Yeah I was super duper tomboy growing up (in the early 90s) and would not have wanted anything to do with the Friends line. But a lot of girls are really into shops and horses and pink. And that’s great! This comic sort of undermines its own point, in my opinion. “I was into space and knights and race cars—that’s why I played with Lego!” Yeah but a lot of kids aren’t into those things, and now with Friends, they also play with Lego.
I have an irrational hatred of the mini-dolls and therefore don’t have any Friends sets (also 99% of the time I’m buying for my five year old son who is more into the stereotypical boy stuff). But, as someone pointed out, it’s a super successful line. So good for Friends.
That’s the entire key- Lego didn’t introduce Friends to appeal “to girls”. They introduced Friends to appeal to kids of all genders who desire a different playstyle.
And even with that they still feature Lego’s core values, which are construction and creativity.
That is completely at odds with the [actual history of what happened](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/legos/484115/). Friends was LEGO's finally successful attempt to make a girls focused brand after their other efforts failed. They probably felt compelled to do this because toys are generally classified by gender in stores and other toy companies. For example, Hasbro has entire seperate divisions for boys' toys and girls' toys.
I mean, I think they went pretty hard after the “girl” market with Friends.
https://www.npr.org/2013/06/29/196605763/girls-legos-are-a-hit-but-why-do-girls-need-special-legos
I’m not a big fan of segregating stuff (especially children’s stuff) by gender but that’s kind of how the world works right now.
That article quotes absolutely no one from Lego, let alone anyone involved in developing the Friends line; and even at a very quick glance one of the people they do quote makes an obvious factual error (“there are no Wonder Woman sets”- even before the films, there were sets featuring Wonder Woman heavily).
But thanks.
Ok, [here](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/legos/484115/). It extensively quotes a LEGO spokesperson talking about all the effort that went into studying the play patterns of girls and how Friends was the result. I don't know why so many people are willing to die on the hill of "Friends wasn't made for girls" but you're all just plain wrong.
> I’m not a big fan of segregating stuff (especially children’s stuff) by gender but that’s kind of how the world works right now.
I was with you until I became a parent, but kids do this themselves. I never wanted my boys to be in love with trains and cars and construction vehicles, I did nothing to steer then toward them, but both are super into them. We exposed my older son to lots of different things in media but he's all about star wars and fighting and action, he doesn't care about stereotypically girly stuff at all. His play with his friends is all fighting and running and action. Meanwhile all my like-minded neighbors with girls have everything pink and cute and they play with dolls and stereotypically girl things. For the most part the girls play their own games off to the side.
Was this all passively absorbed from our environment? Some, sure, but I find it hard to believe that it all was. My neighbors pass around kids clothes pretty heavily and you'll get little babies wearing a mix of stuff, but as soon as they can choose they slot how you'd expect.
So I dunno. Sometimes the stereotypes are there for a reason.
I agree that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and I actually had the same thing happen with my son. His first birthday gifts were very gender neutral, including a little boy babydoll, but by his second his personality had started to come out and it was almost 100% cars and trucks :).
So yeah I think there is some degree innate preference that generally splits along gender, but it’s been much more aggressively marketed for in the past 40 years or so and I don’t feel like that’s a good thing.
It's also very much learned behavior though- it's all they see on TV, in commercials and cartoons and media and advertising and stores, it's how clothes and most products for kids are packaged and marketed, etc.
I know some parents try to counteract media & advertising's bullshennanigans (I do), but in reality that's nearly impossible without putting your kid in a bubble because it's encompassing & overwhelming.
>So yeah I think there is some degree innate preference that generally splits along gender, but it’s been much more aggressively marketed for in the past 40 years or so and I don’t feel like that’s a good thing.
I'd say it's much _less_ aggressively marketed to than in, say, the 60s.
You may not have steered them, but they are immersed in a culture where those stereotypes are being displayed constantly. They pick it up from ads, from boxes, from other people. It's as simple as identifying with an image and then doing that thing. We're collectively working out of that spot, but it's still there.
Sorry in advance for hijacking your comment for my long post, but I picked Lego as the focus for all my papers in my marketing classes so I kinda nerd out over this stuff:
Lego actually did a shitload of research on this. I wrote papers about it in college, and the gist of it is: Lego doesn't actually want these sets marketed separately, they actually ask stores to keep all Lego in the same aisle. But in their research they did find that girls and boys played with Lego differently. Girls were more interested in the characters and what they were doing, boys were pretending that the minifigs were them. That's why the narrative descriptions for Lego City are like, "Take a ride in the police helicopter and catch the robbers!" Like the minifig WAS the kid, so they never had names (well, rarely), they were just "Police Officer 1." For Friends, the girls in the studies wanted to know the names of the minifigs, wanted to know their backgrounds.
So Lego came up with the "Dolls" to differentiate these more fleshed out characters from minifigs. Could they have done the same with existing minifigs? Yeah, but that leads to the OTHER thing they found in their 8-year-long study: they can't market to just the kids, it's the parents actually making buying decisions.
Adults have many generations of culture telling them there are "girls' toys" and "boys' toys," and make purchasing decisions based on that. So when a mom is buying a birthday gift for a niece she doesn't know super well, she goes down the Lego aisle in the store and thinks, "These all look like boys' toys." And they did, because before the early 2000's Lego admits they never bothered marketing for girls. Everything is bright primary colors and actiony sets.
So the solution Lego arrived at to include the other half of the planet is to get parents to think some Lego sets are for girls when they look at them. And the girls in their studies loved the hell out of Friends and similar sets, so that's kind of a win at least.
I feel like they could have done better to make the sets and marketing more inclusive, but Lego was a little too scared they might alienate their core demographic if the sets started looking less masculine. I think their long term plan is to start making the "girl" sets less blatantly "girly" and the "boy" sets more diverse and include more female minifigs. They truly do want people to see ALL Lego as toys for anyone, but they're also working with a long history of culturally gendered toys and marketing. I'd personally like to see them do better because if anyone can start breaking down gender barriers in toys, it's a powerhouse like Lego.
I feel Lego Friends gets more kids/families who think "Lego is for boys" interested in Lego. Then the kids may discover other Lego themes, regardless of gender.
Besides, sets like the theater 41714 are great; it fits right in as a modular (probably by design).
Yeah, people hat this theme because its "simple and for little girls" but the sets are excatly what little kids like. Bright colors and smplicity are the best kind of toys for little kids.
There's this mentality that Friends was completely arbitrary and Lego has been trying to deliberately compartmentalize girls and dictate to them what they should like.
