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Lego Rewind Ep.24- Girl themes
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- Опубліковано 31 гру 2018
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I have 3 cousins. A 9 year old, a 3 year old and a 2 year old (all girls) and they love LEGO. The younger ones like the mini figs no matter what they are and the 9 year old didn’t like making houses so instead she used my (boy centred mostly, a lot of superheroes) collection to make a cool ruff fortress with turrets and a castle like front door but it also had a bed, chest of treasure and slide.
Anyone can create no matter if they are young or old, boy or girl
Happy new year 🥳
Agree
Jesse Russell No duh LEGO is for everyone, and Happy New Year as well.
well I can kinda agree. My little sister liked mars mission a lot. But I think that Girls do tend to play differently with toys than boys...
That sounds like the most metal fortress ever
That’s how you LEGO
Paradisa could totally come back as a vaporwave-esque line.
Seriously, every set comes shipped with a copy of Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus.
Oh, and a lego Lamborghini Countach. Hell yeah.
I need a Lego Tony Montana
Now it comes to us to push others and/or buy the bricks to make this into a LEGO Ideas proposal.
Complete with any and every innovation and invention(of LEGO methods and pieces) made this far, though.
@@typehere6689there WAS a "Yuppie" in one of the minifig collectables blind bags, which they tried SO HARD to not make look like a Miami Vice Drug Dealer, you could probably use the body to make a Tony Montana fig.
This series should be in a LEGO museum
Definitely
Just like Team Fabulous 2
It belongs in a museum!
Nick, go out and get a few of the Elves sets. They are really fun builds, and there are a few sets still in stores. My kids really enjoy them, and since there hasn’t been a castle line in some this is pretty much all there is right now that is in the ball park of a castle/fantasy line. Also, if you aren’t a fan of the Elves figures, the hair pieces/elf ears fit in the classic LEGO min fig. As a castle fan, I have used the sets to add to my Forestmen layout and village layout. The elves line has been a win/win for me and my kids.
I actually like the mini-dolls. I like how expressive they are and, like you said, they have good character designs. I just wish they were more pose-able (although I kind of wish that of minifigs as well, to be honest). Some combination of the two would be ideal for me.
Also, as long as I can remember, I’ve always disliked the “pink isle” not because it was girly, but because the toys of that isle tended to be of comparatively lower quality (as in construction, usability, versatility, and just general interest factor). My little sister didn’t have many toys of her own growing up as a result. I’ve always resented that fact.
It’s funny, though. We’ve often joked about that, since she doesn’t remember being bored but doesn’t remember having anything to play with either, and I think I just realized why:
We played together with my “boy” toys.
Get some technic mini figs.
Does also question that maybe kids play with their imagination more like that. Interesting. Cool story
The thing I find with friends and similar themes is that I do kinda like the idea of LEGO themes that focus on socializing and friendship. One of the things I have noticed about a lot of LEGO themes is that they do tend to focus on combat. Even themes that didn't originally focus on combat, like how life on Mars became Mars mission or how racers became world racers. In this respect themes like friends offer something different for kids. I just wish these themes weren't gendered, with combat focused themes being aimed at boys and social focused themes being aimed at girls.
Oh, I'm sick of the constant combat too.
Just Me But can't girls like combat stuff too?
Joshua Fogg
They can, it's just a matter of tendencies, preferences, and likelihood.
Shnarfbird I thought that was obvious.
Just Me Lego City merges the 2
Hasbro has been making female transformers figures and theyre selling as well as the other figures. Itll probably be fine if lego aims their sets at both boys and girls
As a Transformers fan since the days of G1, I can tell you we've been wanting more female figures since '84.
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer As someone with zero knowledge of Transformers, do they reproduce sexually? I mean, the toys obviously are originally for kids, but you know, do they have parents and stuff? Implied procreation? Because than there really _should_ be a bunch of female giant robots.
Also, how apart from voice do they differ? Please don't tell me the girls are just pink...
No. There's a few ways of creating them, but most are just built. And there's absoloutely no way of telling males and females apart. A few have siblings, but that's more of a 40k style "Battle-Brothers" thing, or ones made in similar batches. Some continuities have genders, but Cybertronians always borrow the idea from another species (Nebulans and Humans mostly) and are never created, birthed, forged or constructed with gender.
bought by balding 40 y/o.
I dunno, I don't think it made sense that Lego just made a completely different toy style for the girl Lego. I've known girls growing up who liked Bionicle and regular Lego sets and afaik *never* owned Clickits or Beville. Weird.
The put the cart before the horse.
@@NickonPlanetRipple agreed
The "girl" sets were not made for girls who played with Bionicles and regular Lego sets. They are for girls who *didn't.* They are "gateway" toys for girls who usually only played with dolls who wouldn't get Lego sets otherwise. Its actually a pretty smart marketing move. It expands their overall market.
@@wyatttyson7737 true but I never knew them.
Daimos Z yeah, LEGO is universal
Honestly love your critique on how gender-biased toy companies were (and are, some of them) to help elaborate the contexts surrounding the early year sets themselves being, in a way, dumpy. Also goddamn I honestly just learned that with the Elves line Lego made decent dragon designs in-house, in recent years, with great color compositions to boot. Feels a bit cheated man.
