What motivates your love of Lego?

wonkytrolley

I'm curious...I often contemplate the reasons why I love Lego so much. I'm not embarrassed by it at all and most of my friends know of my obsession, however, given Lego is fundamentally a child's toy, I question why I (as a 39 year old) get such a kick from it. So I just wondered what you guys put it down to...nostalgia, the tactile satisfaction of building, creative expression?

So I'm not asking what you enjoy collecting/building, but rather what motivates you?

For me I think it's a sense of nostalgia and regression, the overall mystique of the brand and I really feel that the best sets are simply 3D works of art.

ryjay

For me it was just sharing in the interest that my kids had for lego.   I never played with them as a kid

kiki180703

For me, it's the fun of building and the niceness of the finished model. Also, Lego sausages ;)

tallblocktoo

Nothing to do with nostalgia for me despite having used some Lego.  For me its the enjoyment of building something.  Certainly agree that some of the sets are works of art and get some wonderment at how the designer put the pieces together to create the final look.  I prefer my Lego sausage free.

xwingpilot

As a kid I loved LEGO and loved Star Wars to the extent that I wrote to TLG asking if they would make Star Wars sets! Of course I was well into my dark age before they did.

Fast-forward 30 years, and after a trip to LEGOLAND with my daughter where we looked around the LEGO Star Wars exhibition and my wife encouraged me to buy a souvenir from the shop, I'm hooked.

So it's partly nostalgia for me - which is why I only collect OT sets, but I also love all the recent advances in LEGO parts and building techniques.

For me 2015 was the perfect time to come out of my dark age - there aren't actually many retired sets I would have wanted. For one I'm glad that TLG is redesigning some of the earlier OT UCS sets. I already have the X-wing and can't wait for the Snowspeeder.

I don't intend to buy more sets than I have room to display, so cost isn't so much of an issue. As a kid I couldn't have dreamed that TLG would be making these sets and I would be able to have any that I wanted...

dougts

Nostalgia is certainly a big factor.  The other is just kind of the satisfaction and enjoyment of building something and seeing it in finished form, whether that be a MOC or a set.  Sometimes after a hard day or week of work, or other external stresses, just sitting down and building helps me clear all the noise out of my head and just relax.

gratefulnat

I got back into LEGO in 2002 when my son turned 3.
I had met a woman at that time whose son was 8 and had numerous SW sets, and I was fascinated with the builds and figures being a long time SW fan. So I started buying sets for my son and putting them aside for when he became a little older.

Well, one night I became bored and decided to gently open a few sets and build them, wanting to repackage again when finished, and that was it - I was hooked!

When 10030 came out I knew I had to have it, and started checking out older sets I had missed. The collecting craze commenced...

13 years later and my love for LEGO has only grown - it's fun, interesting, versatile - my motivation is clearly the amount of satisfaction I get when building, playing, collecting, sorting, and reading about these little plastic bricks.

It has become quite a passion in my life!

Bumblepants

Unlike R2 units, when it comes to Lego, there are no bad motivators.

Natebw

Nostalgia, bonding with my kids, creativity, escapism, infinite re-usability, relatively cheap. 

wonkytrolley

xwingpilot said:

As a kid I loved LEGO and loved Star Wars to the extent that I wrote to TLG asking if they would make Star Wars sets! Of course I was well into my dark age before they did.

Fast-forward 30 years, and after a trip to LEGOLAND with my daughter where we looked around the LEGO Star Wars exhibition and my wife encouraged me to buy a souvenir from the shop, I'm hooked.

So it's partly nostalgia for me - which is why I only collect OT sets, but I also love all the recent advances in LEGO parts and building techniques.

For me 2015 was the perfect time to come out of my dark age - there aren't actually many retired sets I would have wanted. For one I'm glad that TLG is redesigning some of the earlier OT UCS sets. I already have the X-wing and can't wait for the Snowspeeder.

I don't intend to buy more sets than I have room to display, so cost isn't so much of an issue. As a kid I couldn't have dreamed that TLG would be making these sets and I would be able to have any that I wanted...

That is the great thing about loving it as an adult...within reason you can just get it when you want...although space is a whole other issue!

Bludchylde1

Don't really have a motivation. Never grew out of Lego, in high school I kept one of the police bikes on the shelf in my locker. Now that I have 3 kids I don't spend near as much as I used to but I still buy sets when I can spare the money.

JetWing34

My motivation of building Legos came from my 14-year-old friend who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, same disorder I personally have.

Walking into his bedroom hoarded with Lego elements in the summer of 2015, mostly Bionicle and Chima sets, I found the idea of building Legos as a very difficult hobby because of all the search for the sets. When I completed a creation used with random plates and bricks, he told me that with your very own imagination, as well as your own hand-eye coordination, you are more than welcome to build Legos.