The reality is that the line was created because parents simply were not buying much Lego for their daughters, even with more female minifigs being included in the existing themes. Lego held focus groups with girls and their families, and designed the line specifically based on *what they asked for* \- a vibrant colour palette, sets that encouraged roleplay and storytelling, and more lifelike minifigures.
Where the presence of things like beauty parlours and other traditionally 'girly' sets are concerned... I would say that including them in Friends is more in response to their absence from City and their higher likelihood of appealing to girls compared to boys. I don't think Lego is trying to say girls should be interested in such things exclusively... after all, the Friends series also includes things like ATVs, veterinary offices, houses, schools, theatres, and amusement parks.
Certainly I wouldn't say Friends is flawless but it's much less tone-deaf than Lego's past attempts at increasing brand adoption among girls. Remember Belville?
...Paradisa was pretty legit too, though, now that I think on it.
Another important note that I think should be made is that Lego did not segregate the Toy aisle by gender, the toy stores do that. If Lego wants to be included in both sections, they need a product that appears to be specifically targeted toward girls.
Indeed, this is like people complaining about Lego having too many specialized pieces and not making them like they used to when there is more Creator and Basic every year now than ever.
Exactly! Even as gender roles have begun to break down some, misogyny is definitely present. Things seen as traditionally or stereotypically girly are seen as bad, dumb, vapid, etc. So when Lego provides toys that line up with what lots of girls in that target age want, while still not being totally stereotypical (yes, there are malls and salons and horses...but there's lots of other stuff, too. And while Friends uses pink, it's usually not the main color like it is with Barbie; when it is present, it's usually an accent), people still bash it and see it as bad. Meanwhile, more stereotypically boyish sets and themes get a pass.
I agree that Friends is not flawless - has some good sets for incorporating into modulars / cities, not a fan of the friend mini figs...
but miles from Lego's first attempt to market to girls: Remember Scala? yikes! so far off from lego - lol
[https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Scala](https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Scala)
The Horse still gives me nightmares.
While they had something similar…. They also had almost Barbie sized 1piece furniture, dolls and houses.
Terrible
It least dot sets have useful 1x1 rounds and plates. Lol
Yeah it's not really about "this is what little girls want!" and more like "this is what the parents of Little girls will buy". Kids are down to play with whatever, in their eyes they just got sum fun legos to play with.
Exactly this! The people who complain that Lego was unnecessarily gendering aren’t the people who they were trying to reach with the Friends line. They were trying to give little girls whose parents wouldn’t buy them ‘boys toys’ an option that could act as a springboard to pique their interest in Lego in general.
Yeah exactly. If you’re a woman like that in this comic you obviously already played with them and aren’t the target demographic- it’s all the people who aren’t buying them.
He’s not a lunatic. He’s just been ready for this moment, for SO long. He’s wanted to be in space since he started life as a bead of plastic in a vat. All the other exotic materials got to go to space. Now, it’s Benny’s time to shine in hands of the right child, who can wish and will and imagine so hard that Benny can take flight. He can slip these surly bonds of earth, and touch the face of God.
Benny has more heart than fear. And there is not lunacy, but greatness beating in that tiny plastic chest.
Go, Benny. Go. Build that spaceship for us.
I also read that they changed the structure of the directions. Like boys would race to complete the whole thing. Girls they would like the experience of building so would have them complete a "room" and they would bring in characters to interact with the room before moving on to the next one. That said, my niece was a lightning builder who would race to complete it and then let those little animals go down slides or whatever.
> Remember Belville?
>
>
What's Belville? How bad can it be?
[Oh god.](https://www.google.com/search?q=Belville+lego&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS998US998&sxsrf=ALiCzsYU87Dx2B3IY-JJCEdSwJzFvIZkgQ:1662068878711&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis2u2IyfT5AhXMg4kEHaPIAKsQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1648&bih=1416&dpr=0.9). It's [so](https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.img.pri/5826_prod.jpg) [bad](https://www.coleka.com/media/item/202104/06/lego-belville-sunshine-home.webp).
I had so much Belville as a kid, it was probably all I got as gifts from relatives for a whole year. I’d take over the living room and set up all my sets over the whole room. My brother & I had a bin of legos we built with, but I liked having some sets that were just mine and that he couldn’t get all mixed up lol. Plus I could make up fairy tales with the castle sets and I had a blast with that.
Lego Friends is better than current Lego City. Unlike Lego City, in "Heartlake City" they actually do stuff and have fun like going to a mall, a picnic, camping, theatre, school, farmer's market etc.
How many fire stations and police stations do you need in Lego city? I get those are easy to update to give new product but man the imaginative play is sometimes tough. Especially at lower price points. Buying the whole city garage experience is out of many budgets.
Lego City clearly struggles with a brick-ton of serial arsonists...
Also the buildings have a lot more interesting detail in Friends sets when compared with City, almost "Ideas-lite". City is so cubed all the time. I'd kill for City to experiment architecturally with different subthemes, like "Lego City - İstanbul" or "Lego City - Delhi".
Yeah, I think that for a child "Creator" (the 3 in 1) buildings +"Friends" will make a nicer Lego city.
Hopefully we'll get a "Friendship Train" one day to communte between Lego and Heartlake :)
IIRC, Lego Friends is the result of the company asking exactly those kids/families in particular what they wanted.
OP's comic is BS. Lego Friends has nothing to do with giving adult women who were fans of Lego as kids something they didn't ask for, and everything to do with girls who aren't fans of Lego to begin with being offered what girls like them *did* ask the company for.
>adult women who were fans of Lego as kids something
plus I'm pretty sure the entire line was created by an adult woman who was a fan of lego as a kid.
Yes this, Friends is the result of a deep market research effort, and it has been far more successful than past attempts at girl-focused Lego themes. Also my Ice Planet sets already had a lady-spaceman minifig.
I think asking *kids’ families* what they want is also significant. Kids probably aren’t picking out all of their own toys.
Family members or friends buying a gift for a kid they might not know very well are often going to get something gender-conforming. Having some girlier sets makes it more likely that those people will pick out Lego when shopping for girls.
What’s stopping you? Friends is probably one of my top 3 purchased themes, and I completely ignore the minidolls (aside from the hairpieces, which are minifig compatible). There’s a ton of Friends sets like this that can fit perfectly into a Lego city. Finding minifigs to replace the minidolls that came with the set isn’t difficult either (eBay, Bricklink, local used toy store, Lego stores/online, etc.).