Need more dragons! Just dragons and castles overall
@@Emppu_T. Idk if it is just me, but I kinda want realistic, brick built dinosaurs from Lego. I mean, kinda like the brick built t Rex we got from the Jurassic Park/World line, but more scientifically accurate and diverse.
And maybe make them minifig scale (that's too much, but that's just me dreaming, not realisticlly expecting)
One thing I’ve picked up on growing up is that what themes you like is also kind of dependent on what your parents tell you is acceptable. As a female, I personally have never had an issue with buying the so-called boys themes. My dad introduced me to his old stuff when I was three (the golden impressionable age), and it was full of classic space, castle, and town. And this is what I grew up with, and with minimal new LEGO coming into my house for 3 years after that, when I got into buying LEGO off store shelves, I had no issue crossing into the “boy’s” aisle. It may also help that this would’ve been around 2009, where no girls themes were on shelves. I got city sets, and later Harry Potter sets, and for me, it was a decent distribution of male to female figs, showing some push for equality on the other side of the aisle, as it were. Another thing I’ve noticed is that all the LEGO aisle markers that say “LEGO Here” with the minifigs and stuff, the background is yellow, which if I’m not mistaken, is fairly gender neutral, showing more a push for both genders playing with the same toys.
This might sound a little pretentious, but just the fade from yellow to pink in the opening is a bit of commentary on my part on the corruption of lego from something benign and universal to something aggressively specific. And all their marketting worked! There are SOOOO many stories of boys or girls wanting to try out something from the "other side" only for their parents to get insecure, pull it out of their hands, switch it with something more "appropriate" and go "Play with this instead." Those parents have problems and they foist that baggage onto their kids, perpetuating the cycle.
@@NickonPlanetRipple It's their fucking kids
@@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster Yes they are. And it's unfair for parents to force their childish insecurities upon said kids, passing on that baggage for another generation. It might sound silly, but that can fuck a kid up in some ways.
@@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster plus it develops the dumb idea that boys and girls are 100% different and that they can't like the stuff the other do like there's a division between them
@@granmastersword I don't care
I'm a hardcore LEGO fan. I'm male (and very comfortable with my masculinity) and have always loved LEGO's castle, ninja, western, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, "fight/battle-oriented" themes. However, I love the minidolls; they're freaking adorable! I only wish that their hands could rotate like the minifigures'. The Elves line is particularly awesome, but the Friends line is also pretty good.
My #1 issue with all of these "girl themes" are the dolls. Many of them insist on using the standard LEGO System of Play, but completely ignore the iconic Minifigure in favor of something that attempts to be more realistic and they just fall in the uncanny valley. With stuff like BIONICLE and HERO Factory redesigning the characters makes sense because their the main build, with stuff like DUPLO and Fabuland the new characters look weird but it's to prevent chocking hazards. Using dolls just makes the toy seem like any other line of Barbie or Bratz while using MiniDolls creates an unnecessary divide between boy and girl sets.
Paradisa was how to do a girl theme right, yeah it's got lots of pink but it fits in with all of your Town and Castle and Ninjago sets stylistically. Friends and Elves are also pretty close, my only gripe is (again) none of the Mini-Dolls are available as standard minifigs so many of it's characters can't be brought over to the main City.
Sweet Mayhem is the first MiniDoll I've very looked at and actually thought it looked cool. Maybe because the roboticness of her design reminds me of the Devestators or Battle Droids. She doesn't have to be "human" and so doesn't need to fit in with my Blacktron and Vampires and Samurai X's. She looks like her own thing because she *is* her own thing, and not some forced divide.
I like the Elves well enough because... well, they look like anime characters. Kind of what Exo-Force was going for.
I think elves almost works for similar reasons though because those are actually not human, so placing them next to minifigs and seeing different proportions still sort of makes sense. The one exception is the human Emily in the theme.
@@huemanatee1452 I can agree to that, plus it's in its own realm so you wouldn't even *have* to mix it with the regular figs.
This reminds me of my mother, she told me about when Lego Technic was first introduced the TV-Ads said "For boys age 8 and up" (I'm not sure about the age part)
She wrote a letter to Lego about how she didn't like that wording because she also wanted to play with Lego Technic,
And they actually changed the voice over in the ad!
I like these themes since they make rare colours of bricks more available. I haven't seen Turquoise pieces since early bionicle sets had them.
This aged well.
The thing that people don't understand, you included, is that 'normal Lego' and so on is actually fairly genderless. Girls often like the same stuff as boys, and don't need it to be specifically marketed for them. "Girls Themes" are specifically marketed to Girls *not already buy 'boys' sets,* not the girls already buying 'boy' themes.
I have a sister a few years younger than I am, so my toys and hers crossed over occasionally. She always preferred girlier things like the older My Little Pony and Polly Pocket, but she also liked to build with my 'boy' Legos. I played video games like Halo, and she played with me.
