opinions, certainly.
I’m very interested to hear what you all have to say about this.
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Lord, Felix, you trying to be the philosopher here:)?
Joe,
.Space paparazzi!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The AFOL mind
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| (...) Funny you should mention that. My parents completely ignore my lego life. If I'm talking to them on the phone I'll bring up work, my wife, and ultimatly my latest lego endeavor. They always seem ackwardly silent at that point. But, to me, all (...) (21 years ago, 7-Apr-04, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | The AFOL mind
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| I've found a conversation seems to come up a lot in reference to AFOLs. Are we a bunch of dorks? Is what we do just nerdy? I have had this conversation with AFOLs and nonAFOLs alike. I think I'm a cool guy. I can relate to other guys- I workout, (...) (21 years ago, 3-Apr-04, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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