When I got home from visiting my friend, I asked my Facebook friends if building Legos would be a great hobby for an adult. Let me tell you, 99.9% of my friends agree. On the following week, I entered the Lego Shop trying to start off with a cheap and small set. When I bought my first set, so did my legendary fortune of building Legos as a hobby.

To this day, heading into 2016, I will never forget what my friend did to motivate me into building Legos.

Altair

I must say my passion for Lego is not purely for Lego (although I truly love to build with bricks), but linked with my passion for two themes specifically: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. In order to recreate the scenes of the SW-OT (I don't like the prequels) and LOTR movies, I bought almost all main related sets. I really thought I would stop there... until I saw SW-VII last week, which unexpectedly blew my mind! Here we go again...

Oldfan

I grew up with Lego bricks, especially Classic Space sets.  My first sets pre-dated the minifigure design we all know and love today.  My dark ages lasted until 1999 and the launch of the Star Wars licensed sets.  Until that point I was a SW action figure collector; once Lego came back into my life, the love of the action figure slowly faded away (I still have all my old SWAF stuff, though).

While I have more than a mild collector obsession with the various themes, once I actually get to build with the brick, I'm able to focus on the process and put all the day's stresses out of my mind.  Completing a build (especially a big one) brings a nice feeling of accomplishment.  That kind of therapeutic action is the main reason I still love building with Lego, and the OCD-collection-ism should ensure that I will always have a new set or 20 from which to build...

BrickDancer

Same as @Oldfan it started for me as a stress release from work and let's me free my mind from ruminating on problems too much. It evolved from there to feed various physical urges like my tactile (building), OCD (completing collections), creativity (mosaics), artistic (displays and frames). It's a great medium for expression as an adult.

On the nostalgia side of it, LEGO has been the perfect vehicle as it was a big part of my childhood. Being reunited with it after a couple decades was a revelation of sorts. Star Wars drew me in like a tractor beam while Superhero figs keep me hungry for more. Combined with other licensed lines like LotR/Hobbit, TLR, Cars, PotC, etc. ties it all into my passion for pop culture. Its a good embodiment of my childhood and the 80's growing up. Now all we need is some Transformers and GI Joe themes.

catwrangler

I never grew out of it, but as I got older I started to realise how much I love both the aesthetics of certain toys and their tactile qualities, and that's a big part of my appreciation of Lego now. I like having a few minifigures nearby to handle and fiddle with. 

I think that overall, a big part of its appeal is that of all miniature worlds: order, systemisation, control - difficult to achieve in our complex real world. :) But there's also the pleasant chaos of a big box of mixed Lego bits, and the enjoyment of letting the parts you have determine what you build. Yet you can also creatively rebuild even a tiny set in so many ways. The collectability of it doesn't hurt either - I love hunting for things, and the number of sets produced means that there's always something else to hanker after. 

I like how it dovetails with my other interests - one of the happiest weekends I can remember spending involved visiting two real castles and then going home and watching one medieval-set movie after another while building some Castle sets. :)

SumoLego

I probably have the same motivations as the 'Man Upstairs'.  And the hobby also satisfies my need to possess 'all' of something.

Besides, Hallmark ornaments are childish or for old ladies.

wonkytrolley

Some really great and varied reasons why we love Lego. Who'd have thought little plastic bricks could provide us all with such enrichment...quite remarkable really. I often think many more adults would also enjoy the pleasure were they to get past the child's toy perception and see it for more than just that...as we do. I procrastinated for probably a year before buying my first set. Once I decided it was OK and I didn't care what people thought about it, the floodgates were opened!

SumoLego

I have them proudly displayed at my office.  

No need to feel shame for something that is shameless!

JetWing34

^ Thank the inventor of Lego himself, Ole Kirk Christiansen. He may have been a carpenter as a job, but his master mind of the founding of Lego in the town of Billund will leave a lasting legacy.

tallblocktoo

@SumoLego Thats awesome!  I have brought sets in to where I work.  No great place to set up and display them for anything length of time.  Certainly some people have enjoyed them.  

SumoLego

I posted pics of my office already in this forum.  

I represent a lot kids, so they are often confused as to why some bearded guy in a suit has shelves full of Lego.  It helps build trust.

Although none of them have a clue as to what the Ecto-1 or DeLorean Time Machine are...

(I should also probably note that the minifigures don't argue with me, either.  And they don't complain about my ideas or urban planning suggestions.)

OrmskirkBricks

I purchased 7110 Landspeeder for my desk at work, back in 1999...then the joys of the quality of Lego were revived! But I helped my son with his Lego collection, until recently when I purchased the 9493 X-Wing, then I started buy the SW minifigs, then some vehicles, then the 10240 X-Wing, then...then...then... you all know how it goes!

chrisalddin

for me it is the fun of the Build and the look of the finished model.
the Half built location play set's do not do anything for me. Ship's, airplanes, Spaceships, Car's, models that can be view from all sides them i nice to have.

it hard to explain.
i also think it may have some thing to do with my hording that i can not stop my self from doing. if i think it can be useful i will keep it.