You don't need to market Legos specifically to girls who already like Legos. Let me say that again. You. Don't. Need. To. Market. Legos. To. Girls. Who. Like. Legos. This applies to all toys, all entertainment.
Also, "soy boy" doesn't mean a guy who likes girl things. A Soy Boy is someone who acts like a lap dog, a pet, not in control over his own free will. Just someone who does whatever someone else, (usually a woman) tells him to. Its like "pussy whipped" but to an extreme.
Wyatt Tyson 👍
I totally agree with everything you said. When me and my sister were young we both loved LEGO. We built a massive hotel, a theme park (it was really bad) and we built a space ship. When Friends came out my sister loved it and I loved other LEGO, but we would always build things together. Recently my sister got back into LEGO. We love building modular buildings. We even build Mocs for are city. I think girls should be able to like the same stuff we do.
Ps. I love your books.
Thank you. I'll be releasing Volume 4 in a few months.
i was in a store one day and a little boy wanted to buy one of the colorful "girl" sets and his om said "no thats not for boys." That really irks me. Its just bricks, its not going to turn him gay (and if he is so what?) Just gotta let kids be kids. And it does feel like what is holding lego up from just branding it as toys (no gender needed) is the old dinosaurs that are still at the top controlling everything. Hopefully in 20 years things will get better and we will see some real change.
I'm glad my mom was one of these parents that let me like what I like (not all parents force their boys into being super boyish and their girls super girly !). I remember when i was a little boy I was in a store with my mom and told her I wanted a pink magical wand with a big star at the end with lights and sound effects because I thought it looked pretty, and she was completely okay with it ! Admittedly, it's the only "girl toy" I remember having, but it still feels good in retrospect to know I could have had more if I wanted to.
That's why when I was younger I loved Pokemon because it brought both genders together.
My Mom was kind of like that... though she was okay with my watching My Little Pony when I was 5 or 4.
Aslong as the kid isnt getting barbies id say hes good lol
At some point tho you gotta be like "okay okay youre a boy, boys dont buy that" if ur boy starts wanting birl clothes barbies and lipstick you got a problem lol
@@normanbestboi9117 what problem though? other than stigma you know western men used to wear makeup right?
youre wrong about young justice tho, it wasent cuz "more girls was watching it then boys" it was simply cuz they dident sell enugth toys to make a profit, why the executive said "to many girls was watching it" is a good question
I assume the executives said that due to assuming the toys weren't selling because the marketing was with boys in mind, so the girls watching weren't interested. Which is obviously an idiotic judgment, they probably just saw that the show had a lot of people tuning in and watching, but merch wasn't selling at all so they came up with an excuse.
Yeah, if I didn't communicate it clearly enough in the video, I do think it's a bullshit excuse.
Isn't that also one of the supposed reasons the original Teen Titans was canceled?
@@spectre.shadows Streaming is the future!
@@polaris_draws pritty mutch but nobody really knows why it got cancelled, some say the executives dident like the sixth sesons story and other resson was low on rateings
Last time I was at the lego store, I bought a Belle minidoll keychain for my girlfriend because she likes Beauty and the Beast (as do I). Before I purchased it with my own money, my mom insisted I put it back because she knew I was getting it for her. Even though her assumption was correct, I was shocked by how she wouldn't let me get what I wanted with my own money even though it was for someone else. Eventually she gave up and I bought the keychain, but it still felt weird seeing my mom and my brothers being weirded out by it. I wouldn't mind buying "girly" lego for myself, but even when I buy it for a girl, I get judged.
Joshua Nelson Okay, I admit that that's odd.
It's like buying tampons for your female friend. It's not me who's gonna use them. Get the heads out of the gutter.
@@Emppu_T. That’s not even close to a comparison
I never even knew until seeing this video Paradisa was a girl focused theme. I only got back into Lego about seven years ago and have been slowly learning what happened in the intervening years. All the images I saw for Paradisa I just thought it was a vacation paradise theme that branched from LEGOLAND.
Honestly this was a really good episode! I liked it and appreciate the honesty. And I find it cool that lego’s female oriented brands has been started to be moved to the regular LEGO isle.
Nice video! Just got back from my local target and saw they got some of the new lego movie 2 sets in, saw the party bus and just HAD to have it. As I was picking it up from the shelf, some couple(presumably picking out a gift) gave me a weird look like "are you getting a girls toy?". Gave em' a smirk like "idgaf", and was on my way lol
Good man.
Don't worry about the funny looks when picking up an Elves set, Nick. I shamelessly bought a couple of them because the pieces and builds are fantastic. Actually ... the shock value the cashier experiences from a grad student buying "girl Lego" makes for a funny story for later :P
Gold Brick Productions AFOLs unite!
Great episode. Not only do you cover the set themes and history well, but more so that the point you are making is so very important and goes way beyond the initial subject matter.
I think Lego Friends is more appealing than regular City sets. I love the use of colours and sets based on things you do growing up. I’d honestly buy so many if it wasn’t “for girls”.
I feel like the mini-dolls really worked for Elves because of the fantasy esthetic and the Friends line has introduced many new elements to the main LEGO themes
This is now one of my favorite LEGO Rewinds. Amazing job Nick!