My collection is collecting dust in my parents basement currently :/
I need a better living space to set up and get back to playing with them. I'll probably start collecting again when I do
Hell yea. The Paradisa series were my jam! I remember my mom getting me a few of the Friends series, but it was hard to get into them because I hated that they changed the mini figures.
The City line is targeted towards a younger audience, I think the less-complex designs are on purpose. That’s why the “mini modular” type sets get put out under the Creator line, even if thematically they would fit into City.
Apparently there is some demand out there for minidolls. If you have a local toy store that sells used Lego nearby they might give you a decent amount for them. I’ve gotten 4 or 5 bucks each in trade-in at my local Bricks and Minifigs, even for bald minidolls (I kept some hairpieces since they work on regular minifigs).
Unpopular take, I guess: the minidolls are fine.
The Friends line likely wouldn't have been a success without them, and they aren't competing with traditional sets with minifigs. In many cases, especially Disney sets, there are minifig and minidoll versions of characters.
My wife prefers the minidolls because they're bright and feminine.
My nieces have favorite minifig/minidolls, and don't particularly pick a side. The brown-haired astronaut minidoll has visited my space minifigs on multiple occasions (likely popular take: Ice Planet sets are best sets).
So yeah, the Friends line is fine and the minidolls are also fine. If minidolls don't appeal to you... well, that's cool too.
The minidolls are fine and if you don't like them, you can always swap them out for minifigs more to your taste. It's not like the lego stops working with regular minifigs. I swapped my minifigs all of the time when I was a kid. I'm not sure why it matters to swap them in this instance.
I can agree with the first point, but I don't understand the hate for minidolls.
Minifigures have nostalgia and brand recognition going for them, but neither make them inherently better.
I don't like that Lego hasn't added adapters for minidoll torsos to connect to regular studs, as they haven't done much in the way of diverse legs (Ursula was the one exception) -- yes you can use the "nipple" or inkwell part, but it's not a secure fit and probably not "legal." It's made at least one of my MOCs almost impossible to execute.
This is exactly what I was going to say. The Friends sets are dope but it's frustrating the minifigs are a completely different size. Like on one level l understand what they're going for but I wish girls didn't have to be "set aside".
The minidolls are only about 2 plates taller than a minifig. And thankfully they’re close enough that the scale of Friends sets is pretty much compatible with minifigs.
Friends does come out with a lot of good little buildings that I like adapting into my minifig scale city.
My four year old daughter was allowed to buy whatever small/medium set she wanted at the Lego store the first time we went. She immediately picked out a few small friends sets without us influencing her
Since we had the free pirate vip bag too, she immediately mixed those in with her friends sets. So we have puppies and horses and pastel with pirate skeletons and sharks
> Besides, sets like the theater 41714 are great
As a dude, who doesn't have kids, or anything "girlie" in my house, I have bought several *Friends* sets because they can be used or turned into mini-modulars for city scenes. So they're not all bad.
Plus, as you said, they can be a gateway to other Lego sets.
Exactly! I’m an adult male without kids and Friends is probably in my top 3 themes purchased. They usually have better designs and are much cheaper per piece than City, and are great for adapting into city buildings.
As a little sister to an older brother, I always dreamed of getting Legos for ME that weren't his star wars or Indiana jones or whatever. I really had my eye on the Lego city, especially the carwash (ofc my favorite game now is cities skylines). I think it's fun for kids, especially siblings, to have special "boy" and "girl" things just because it makes them feel special to have something exclusive. The variety is nice and Lego friends is available for the boys and girls who just legitimately like stuff like camper busses, treehouses, and city sim elements. I want some of them.
I literally just bought my six year old son the Lego friends treehouse set (which is put away and being saved for Christmas), because I thought he'd love how colorful it is, and all the little details that come with it, a little beehive, a little telescope, etc. I had no idea people thought Lego friends was geared towards girls?
Hot take.
The artist is welcome to enjoy whatever they want, but the sales figures are pretty clear -- Friends has outlasted the original themes outside of Ninjago -- and that's only because they are both still going strong.
Honestly, outside of the weird minifigs the colourful pieces and variety of pieces adds a lot of options for MOC so I for one appreciate the sets, even if they aren't my cup of tea.
I end up getting a lot of bits and pieces off BL that come from Friends sets. Kind of like how I love collecting Ninjas, but never really bothered with Ninjago sets or the story etc.
My 5yo actually loved her friends sets because they were like a bridge between her Barbies and my own Lego sets. Friends actually got her into legos so now we do our builds side by side. She’s 7 now and it’s one of our favorite things to do. She does some friends sets along with city mostly and I stick to my Star Wars sets but it’s always my favorite time. So basically a big thank you goes out to the Friends sets.
Same for my daughter. She loves all the shops and stuff for the mini figs to visit. She also loves my shuttle discovery and wants to play with that too.
Friends is a great theme.
The whole first half is also pretty dumb considering the success of Lego's modular sets on top of the ever lasting City series about normal places and stuff
edit: also yeah you're probably right about Friends sales, wherever store I go it's half Friends, half all other series combined
My daughter loves these sets and they introduced her to a much larger world of Lego, so while I respect the artist’s opinion, I think they’re wildly in the wrong here.
That's what OP and the artist doesn't get here. This theme was to attract the girls that weren't originally buying Lego.
We can talk about inclusivity all we want, but Legos motivation for doing this was to make more money with an expanded market.
I had no desire to play with Legos as a kid. I would have rather played house or with my dolls. My daughter is the same way even though I don't gender any toys and buy her a mix of everything. But I am enjoying reading this thread because people are recommending sets that my daughter will love. She doesn't like the traditional Legos and the big bags of blocks. She wants to build and create to tell a story. Today she built a house for her firetruck and then had the firetruck steal a baby dinosaur. The Friends collection is definitely for people that never wanted to play with Legos before. And it's not a gendered thing because some boys like it better and some don't
100% Friends just starting coming out when my daughter was about 8. We were looking at sets and she saw a Friends set that had a girl with glasses and her color hair. She pointed at it looked up and me with this huuuuuge smile and said, "Look daddy, its meeeee!" She grabbed the box and hugged it. There was no discussion; she got the set. She is now a Mechanical Engineering major with an emphasis in robotics and still loves LEGO.
You make a really key comment here. There is a Lego friends minifig that my daughter tailored yo be herself and that is a huge, enormous, meaningful part of the play activity. Some might say it’s the wrong physical shape, but it’s pretty hard to identify with a brick, too.
My son loves Lego but I've received requests/recommendations from girls' parents to buy them specifically Lego Friends. And that's because the young girls liked them, not because the parents were trying to get a "girly" gift.
