Subject:
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Re: Sept/Oct LEGO Magazine
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Sep 2002 15:08:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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1170 times
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Bryan Kinkel writes:
> I'm 32, but I remember how I felt when I was a kid. I wrote many, many
> letters to Susan Williams in the late 70's and 80's. No matter what my
> question or request was (1), I _always_ got a polite, respectful letter and
> catalog back from Susan. Of course, I always thought Susan was a real
> person. And I was thrilled whenever I received an envelope with the big red
> Lego logo on it. The big Lego Company cared about me. • <snip>
> I still have everyone of the letters from Susan Williams. Those letters
> helped make me a life long customer. (2)
At 30 now, I have the same memories of being thrilled seeing the Lego logo
on letterhead sent to me. I still get a thrill whenever I come across those
letters (which I also have stashed away somewhere). Getting the kind of
responses we got as children not only made us feel good, it not only made us
loyal customers, but it also taught us how to treat others. As we grew and
learned from that sort of experience we could offer better "customer
service" in our own relations.
...Back to the thread, let me start by saying I haven't subscribed for the
club magazine in a few years, so all I know here is the original quotes in
this thread. That said though, I would also agree with Jake that adults
cannot fully know what the next generation is like, as each is different.
But as the Sue Williams anecdotes from Bryan & myself suggest, the adult
community can guide the differences in the younger generations.
Regarding the issue of the possibly rude answers to questions sent to the
magazine, I think this problem is not exclusive to the Lego club mag, nor is
it exclusive to material targeted for children. I have read a number of
magazines over the past year that seem to have an increasing amount of this
kind of "humor". Some of these include those targeted for an older audience
(Maxim is one title that comes to mind, although some classier news
periodicals also do it now). Only the more serious scientific magazines
seem to stay clear of this new trend. There seems to be a growing
acceptance amongst the editors of these magazines to allow for this
snappy-sarcastic humor during surveys, humor columns, and reviews. I
suspect this trend started on the internet, where chat rooms and newsrooms
make it easy for this sort of humor to abound. It spread to magazines, and
now to children's periodicals where writers and editors think it is trendy
and are willing to sacrifice decent journalism (for any age group) for the
sake of making their magazine "cool".
Humor itself is an indication of intelligence (in fact an article in a
Discover magazine recently discussed this), and the healthier and more
developed a persons brain is, then the more sophisticated a joke must be to
be found funny. As has been said, many children are smarter than we think,
and these sarcastic remarks for answers might be viewed as immature even by
today's youth. And if adults can influence children's development (as
suggested above), why not give them more mature jokes and serious answers?
Of course, I haven't done research on this; I'm just offering some
possibilities to ponder.
My 2 bricks,
-Hendo
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Sept/Oct LEGO Magazine
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| Jake, I think it is disappointing and a bit sad that Lego would reply to letters from children in such a manner. In your post you mentioned this - (...) ask (...) You are correct - children are extremely intelligent. (I'm often stunned at what my (...) (22 years ago, 20-Sep-02, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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