If your LEGO knowledge is lacking, just ask Nick. He'll tell you everything you need to know.
You have a really soothing voice.
what a great way to start 2019
I want them to bring back older themes like Paradisa and Classic Space and everything so today's spoiled youth can experience the sets we had.
Paradisa is a mood.
@@Emppu_T. Maybe have a Friends wave set on a resort island for their summer vacation_
I want them back so I can spoil myself with sets I missed the first time around.
@@waderoberts3701 And do today's generation can enjoy these older themes.
These dragons are honestly badass. The only thing I'd like to change are the eyes, from "basically human" to "at least has a slit pupil", but that's mostly because these eyes just look wrong in general on a dragon. At least to me.
One of my cousins got the "evil dragon" for Christmas. I got to see it in person, and... yeah, I get they're trying to make it look mean with the tattoos and spikes, but it can't help looking cute.
@Tesla-Effect Yes!
I remember growing up and following the conventional boy and girl stereotype thing. Belleville was the bane of my 7 year-old existence. However, as I got older and talked to more girls over the years, the more I see just how stupid this whole boy/girl split thing is. Maybe I'm biased here since I was huge into MLP for a few years, but I find the concept of boy toys and girl toys to be outdated. I've seen plenty of little girls whenever I do go out to my local mall who like stuff that would have been considered for "boys only" when I was a kid. That's not to say I'd go out and buy stuff like Friends or Elves, but LEGO still has some ways to go before it breaks that archaic barrier. The LEGO Movie 2 seems to want to do that, and I'm pretty excited for it.
Happy New Year, Nick. Let's hope your 2019 ends up being a good year.
What's really screwy is the range of "girl toys" is very small and specific, while boys get... basically everything else. Things that are just "normal." We get all these possibilities, all these opportunities to explore, and then tell girls "No, that's not for you. Go to the kitchen and practice your sammich making."
@@NickonPlanetRipple Yeah, the implications of that are... questionable to say the least.
To help illustrate this point, I have two drastically different stories from two drasticly different eras. I went to elementary school in the 90s/early 2000s, during the release and subsequent height of Gen 1 Pokemon/the utter craze that was Pokemon when it first came stateside. I have a pretty clear memory from back then of a girl sneaking off to a computer alone in a corner during indoor recess to look up stuff about pokemon and hope that no kid would see her looking at pokemon stuff because back then pokemon was very much marketed as a "for boys" thing. She didn't notice that I saw her looking at a screen full of pokemon, but I did. I remember it because it was kind of...sad...to me. I would have loved to talk to her about pokemon, but I was afraid she'd get upset if she knew that I knew she liked pokemon, since she was trying so hard not to let other kids see that...so I just kind of left her alone.
Flash forward to my adult life, back before Covid. I walk into a target to get some random stuff and like I always do, I go to look at the magic: the gathering cards....and two little girls come up to the trading card isle and totally geek out over pokemon cards in the open, in public for all to see. I couldn't help but smile over this, because not only was it adorable, but it was basically a sign that "man, things really have changed since I was a kid..."
TBF, even back then, age was a massive factor. Once I got into middle school, most of the girls I knew where a lot more open about liking traditionally "boy" marketed stuff. One of my good friends in middle school was very out there and open about the fact she loved anime, horror stuff, and Dungeons & Dragons, which unlike now was very geared toward men and boys back then since this was during the days of 3.5e D&D, where you had things like the Book of Vile Darkness, scantily clad art abound etc.... Likewise, there was a bunch of other girls I knew who where very open with the fact they loved anime, which when I was little was very much marketed to boys. Granted, anime was never really a "boys only" thing in Japan, nor was it intended to be, but the American dubbing companies marketed it that way for sure back then....I even recall a few animes that where made more "for girls" in Japan, such as Inyuasha, getting marketed as "for boys" in the west...
Ever since I was a kid I would at first build what I was "instructed" to build.
Then it was starship, or sci-fi plane or vehicle time.
The bionical pieces really gave my ships that extra alien look.
Some of which are still in my mind when I draw my sentients ships for my sci-fi.
When I was young, one of my parents insisted I follow the instructions at least once instead of doing whatever upon acquiring a set.
No longer the case, mercifully.
I never saw a problem with Friends. When my sister was younger me and her would both play with her sets, but instead of regular tea parties she would make one of her turtles a spy and have him and a bunch of other animals and figures into partners and have them go on adventures fighting against evil scientists and stuff in a big storyline that was almost always continued every time we played with them. I always thought the Friends sets were neat
I really think Lego should do more Subthemes. They do a lot of Fantasy-Stuff, so why not just make, I dont know, one big heroic castle, one dark scary castle and one elegant frilly castle, set in one big fantasy setting. I personally don't likethe Doll-Figueres, but I could see them work together, as elves are often described as being taller than humans.
Me and my sister play with Lego usually we play dc super hero’s but we trade off sets with each other between the super hero girls line and the dc super heroes line and we really don’t care how different they look. If we are haveing fun, we are haveing fun and that’s what Lego should be like because if the consumers keep buying it because they are haveing fun then we’ll I don’t see the problem.