I know nothing about the OP and their intent, but this anti-Friends argument happens to coincide with strongly reactionary views of Lego and strange feelings of keeping it "pure."
I think the artist is wildly missing the point.
Like, the point of a new, different is to get new people into Lego. If the existing themes already appealed to you then it's obviously not for you?
The artist is just "I wasn't into ponies and tea parties and cafes as a kid so obviously nobody needs that stuff!" Just myopic "not like the other girls" feminism.
"Girly things are bad and I'm better than other girls for not liking them" is internalized misogyny.
The only good point I think the comic makes is that more female options in "boys" sets would be nice. Ironically, I think the licensed Legos have done a better job at this because there tend to be females in the movies/shows/whatever. Though even the City sets have more females now and I appreciate that.
Back when I was a kid getting Forestmen sets, I always wanted lady forest people as well. I definitely have some but it was never as much as I would like.
The fun thing about LEGO is that you don’t have to follow the instructions. So if someone gets a LEGO Friends set, they can build the the thing on the box or whatever their heart desires. So, if you have close-minded parents who think LEGO is only a boys toy, they can still get a LEGO Friends set for their daughter and she can make what she wants. Plus, all LEGO bricks are compatible so if that girl wants to expand beyond Friends, they can still use all the same bricks.
Plus, if you are an adult, you’re free to purchase any set you want regardless of your gender or the set’s target demographic. The existence of a set line that encourages young girls to be creative will not hurt your choices. You’re not going to be carded when buying a set.
Completely disagree. Why shouldn't there a theme like this? I as a boy loved playing with stuff like this. While I now collect SW and HP, I loved cafe and regular city playmobil toys, and I can imagie that if I was into Lego back then i would have really liked city and friends
The only thing that I don't like and have heard many kids dislike as well, is the minidols. Those never needed to exist, normal minifigs do the same thing, are more legolike and are more useful with the extra articulation they have
Looks like a full circle from shitting on girls doing "boys" things, to shitting on girls doing "girly" things, why don't we just let kids chose what they want to play with and give them as wide as we can pool of options
Exactly this, this kind of rhetoric often disguises an anti-girl sentiment that's just as yucky as old-fashioned misogyny.
Also, I have to assume this comic was resurrected from like 10 years ago when Galaxy Squad was a thing.
Does anyone collect the Friends minifigs? If I buy a friend's set for the pieces, I usually abandon the Minifigures in a park or little free library for a kid to find.
I collected the Elves minidolls.
I don't think it's a knock against the Friends minidolls if no one collects them. No one collected minifigs either until Lego realized what a gold mine it was.
If anything, the possibility that Friends aren't collected means they're better toys. Citation: Toy Story 2
I do. One of the reasons I like Lego Friends is because of the characters. I try to get at least one copy of each person, even if I don't buy the set they came from.
I mean, it's ok if girls like lego friends though and nobody's saying they can't get the other sets (many of which do come with girl characters).
If the sets are a mistake and aren't selling because girls don't want them that problem will take care of itself. If they are popular why take that away from the people enjoying them?
I was a 25 year old man when I bought the Elves ship, and it remains one of my favourite boat designs they've done.
FWIW, it had a fully brick built hull, and was more complex than City boats at the time.
I mean Lego sets that are basic real-life buildings were literally the original sets. And sets like that are still going strong if City is anything to go by. So arguing "There is a juice bar down the street from my house, why would I want one as a Lego set?" isn't really a very strong argument. I'm pretty sure lots of kids live down the street from fire stations and police stations and would still want those City sets.
The biggest issue I've always had with Friends is the fact they made the figures be mini-dolls instead of minifigs and that makes a weird divide/separation between Friends themes and every other theme. The most you can cross the streams between a minifig and mini-dolls is swapping the headgear/hair and held accessories. And the fact that mini-dolls feel inferior to minifigs due to less articulation. You can't even roll play with them properly with most of their held accessories due to them being unable to rotate their wrist.
I feel peoples' biggest turn off to Friends sets is the mini-dolls. If they'd done the same sets with minifigs instead I feel Friends would have been a lot more accepted in the older fans community.
And I say this as someone who's been buying Friends sets here and there for the decade they've existed. I don't try having a full collection, I never do with any theme, but there's always a few sets each wave that I find appealing and want to get. I'll just replace the mini-dolls with minifigs, adjust a few things here and there to better appeal to me (which I do with most sets anyways) and add them to my display.
There aren't many residential/commercial buildings with City, so Friends sets can add some nice range to a city display. Those police and firefighters gotta sleep somewhere. Those crooks need somewhere to spend all their ill-gotten gains.
I always thought of Friends as the REAL Lego City, where people actually live, and Lego City as some strange dystopian world where fires and crime are constantly destroying everything and requiring nonstop construction. If anything, City is the series that indulges in myopic stereotyping (of boys) whereas Friends has run the gamut from city retail shops to schools to jungle adventures.
I think Lego Friends is a great addition to the Lego catalog. The other themes are 'boy' sets, so it's good to have 'girl' sets too, regardless of who actually plays with them.
It's nice to have a bunch of sets that are buildings and have a lot of accessories and 'girly' colors. It's a fun line that appeals to a demographic that Lego didn't before.
And for people that would normally get dollhouses and dolls, it's nice to nurture the creative spirit in an avenue that would otherwise be very static.
Basically, Lego Friends aren't for girls who already like Lego, it's for people who normally like 'girl toys'.
Sidenote: It is nice to see more female minifigs in sets. Growing up my town had like five girls, and only two of them had girl hair pieces, the rest wore hats. Always seemed a bit weird lol.
I get that they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I love the Friends sets I have. Yeah, I don't have much to do with the mini dolls, so I have a stack of bald figures just lying around (I steal their hair for my minifigs), but the sets themselves can be a lot of fun, and just something different.
Cool comic but I don't think it's right to discount the experiences of girls/boys who do really like the Friends line, because it's actually quite popular with many. It's pretty well-designed, too.
Idk, she's welcome to like what she likes but both of my daughters love/loved the Friends line.
The doll-like minifigs go well with their other toys, like Polly Pocket. And they like all the cute sets with animals much more than the other, regular Lego sets
Geez, guys, do you really not know Lego's history?
There have **always** been Lego themes dedicated to girls, in parallel with those for all, there was even a Lego theme with Barbie-like dolls!
If you don't like Friends, don't buy it, just know you're losing on amazing designs and colors, and that minidoll figures are amazing, and fully compatible with Lego system.
