Adult fan of Lego

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When Adult Fan of Lego , shortly AFOL (English for "adult Lego fan"), grown men are referred for the first time or after years or decades of abstention (Dark Ages) Lego gained as a hobby or their enjoyment of Lego since childhood have never filed.

Origin of the term

The term Adult Fan of Lego was first used by Jeff Thompson in the USENET discussion group rec.toys.lego in June 1995. The next day, in the same discussion, Matthew Verdier coined the acronym "AFOL". The term quickly gained a foothold in the community and is now used as a general term in the community.

Recently, two alternative terms have also been used:

ALE
“Adult Lego Enthusiast”, where the fan aspect has been toned down a bit.
AFOLB
"Adult Fan of Lego Bricks", which emphasizes that the enthusiasm is more for the Lego bricks than the company.

Collect and build

Extensive collection in the Lego room.

There are two forms of adult Lego fans: “ Collecting ” and “Building”. Most fans belong to both groups with different weightings. Pure collectors exist, but are very rare. “Lego builders” concentrate largely on designing and building their own Lego creations ( MOC = My Own Creation) instead of just building commercially available Lego sets. These own Lego creations are presented on numerous private websites or on the pages of the Lego community (see below) as well as at exhibitions. Since the Lego bricks required for your own creations are often not available separately from the LEGO Group, a widespread network of unofficial Lego shops has developed on the Internet under the name Bricklink.com , which sell individual Lego elements or sets (including historical ones) separately .

Sorting and storing the stones takes a lot of time and space, depending on the size and type of sorting of the collection. Stones are stored by fans in different ways in cupboard, drawer and box systems, assortment boxes, etc., sometimes also in ziplock bags or in original boxes. It is sorted, for example, by type of building block, by color or by kit.

Community

The first online community of adult Lego fans formed around the USENET discussion group alt.toys.lego, commonly abbreviated as ATL, which was founded in 1993, probably around February 19th. Almost a year later, on January 10, 1994, it was replaced by the rec.toys.lego (RTL) group.

Today there is a lively community around a number of websites, with LUGNET.com on the international level, Eurobricks.com on the European level and 1000steine.de on the German level as the largest general portals. There are also a number of other topic portals, marketplaces and galleries on the Internet.

Highlights in the life of the community are actions and exhibitions such as BrickFest (USA), 1000steine-Land (until 2010, Germany), Lego-Fanwelt (since 2008, Germany), Bricking Bavaria (Germany) or LegoWorld (Holland), where fans can meet meet and show the public their self-made models.

LEGO User Group (LUG)

These are clubs that are registered as such with the Lego Group. There is a (limited) mutual exchange of information through an ambassador, who has to meet certain requirements on the part of the Lego Group.

Web links

the latter pages offer further links