Dude these are like some of the most pleasant videos to watch on UA-cam, I LOVE the early 2000s aesthetic everywhere
Thank you, I tried to craft a nostalgic vibe.
Even with the block heads, Elves has the best non-constraction creature builds in all of LEGO. Though some Creator stuff comes close. Ninjago dragons are okay the first few times, but they’re just too... big and dumb for their own good. And they’re not characters or even creatures, they’re some astral projections that arbitrarily change every year so they can sell a new toy. A Ninjago having a dragon means as much as a Ninjago having a jet or a drill tank.
Those pictures of the Elves dragons on the beach rocks are awesome.
I agree. I only own one elves set (Zonya, the fire dragon) and she makes my top 3 sets, if not the top set I own. She’s expressive, she’s posable, she’s cute, she’s detailed, she doesn’t take up a large amount of space, she’s displayable, and she’s fun to just swoop through the air from time to time. The only downside is that the dragons are very, VERY expensive, but I found a good alternative set: Creator’s Park Animals set. As far as I can tell, the dog in that set is the same as the water dragon.
My friend (a girl) was playing with basic bricks at kindergarten. Later she even moved to Power Miners. But when I visited Local shop with lego, the saleswoman told me that lego DC heroes girls wasn't selling at all. I thought "that obvious, i dont know any girl that likes superheroes". But i know girls that likes bricks. Maybe girl superheroes wasn't a good idea, Because we already have boy superheroes themes, and Lego Elfes was a good idea, because we didn't saw any themes similar? So even boys buys that stuff. And I swear, Elfes dragons are the best brick - built dragons I saw. If only they were chipper...
Well, it might not be that they don't like those characters. Batgirl, Supergirl, they're pretty popular. But those sets are just... kinda weird.
The Superhero Girls sets were unneccessary. Regular Marvel/DC sets are pretty gender-neutral.
@Tesla-Effect it was cancelled?!
Why they were the best "girl" theme ever
@Tesla-Effect yeah
@Tesla-Effect Wait, Elves is OVER? Aw man, the range of Lego's original IPs continues to shrink all the time.
Those Paradisa sets look amazing, I definitely looked at their page in the catalog and wanted them, the box background makes it look so good.
I never had any Paradisa sets, but I always enjoyed looking at the pictures in the catalogues and thinking it'd be a cool place to hang out.
My sister loves Lego Star Wars and friends, it’s funny because when we asked for the same set for Christmas it started an argument😅
Man... I miss people getting me legos for christmas. Being an adult sucks
@@RAFMnBgaming would love to buy a millennium falcon. But i have bills to pay.
Your awesome! Go buy those Elves sets if you want cause they are going up in price as they get discontinued! At first i thought the Elves animals were dumb. But then i got a lot of them and they are so awesome. My favorite are the villians, the color mix and athetics of them are just so awesome and dark and cute.
To be fair, how much do you truly enjoy something if someone can just say, "This isn't for you" and get you to stop. If someone really likes something, they don't need to be told that something is for them.
If you ignore things like power dynamics, yeah. We're mostly talking about kids. How many stories have we heard of a boy or girl wanting to try out something from the "other lane," their mom or dad gets super insecure, puts it back on the shelf and buys them something "appropriate." It happens all the time. Kids want approval, they want to fit in.
@@NickonPlanetRipple I was thinking more of the 12-14 year old sort of age group where make their own choices with stuff like that. And I've never seen a parent take a toy out of their kids hand and tell them to get something more "appropriate", but I think that's due to parents being soft more than anything else.
@@The_Big_Jay Well... just cause you haven't seen it in person doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And we don't see what happens in their home life, the kinds of conversations they have in private. My point with this video is how these companies try to "get 'em hooked while they're young."
@@NickonPlanetRipple That is a good point. Anyway, great video once again. I agree that Lego needs more relaxing themes and less gendered marketing. I just think the mini dolls or whatever they were called are weird.
The Scala commercial at the end sounds like a whole family of Justin McElroys stuck in Amelie mode.
Hope you keep up the good work Nick, this was another great episode, with a very interesting commentary. You've got me real excited for the Lego Movie 2 now, and I might just buy those sets. I do hope that this video doesn't require a response though, like the last one. The response video was good, I'm just hoping for a comments section that doesn't require it.
@Tesla-Effect Man... I like it fine but that one joke...
It's terrible..
@Tesla-Effect I can't wait to see the minifigs' reaction when they realize the Sistar aliens were created by the same God that destroyed their world with the Duplo monsters years before. That's going to be hilarious.
Happy new year Nick
I personally stop bothering with the thought of target audiences since I was a Brony myself.... Dat ending thou...
MLP:FIM and the Brony community that came out of it was beautiful. I consider it to be the tipping point for me, as I became much less subject to stereotypical gendered marketing afterwards. When me and my friends, 5 teenage boys, walk into McDonalds to order a bunch of Happy meals to get all six ponies, the reactions of the staff was priceless. Especially with how particular we were about the ones we wanted. Good times. I would remind us all about the public reaction to the whole thing by the popular media. People were weirded out, and called us "manchilds" and whatnot. I think this ties to the subject of the video nicely.