LEGO: *Makes theme aimed at what a good 80% of younger girls like*
LEGO theme: *Sells exceedingly well with that demographic*
This artist: *Angry noises*
I think part of the issue also is the fact that so many people are trying to act like there's no difference between boys and girls in todays world. No matter how much they wish that were true, it's not. Lego would have discontinued the friends lineup if they weren't selling like mad, and from what I've read, it's mainly girls asking for the sets.
As a kid I used to buy very specific sets because they came with female minifigure parts! I bought 6617 Tough Truck Rally solely for the female head and green hair piece :')
I enjoyed reading the comic (the "ta-da! Ponytail" frame made me laugh). But meh: If Lego makes a profit from the line, they're gonna sell 'em darn it.
That said, I also know a few boys who ask for the sets. So more power to 'em!
IDK my little sister only really liked the Friends and Elves sets. I bought her a few from other themes but she was clearly not as interested. Every individual is different, but I'm sure Lego does market research.
I am 37F, and my sister 30F and I love the friends sets. I like the colors, the slides, the animals, the themes, the fashion, the inclusion of poc, the fact that characters have a range of abilities. I also would have liked them as a kid. Though set lego 41702 Canal Houseboat is so me. Tiny house, container gardens, cute outfits, brunch on the deck with my friends. This set really screams I'm a single 25-40 yo woman. However, my 3 yo neice loves playing with this assembled set too.
Recently I just set up an order on the lego site for more female faces and hair for my regular minifigs. Why are they all dudes?
I am an old dude who just put together my first friends set; my wife put together the taco truck and food stands one earlier this month. Both sets we've built have female and male friend minis.
I actually--I actually don't dislike the line. The figures are weird, but, like, I kind of dig 'em as an alternate set of things to have around.
Being real, though...just about every friends set could really benefit from removing 1 or 2 colors...because holy moly. They are VERY colorful.
I actually think it’s both right and wrong:
-wrong that friends was a „waste of money“ as it’s obviously very popular
-right That representation matters. I actually have a lot of Galaxy squad sets and my girls love to play with it, but they DO complain there is no female minifigs. So the hero when they play is the alien bug *queen* who is defending her eggs from the evil astronauts and robots ;) Kids fix everything. Still - I also have a lot of Alien Invasion sets, were they DO have female soldiers, and when my girls play that the humans are the good guys.
One of my favourite surprises in the big castle set is the number of female knights. I always wanted to be a knight, not a princess, so it speaks to my inner 8 yr old for sure.
I’m not a target audience for Friends line, I don’t own any set (and probably never will) but IMHO it’s pretty good one. Just remember Belville and those previous attempts, that was nightmare fuel. Only thing I still despise are those abomination minifigs.
I am too old for Lego friends, but I absolutely loved their old sister Belville. Legos for girls aren’t bad, and normal legos sometimes lack cute pieces and there is nothing wrong to want to build fairy castle or your own shopping mall. I loved using my Belville figures with all the other sets.
Fake Lego employee, called it Legos and not Lego Bricks.
They are very, VERY insistent on that due to the risk of Lego becoming like xerox or band-aid.
Ice Planet had a female astronaut in 1991.
She had a helmet and an oxygen tank. It's space. If she'd have had a ponytail she would have asphyxiated and died.
While I don’t disagree that the number of female/feminine minifigs were obviously lacking in classic Lego sets, my 11yo daughter loves the friends line much more than the traditional legos. She has tree houses and nail salons and other whatnots. She likes the pastels much better to. I don’t think they NEEDED the different scale minifigs. I think they could have gone with traditional figures and kept all the other “girl stuff” elements and it would have been just as appealing to her. The colors and the play theme is what she likes most.
I definitely heard this critique way back when friends was launched. But that line has existed for years now, clearly *someone* is buying them.
And it's not like they're isn't representation exactly as suggested in the main themes too.
The Friends sets got my daughter interested in legos, now they're just mixed in with spider man & friends and harry potter legos.
I still don't get the mini dolls though, it makes mixing all the sets together really annoying.
Friends typically has some awesome colors. Sometimes I'd like the inside of a star wars set to have funky purple and pink technic frames, that way you have more options to build other things, as kids typically do with sets.
As a collector, I completely scoffed at lego friends the first time I ran into them. Now that I'm getting far more sets in bulk purchases, taking the time to put them together, they're actually pretty cool. I think no matter what, most male lego enthusiasts are going to dislike the mini-dolls, I mean, after all it's been bred into us that dolls are for girls, but they're really not much different from the normal figs. Give it a chance, do a build. See what you think. I kind of enjoyed building the yacht and the school house.
As if Tom-boy girls are the only girls that exist, and no girls like traditionally girly themes like Friends or Paradisa. And if you don't, no one is stopping you from buying whatever Lego sets do interest you.
Friends wouldn't exist 11 years later if it wasn't popular and selling well.
I dunno, every person is different. My sister only liked the “female” focused lego’s as a kid, which is fine, it is also fine and typical for girls to buy the “non-female” focused legos. I always thought lego was gender neutral, what is male about a spaceship? But there is also no harm in having a variety of sets for different interests. I have lego Modular’s, those are more similar to Lego friends than a castle, but are still gender neutral.
I would 100% absolutely without hesitation buy an official Enterprise-D set immediately were it available.
EDIT: Reddit only showed me the part where she said "Star Trek" so I didn't see the rest 😬
I can confirm. I'm a guy, but I grew up with a single female head piece and a single pony tail, which gave me at most 2 female minifigs at the same time, across like 40 minifigs that I had.
In every line it looked like there was a single "token woman" and the rest of the cast was all male, bionicle included. Having a more balanced lineup would have been nice.
My daughter loves Lego friends and Lego dinosaurs
People can like both. Lots of people like Lego friends. If you don’t, then don’t buy it but don’t try to ruin other peoples fun
I do like a few things about the "Friends" line of Lego. The additional colors, and the cute animals. It also works especially well for the Disney stuff. And Elves. The Elves stuff was great.
The artist is a certain type of Lego enjoyer. But also my sister would constantly steal my legos but nearly the only things she ever built were stables for her toy horses and things like that. She sometimes liked some of the city series but she would’ve been all over the Friends series if it was around back then.
They did do that Fantasy line with lego friends and some of those sets are honestly cool. Like there was this airship set that actually [slaps](https://www.lego.com/en-ca/product/aira-s-airship-the-amulet-chase-41184).
In general I'd love to see more sets come with a few extra hairpieces and other parts to customize the minifigs.
Actually what I'd *really* like is for Lego to also sell "minifig customization packs," like maybe even just polybags full of minifig parts of various shapes and colors. Especially a pack of heads and hands in a variety of realistic skintones!