@@Mick0Mania Another positive thing The Brony Fandom did was basically made Bonnie Zacherle's Original Vision of MLP being enjoyed by both boys and girls a reality. She want it to be gender neutral but Hasbro only wanted to make it if it was aimed at girls only, so Bonnie just went with it.
Those dragons are ADORABLE
I'm glad that boundrey for what is boyish or girly has faded besides toy marketing for it i don't remember the last time I heard a child say the word girly.
“Woah-man”
8:04 You know, that bit reminds me of something I've noticed about boys' toys marketing and girls' toys marketing in general, far beyond LEGO.
I don't make presumptions about what boys and girls fantasize about, on average, but what advertising and toy makers seem to consistently presume about them is that boys fantasize about solving problems, while girls fantasize about there not being any problems.
Boys' toys/shows tend to be about different worlds that are either SciFi, Fantasy, or both, and often are either set in the future, set in the past, or set in an alternate realm that could be either, but definitely doesn't look exactly like ours, and villains are everywhere because they let you fantasize about being the heroes who go out to stop them. So obviously a lot of LEGO themes reflect that, but even if we look at the relatively peaceful LEGO town/city themes, their focus is on cops, firefighters, search-and-rescue workers, and construction workers--people who work tough jobs that all reflect that the world is imperfect. In boys' LEGO City, men fall into the river and need a helicopter to rescue them. In girls' Paradisa and Heartlake City, such bad things do not happen, just as they don't happen in Barbie's world. Okay, that might not be accurate to the Barbie or LEGO Friends SHOWS, as stories naturally need conflict, but the elevator pitch of these toys' commercials is that their world is already great, so just kick back and relax.
I’m a 20 year old boy, and i absolutely LOVED belville growing up!! It was probaly a combo of the Big tower pieces (which means you could make huge castles), and the interesting fantasy elements. There was fairies, witches, mermaids, and even sets based on traditional european fairytales. I absolutely loved the fabric skirts combined with the bricks, and that because there was less parts, it was ment to be built around easily. Each sets advised you to take the model apart and build 3 different structures which were detailed in the instructions. I have no words for how much i love belville, and even though i realize it’s not as popular because of the whole «dumbed down female theme»-thingy, people also need to understand the fact that simply the figures were bigger made it more appealing to more poeple. I couden’t stand how small and un-poseable the lego figures were when i was small, which is why i loved belville. I loved to build and create, but not for the regular lego figs.
I am already looking forward to space police to hear your take on it's very concerning world, where all the cops are humans and all the criminals were exclusively aliens... and the space police was heavily militarised, the amount of weapons on some of these vehicles is just ridiculous
Oh, don't worry.
@Tesla-Effect it's definitely easy to interpret it as a totalitarian oppressive human-supremacist police state, which would turn the alien "criminals" into something closer to freedom fighters, saving other aliens from internment and trying to cripple the government by stealing funds and sabotage... that actually sounds pretty cool, even though that clearly wasn't lego's intention
@Tesla-Effect You mean Life on Mars.
I want those dragons! They look fantastic :D
hEY nICk YOuR a BoY YOu CAn't MaKe AN epIsODe On GiRl THeMEs
I can't even handle those kind of people
Also happy new year!
EDIT: I just thought about this, but what if the sequel will have the kid's younger sister playing with the enemy LEGO dolls?
I've never actually met those people
@@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster Hmph
Subscribed because your Lego Rewind series. I love the old Lego sets and I used to have some Paradisa ones, and by the way I never thought it was a girl's set, just like a vacation isle of some sort and I mixed it with regular sets as well. I don't have any lego Friends or Elves line but some do look amazing because the colors and pieces. I am still not a fan of the mini-doll though and I didn't know the Lego Movie 2 will feature them. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and making we remember those old sets in your series. I am looking forward to more. And Happy New Year.
Nick, you have such an insighful view into what, was ,what is, what could be and what will be. You see Lego in a light that helps people like me understand the Toy industry and how that reflects on Lego and their products. Keep up the good work!
Loved this video Nick it sends a great message keep it up
Despite being a guy, I liked the female sets too. Because they had more kitchen utensils, dinnerware, food, and even valuables. I remember trading with my sister to get all that lego money since a city set would provide maybe a max of 3 lego dollars
Now that you mention LEGO Elves, I would love to see some kind of Tolkien-esc fantasy subtheme. Something more mystical than Castle, but more grounded than Elves. Not to mention aspects that can be enjoyed by both genders while appealing to the folks who like the atmosphere of Bionicle, the storyline of Ninjago, and the worldbuilding of Chima!
Wouldn't that be something?
Its really cool that you can put yourself in the shoes of the opposite side~
I completely agree with you btw! Im not really a fan of legos but I can see the appeal with how my dad and brothers used it growing up. But for those who WANT to be able to play with them, they shouldnt be discouraged from doing so. I dont even see how legos can be gendered at all, honestly. They seem like one of the most gender-neutral toys, and you can make ANYTHING out of them. Marketing tactics are awful and by design manipulative, and we should strive to create things that appeal to both genders if you ask me. We can still have some boy/girl marketed toys, and lets face it, there always will be. But the more that the market for the middle expands, the less toxic the outer edges of it would become. ^.^
I disagree with the bit in the middle about how girls like all the same things. It's true that some girls do, but the majority of them don't, at least not for the same reasons. Girls do like superheroes, but more for the social interactions than the fights, which is part of why Marvel movies became so popular with women, thanks to the first widespread crossover between characters. I think that's also why Lego Friends has been so much more successful than Scala, because it emphasizes social interaction rather than fashion. It has a better understanding of why girls like playing with dolls rather than chalking it up to shallow materialism. They don't say, "here, girls, have one doll that comes with a few clothes and zero friends." Now they have characters with personalities and hobbies and most importantly, other characters to interact with in the same set, or at least some animals. The idea that minidolls are fundamentally worse than minifigs comes off as a fundamentally male-oriented bias.
And if it matters, my sisters are way more into Lego Friends or Disney than they ever were into my ordinary Lego sets. Even the tomboy sister eventually abandoned Bionicle as she got older.
Not gonna lie... Elves is one of my favorite themes. The castle-esc buildings! The detail on the Elves! THE DRAGONS!!
I always felt weird for Unikitty being my favorite lego movie character as a child, I just related a lot with her
Don’t judge me but I actually like friends cuz of the builds are actually pretty good if not great sometimes some you can use for cities
I freaking loved the Paradisa sets when I was a kid (I'm a guy). I had the big restaurant ( I loved the little car build), the beach with the changing rooms, and the horse trailer and truck one. I miss those sets so much. When I was a kid it never even occurred to me that those were "for girls" I just thought it was a different and cool color palette.
13:00
You heard it here-
Don't be ashamed to play with your banana
The elves theme was really interesting. The dragons looked good. I only have a poly bag from the theme.
Sadly, it didn't have regular minifigures so I didn't buy a set from the line
I love Elves! I am going to end my collection with the Starlight Inn and Dragon Sanctuary! I love the Crystals, the Dragons, the colorful Hair. I love that the Minidolls look like Anime Characters, but I understand that people prefer Minifigs.
Thank you for this UA-cam Series
Thanks for the sega music pumping my ears I immediately got a smile on my face
Without a doubt this is my favorite episode of your channel. I've been a playing with Lego since I was a child in the 1960s and have never let go of them. My nephews may have gotten my vintage Star Wars and Battlestar Galactic toys raiding my storage in my parents attic when I was away for a few years but the Lego traveled with me. Through 3 relationships over the course of over 25 years I helped raise nine girls (none with my DNA but my kids none the less). I played Lego with all of them at all ages from toddlers to teenagers. I don't recall ever having bought one 'pink' set. Not that I wouldn't have if one of them had asked for it but we watched cartoons together and build cars and trucks and spaceships and robots and castles and a giant (19" tall) penguin. Together we created, "Bionicles, the Lost Tribe" building characters who each had their own backstory. Three of my girls had Toa standing guard beside their beds each night. They all also had Barbie dolls and bead kits for making jewelry but when where it came to Lego no one noted any distinction between boy's toys or girl's toys.
Bionicle is one of those themes that seems to resonate with girls about as strongly as it does with boys. Transformers seems to be a similar deal. Let's just admit it, they're all dolls. Thanks for sharing your story, it always brings me a smile to see how "real" this whole thing is and that it isn't just me.
@@NickonPlanetRipple Funny you should bring up Transformers because those are the only toys other than Lego that I collect.
I actually managed to get a small collection of Elves and Nexo Knights pieces at a garage sale, and I don’t regret it on bit. Now I’m actually tempted to get a girly set at Walmart. I also really love The Lego Movie 2.
Wow, I'm 42 and grew up with 80's Lego and never heard of those older girly-themed runs. At any rate I have a 5-year-old daughter and her Lego collection consists of Ninjago (one of her/our favorite franchises to date), Jurassic World, DC, Marvel, Unikitty, and the only Friends sets we got were ones that came with horses cause she's crazy about horses. Oh and the Research Institute and now she wants to see IRL dinosaur bones. We haven't gotten any Elves yet but it's on our radar. Well I'm glad she was born when she was in time for the new movie and the new direction Lego is going/hopefully staying in. I'm stoked about the new movie sets coming up and the ungendered impression they will leave on the current generation. What a time to be alive.
agree so much about lego Elves! Love them
In few moments you sounded SO dramatic. I love it!
Another excellent episode from my favorite show on UA-cam. Also excited for the next book.
I never understood the girl thymes. Because if girls wanted Legos, wouldn't they just buy the normal ones? My sister actually hates girl Legos, because they don't have enough Legos.
Exactly. If they want dolls, they'll get them from other brands, but they'll go to Lego for the same reason anyone does. They either want it or they don't.
Marketing executives making misguided assumptions. "Girls LOVE barbie, we need to do the same thing"
@@BrainSeepsOut It's just a thing that happens a lot in any industry. When something becomes a hit, everyone's first instinct is to jump on the bandwagon and make their own clone of it, following trends instead of setting them.