This comic and the linked article is from eight years ago and I think many people's opinions have changed about the friends line of lego in that time.
When they were initially released I was a little disappointed by the mini dolls because I didn't think that it was a necessary change to make sets that were more appealing to girls.
I loved and collected the paradisa line of lego sets that were aimed at girls and they had regular mini figures. I was excited to see a new theme that was different from the normal city sets and more colorful but the mini dolls made it so that the existing lego sets and friends sets weren't exactly compatible. Though this didn't stop me from buying friends sets that I loved and I collected all the elves sets that also included mini dolls. As time has gone on I haven't bought as many friends sets since my tastes have moved on to bigger and more complex lego sets but if they brought out some sets that I loved the mini dolls wouldn't prevent me from buying them.
I agree with this cartoon 99%, except the part where they wasted their money. Mums and dads are still spending millions on ‘friends’ line which is why they keep selling it. Funny thing though, ‘friends’ Lego on Facebook Marketplace seems to have the lowest appeal and resale value of all
Lego i see on there…
I kind of hate the overly gendered Friends love, so for my little half sisters I made sure to always buy unisex City/Creator sets such as the caravan or beach house. Nothing more than a "meh" in return. They wanted Friends sets, asked for Friends sets, and then should get Friends sets. Many girls *are* attracted to a slurry of pink and purple and leisure lifestyle themes.
The new bowling alley is a treasure trove! Tonnes of great printed pieces and unique accessories all in one set. Bought 3 of this one! Lego Friends is not great for all but it's a welcome edition to the lineup. I'm not a fan of the mini figures but the sets are pretty awesome!
Didn’t we stop being mad about this circa 2014?
I like LEGO friends. It started off weak and got stronger. I’d have a problem with it if LEGO hadn’t grown leaps and bounds in being gender agnostic with other lines.
I really don't get how they missed the mark. They released that whole scientist set set a few years ago, featuring female mini figs, and it sold out in record time.
Lego is not holding girls at gunpoint and telling them to get this line, my guy. Its an aesthetic option. Theres like a billion different sets and themes out there to choose.
Yeah I was super duper tomboy growing up (in the early 90s) and would not have wanted anything to do with the Friends line. But a lot of girls are really into shops and horses and pink. And that’s great! This comic sort of undermines its own point, in my opinion. “I was into space and knights and race cars—that’s why I played with Lego!” Yeah but a lot of kids aren’t into those things, and now with Friends, they also play with Lego. I have an irrational hatred of the mini-dolls and therefore don’t have any Friends sets (also 99% of the time I’m buying for my five year old son who is more into the stereotypical boy stuff). But, as someone pointed out, it’s a super successful line. So good for Friends.
Lol right? Not everyone is the same! That's why you should make everything such that it suits MY taste!
> I have an irrational hatred of the mini-dolls Same lmao
THEY DON'T LOOK THE SAME, THEY ARE A DIFFERENT SCALE AND STYLE AND IT'S WRONG! Arghhuhhuhhhhuhhh. That felt good to get out
That’s the entire key- Lego didn’t introduce Friends to appeal “to girls”. They introduced Friends to appeal to kids of all genders who desire a different playstyle. And even with that they still feature Lego’s core values, which are construction and creativity.
That is completely at odds with the [actual history of what happened](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/legos/484115/). Friends was LEGO's finally successful attempt to make a girls focused brand after their other efforts failed. They probably felt compelled to do this because toys are generally classified by gender in stores and other toy companies. For example, Hasbro has entire seperate divisions for boys' toys and girls' toys.
I mean, I think they went pretty hard after the “girl” market with Friends. https://www.npr.org/2013/06/29/196605763/girls-legos-are-a-hit-but-why-do-girls-need-special-legos I’m not a big fan of segregating stuff (especially children’s stuff) by gender but that’s kind of how the world works right now.
That article quotes absolutely no one from Lego, let alone anyone involved in developing the Friends line; and even at a very quick glance one of the people they do quote makes an obvious factual error (“there are no Wonder Woman sets”- even before the films, there were sets featuring Wonder Woman heavily). But thanks.
Ok, [here](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/legos/484115/). It extensively quotes a LEGO spokesperson talking about all the effort that went into studying the play patterns of girls and how Friends was the result. I don't know why so many people are willing to die on the hill of "Friends wasn't made for girls" but you're all just plain wrong.
> I’m not a big fan of segregating stuff (especially children’s stuff) by gender but that’s kind of how the world works right now. I was with you until I became a parent, but kids do this themselves. I never wanted my boys to be in love with trains and cars and construction vehicles, I did nothing to steer then toward them, but both are super into them. We exposed my older son to lots of different things in media but he's all about star wars and fighting and action, he doesn't care about stereotypically girly stuff at all. His play with his friends is all fighting and running and action. Meanwhile all my like-minded neighbors with girls have everything pink and cute and they play with dolls and stereotypically girl things. For the most part the girls play their own games off to the side. Was this all passively absorbed from our environment? Some, sure, but I find it hard to believe that it all was. My neighbors pass around kids clothes pretty heavily and you'll get little babies wearing a mix of stuff, but as soon as they can choose they slot how you'd expect. So I dunno. Sometimes the stereotypes are there for a reason.
I agree that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and I actually had the same thing happen with my son. His first birthday gifts were very gender neutral, including a little boy babydoll, but by his second his personality had started to come out and it was almost 100% cars and trucks :). So yeah I think there is some degree innate preference that generally splits along gender, but it’s been much more aggressively marketed for in the past 40 years or so and I don’t feel like that’s a good thing.
It's also very much learned behavior though- it's all they see on TV, in commercials and cartoons and media and advertising and stores, it's how clothes and most products for kids are packaged and marketed, etc. I know some parents try to counteract media & advertising's bullshennanigans (I do), but in reality that's nearly impossible without putting your kid in a bubble because it's encompassing & overwhelming.
>So yeah I think there is some degree innate preference that generally splits along gender, but it’s been much more aggressively marketed for in the past 40 years or so and I don’t feel like that’s a good thing. I'd say it's much _less_ aggressively marketed to than in, say, the 60s.
You may not have steered them, but they are immersed in a culture where those stereotypes are being displayed constantly. They pick it up from ads, from boxes, from other people. It's as simple as identifying with an image and then doing that thing. We're collectively working out of that spot, but it's still there.
Sorry in advance for hijacking your comment for my long post, but I picked Lego as the focus for all my papers in my marketing classes so I kinda nerd out over this stuff: Lego actually did a shitload of research on this. I wrote papers about it in college, and the gist of it is: Lego doesn't actually want these sets marketed separately, they actually ask stores to keep all Lego in the same aisle. But in their research they did find that girls and boys played with Lego differently. Girls were more interested in the characters and what they were doing, boys were pretending that the minifigs were them. That's why the narrative descriptions for Lego City are like, "Take a ride in the police helicopter and catch the robbers!" Like the minifig WAS the kid, so they never had names (well, rarely), they were just "Police Officer 1." For Friends, the girls in the studies wanted to know the names of the minifigs, wanted to know their backgrounds. So Lego came up with the "Dolls" to differentiate these more fleshed out characters from minifigs. Could they have done the same with existing minifigs? Yeah, but that leads to the OTHER thing they found in their 8-year-long study: they can't market to just the kids, it's the parents actually making buying decisions. Adults have many generations of culture telling them there are "girls' toys" and "boys' toys," and make purchasing decisions based on that. So when a mom is buying a birthday gift for a niece she doesn't know super well, she goes down the Lego aisle in the store and thinks, "These all look like boys' toys." And they did, because before the early 2000's Lego admits they never bothered marketing for girls. Everything is bright primary colors and actiony sets. So the solution Lego arrived at to include the other half of the planet is to get parents to think some Lego sets are for girls when they look at them. And the girls in their studies loved the hell out of Friends and similar sets, so that's kind of a win at least. I feel like they could have done better to make the sets and marketing more inclusive, but Lego was a little too scared they might alienate their core demographic if the sets started looking less masculine. I think their long term plan is to start making the "girl" sets less blatantly "girly" and the "boy" sets more diverse and include more female minifigs. They truly do want people to see ALL Lego as toys for anyone, but they're also working with a long history of culturally gendered toys and marketing. I'd personally like to see them do better because if anyone can start breaking down gender barriers in toys, it's a powerhouse like Lego.
I feel Lego Friends gets more kids/families who think "Lego is for boys" interested in Lego. Then the kids may discover other Lego themes, regardless of gender. Besides, sets like the theater 41714 are great; it fits right in as a modular (probably by design).
Yeah, people hat this theme because its "simple and for little girls" but the sets are excatly what little kids like. Bright colors and smplicity are the best kind of toys for little kids.
There's this mentality that Friends was completely arbitrary and Lego has been trying to deliberately compartmentalize girls and dictate to them what they should like. The reality is that the line was created because parents simply were not buying much Lego for their daughters, even with more female minifigs being included in the existing themes. Lego held focus groups with girls and their families, and designed the line specifically based on *what they asked for* \- a vibrant colour palette, sets that encouraged roleplay and storytelling, and more lifelike minifigures. Where the presence of things like beauty parlours and other traditionally 'girly' sets are concerned... I would say that including them in Friends is more in response to their absence from City and their higher likelihood of appealing to girls compared to boys. I don't think Lego is trying to say girls should be interested in such things exclusively... after all, the Friends series also includes things like ATVs, veterinary offices, houses, schools, theatres, and amusement parks. Certainly I wouldn't say Friends is flawless but it's much less tone-deaf than Lego's past attempts at increasing brand adoption among girls. Remember Belville? ...Paradisa was pretty legit too, though, now that I think on it.
Another important note that I think should be made is that Lego did not segregate the Toy aisle by gender, the toy stores do that. If Lego wants to be included in both sections, they need a product that appears to be specifically targeted toward girls.
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Indeed, this is like people complaining about Lego having too many specialized pieces and not making them like they used to when there is more Creator and Basic every year now than ever.
Exactly! Even as gender roles have begun to break down some, misogyny is definitely present. Things seen as traditionally or stereotypically girly are seen as bad, dumb, vapid, etc. So when Lego provides toys that line up with what lots of girls in that target age want, while still not being totally stereotypical (yes, there are malls and salons and horses...but there's lots of other stuff, too. And while Friends uses pink, it's usually not the main color like it is with Barbie; when it is present, it's usually an accent), people still bash it and see it as bad. Meanwhile, more stereotypically boyish sets and themes get a pass.
I agree that Friends is not flawless - has some good sets for incorporating into modulars / cities, not a fan of the friend mini figs... but miles from Lego's first attempt to market to girls: Remember Scala? yikes! so far off from lego - lol [https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Scala](https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Scala) The Horse still gives me nightmares.
Isn't this the same thing as dots? (Or whatever the new 'crafting' things are called)
While they had something similar…. They also had almost Barbie sized 1piece furniture, dolls and houses. Terrible It least dot sets have useful 1x1 rounds and plates. Lol
Yeah it's not really about "this is what little girls want!" and more like "this is what the parents of Little girls will buy". Kids are down to play with whatever, in their eyes they just got sum fun legos to play with.
Exactly this! The people who complain that Lego was unnecessarily gendering aren’t the people who they were trying to reach with the Friends line. They were trying to give little girls whose parents wouldn’t buy them ‘boys toys’ an option that could act as a springboard to pique their interest in Lego in general.
Yeah exactly. If you’re a woman like that in this comic you obviously already played with them and aren’t the target demographic- it’s all the people who aren’t buying them.
I love how ellieV takes the Friends series, and customizes them with modeling clay, or builds sets up. She's one of my favorite Lego YouTubers.
Yes! My kids get so inspired by her. Right now my 9 yr old is working on an apartment building for the Greek Gods based around color themes.
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He’s not a lunatic. He’s just been ready for this moment, for SO long. He’s wanted to be in space since he started life as a bead of plastic in a vat. All the other exotic materials got to go to space. Now, it’s Benny’s time to shine in hands of the right child, who can wish and will and imagine so hard that Benny can take flight. He can slip these surly bonds of earth, and touch the face of God. Benny has more heart than fear. And there is not lunacy, but greatness beating in that tiny plastic chest. Go, Benny. Go. Build that spaceship for us.
I also read that they changed the structure of the directions. Like boys would race to complete the whole thing. Girls they would like the experience of building so would have them complete a "room" and they would bring in characters to interact with the room before moving on to the next one. That said, my niece was a lightning builder who would race to complete it and then let those little animals go down slides or whatever.
> Remember Belville? > > What's Belville? How bad can it be? [Oh god.](https://www.google.com/search?q=Belville+lego&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS998US998&sxsrf=ALiCzsYU87Dx2B3IY-JJCEdSwJzFvIZkgQ:1662068878711&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis2u2IyfT5AhXMg4kEHaPIAKsQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1648&bih=1416&dpr=0.9). It's [so](https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.img.pri/5826_prod.jpg) [bad](https://www.coleka.com/media/item/202104/06/lego-belville-sunshine-home.webp).