Is that the sound of a backfire I hear in Denmark? Smoke rising from LEGO headquarters?
Ha Ha! I can smell the burning plastic from here!
If the lego movie 2 taught me anything is that you should play with all of their lego brands. So they can make more money. They even added duplo, a line for babys in those sets
It's 2021, and while so much as happened since this episode aired, it still stands the test of time.
I'll have to admit, while we did have Paradisia and BELVILLE sets and me having no problem with them, I then grew up to avoid Elves, Friends and others... But now that I've give them a chance, I just can't part with them anymore. The Friends sets pack so much more playability than other LEGO sets, and the builds are so much more elegant and involved than the city ones these days
Love this series, and you having written comic books on your own is a real inspiration. I don't really do anything related to lego normally, but I was a Bionicle MOCist from like 2014/2015 to like one and a half years ago. My last four MOCs are also still intact.
This series is called rewind before the rewind.
10:22 well you got your wish this time. 75936 the T-Rex Rampage is entirely brick built but is larger than the minifig scale molded version.
Say what you say, i don't want a classic space theme with mini dolls
And yes, if kids want to buy friends or elves, is fine by me, i'm no one to judge people on what to buy. But don't let be like a revisionism, a radical movement to appeal too much to girls, like a "rivisited" rock raiders with mini dolls, or a similar iconic theme like that (like movies like pirates of the caribbeans, Ghostbusters, Ocean franchise that saw or will see how much all female cast worked out).
And i'm worried about balance, i'm worried about brain washing of kids that "they must be not like the past", if a kid of the future will like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Stallone action adventure like themes, let it be, if wants more story driven like Ninjago yes sure, and if wants more different colours or mini dolls/figures why not! But the fact is: keep themes honest to themselves, an action theme without minifig but mini dolls like jack stone went terribly wrong, for example.
And i'm sorry to break to you, but since Lego is very durable and fine quality and so costly, a kid will play with his/her father/mother Legos before his/her parents will buy something new, so is yes about social norms but also about upbringing and traditions, and those last things are what makes or breaks a culture.
And in the newer lego friends commercials you can sometimes see boys playing with them
Every episode gets deeper and deeper into its topic
I'm not much of a fan of the mini dolls "so much less articulated then the minifigs" but i do like the generally expanded color pallet the friends and elves lines utilize.
The reason Young Justice was cancelled after the second season has nothing to do with girls liking it. It has been very clearly stated that is was due to poor sales from the toy line overall. Unfortunately, even the "girl's" toys didn't sell well.
I loved getting belville sets as a kid, but I always was a a bit of a tomboy and used the fairy figures as warriors and posed them with swords and other accessories from other kits. I always loved how pose-able they were compared to the standard mini figs, which were tiny in comparison! Lego belville figs had 13 points of articulation where as Minifigs had 5, and not to mention all of the food and accessories were in perfect scale when used with belville figs, I always found it weird how food items were sometimes the size of a figures head! For me growing up it was an obvious choice which to play with. But anyway, I wish the concept of belville figs would come back in some way or another, they're just so versatile and shockingly fun to play with! :D
While I do like the idea of both boys and girls having equal standing with sets I’m kinda glad friends and mini dolls exist cause on the sets we get more of the “girly” colors that are mostly absent in a lot of sets and personally I really love how the mini dolls look, especially in the elves line cause of the kinda anime look to the faces (and also the touhou thing you mentioned lol) it’s a nice change from how minifigs look imo
I remember the rumors last years Obiwans starfighter would have kaminoan minidoll, it would been awsome
Very well made video Nick! I was originally disagreeing with some of your points but your arguments were so good I was convinced by them! Great video as always!
no matter the video, nick will always find a way to roast the modern dino design
I love how even though i'm subbed to you I only get notifications AFTER I watched your video.
Also this video i don't even care about..
These themes make fun riffing material, in any case.
@@NickonPlanetRipple Yeah they're cringy
I grew up with friends sets alongside a whole bunch of normal lego and lego minifigs. The mini dolls and minifigs coexisted in my own world and i really didn’t care about them not looking the same. The interchangeability of the hairs and hats made it much more fun and I loved playing with the stuff combined, so it’s not too bad and didn’t virtue signal that I, a girl, couldn’t play with regular lego.
Tbh I even to this day think the friends mini dolls look really nice and their aesthetic is quirky and fun like the sets.
The minidolls have some AMAAAAAAAAZING hair pieces. When I realized you could fit them on normal minifig heads, I flipped out.
So the original Lego Scala bracelets are back, this time under the theming of "lego dots"
I never really cared for Belville or Scala or Clickits, they were not really that appealing to me, especially since there were no minifigures. On the other hand they had PLENTY of great pieces in rare colors which at the very least made them interesting to look at.
I really liked the Elves theme. I have the Water Dragon and Treehouse sets.
I love buying LEGO friends sets. The colours and pieces help round-out my collection of MOC materials. The I'm still not a fan of mini dolls but I can overlook that still.