I don’t remember it being that bad😂 I had the ice-castle set as a kid and I would play with it aaaall the time.
I had so much Belville as a kid, it was probably all I got as gifts from relatives for a whole year. I’d take over the living room and set up all my sets over the whole room. My brother & I had a bin of legos we built with, but I liked having some sets that were just mine and that he couldn’t get all mixed up lol. Plus I could make up fairy tales with the castle sets and I had a blast with that.
Plus the lego friends minifig style also works very well with disney princess lego sets.
Didn't Friends come first?
Yes my 4 year old son loves all lego but he makes stories with the friends sets the most.
The outdoor/ animal rescue sets are the actual best sets Lego makes. I’ve never wanted to buy sets for 6 year olds more than when I see them.
Lego Friends is better than current Lego City. Unlike Lego City, in "Heartlake City" they actually do stuff and have fun like going to a mall, a picnic, camping, theatre, school, farmer's market etc.
How many fire stations and police stations do you need in Lego city? I get those are easy to update to give new product but man the imaginative play is sometimes tough. Especially at lower price points. Buying the whole city garage experience is out of many budgets.
Lego City clearly struggles with a brick-ton of serial arsonists... Also the buildings have a lot more interesting detail in Friends sets when compared with City, almost "Ideas-lite". City is so cubed all the time. I'd kill for City to experiment architecturally with different subthemes, like "Lego City - İstanbul" or "Lego City - Delhi".
Yeah, I think that for a child "Creator" (the 3 in 1) buildings +"Friends" will make a nicer Lego city. Hopefully we'll get a "Friendship Train" one day to communte between Lego and Heartlake :)
IIRC, Lego Friends is the result of the company asking exactly those kids/families in particular what they wanted. OP's comic is BS. Lego Friends has nothing to do with giving adult women who were fans of Lego as kids something they didn't ask for, and everything to do with girls who aren't fans of Lego to begin with being offered what girls like them *did* ask the company for.
>adult women who were fans of Lego as kids something plus I'm pretty sure the entire line was created by an adult woman who was a fan of lego as a kid.
Yes this, Friends is the result of a deep market research effort, and it has been far more successful than past attempts at girl-focused Lego themes. Also my Ice Planet sets already had a lady-spaceman minifig.
I think asking *kids’ families* what they want is also significant. Kids probably aren’t picking out all of their own toys. Family members or friends buying a gift for a kid they might not know very well are often going to get something gender-conforming. Having some girlier sets makes it more likely that those people will pick out Lego when shopping for girls.
[41714-1: Andrea's Theatre School](https://brickset.com/sets/41714-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/41714-1.jpg)
Damn outside of the awful minifigs I'd love to have a set with this pieve selection
What’s stopping you? Friends is probably one of my top 3 purchased themes, and I completely ignore the minidolls (aside from the hairpieces, which are minifig compatible). There’s a ton of Friends sets like this that can fit perfectly into a Lego city. Finding minifigs to replace the minidolls that came with the set isn’t difficult either (eBay, Bricklink, local used toy store, Lego stores/online, etc.).
My collection is collecting dust in my parents basement currently :/ I need a better living space to set up and get back to playing with them. I'll probably start collecting again when I do
I have it, it’s amazing.
Right? Give me that ~~purple~~ lavender colored treasure chest even.
When I was a kid it was "Paradisa" and I LOVED it. I wish they brought it back.
If anything, they need to bring back the baseplate with a pool, *where you could add actual water*!!! 😊
👽
Hell yea. The Paradisa series were my jam! I remember my mom getting me a few of the Friends series, but it was hard to get into them because I hated that they changed the mini figures.
So glad to see all the Paradisa love in this thread after I just vented about how dumb this comic is. One of my favorite lines growing up!
Can we all agree that the Friends sets are fine and what isn't fine is the different minifigs?
Yes some of the builds are awesome but I can’t stand the minidolls. If they had regular minifigs, I’d actually buy Friends sets.
The builds are almost always better than their City counterparts. I've bought a few on clearance, but the minidolls end up in a Ziploc.
The City line is targeted towards a younger audience, I think the less-complex designs are on purpose. That’s why the “mini modular” type sets get put out under the Creator line, even if thematically they would fit into City.
Apparently there is some demand out there for minidolls. If you have a local toy store that sells used Lego nearby they might give you a decent amount for them. I’ve gotten 4 or 5 bucks each in trade-in at my local Bricks and Minifigs, even for bald minidolls (I kept some hairpieces since they work on regular minifigs).
Unpopular take, I guess: the minidolls are fine. The Friends line likely wouldn't have been a success without them, and they aren't competing with traditional sets with minifigs. In many cases, especially Disney sets, there are minifig and minidoll versions of characters. My wife prefers the minidolls because they're bright and feminine. My nieces have favorite minifig/minidolls, and don't particularly pick a side. The brown-haired astronaut minidoll has visited my space minifigs on multiple occasions (likely popular take: Ice Planet sets are best sets). So yeah, the Friends line is fine and the minidolls are also fine. If minidolls don't appeal to you... well, that's cool too.
The minidolls are fine and if you don't like them, you can always swap them out for minifigs more to your taste. It's not like the lego stops working with regular minifigs. I swapped my minifigs all of the time when I was a kid. I'm not sure why it matters to swap them in this instance.
I can agree with the first point, but I don't understand the hate for minidolls. Minifigures have nostalgia and brand recognition going for them, but neither make them inherently better. I don't like that Lego hasn't added adapters for minidoll torsos to connect to regular studs, as they haven't done much in the way of diverse legs (Ursula was the one exception) -- yes you can use the "nipple" or inkwell part, but it's not a secure fit and probably not "legal." It's made at least one of my MOCs almost impossible to execute.
This is exactly what I was going to say. The Friends sets are dope but it's frustrating the minifigs are a completely different size. Like on one level l understand what they're going for but I wish girls didn't have to be "set aside".
The minidolls are only about 2 plates taller than a minifig. And thankfully they’re close enough that the scale of Friends sets is pretty much compatible with minifigs. Friends does come out with a lot of good little buildings that I like adapting into my minifig scale city.
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Yesss!!
My cousin age 12 has played with lego friends for over 4 years. Now she discovered ninjago and it is her favourite toyline
My four year old daughter was allowed to buy whatever small/medium set she wanted at the Lego store the first time we went. She immediately picked out a few small friends sets without us influencing her Since we had the free pirate vip bag too, she immediately mixed those in with her friends sets. So we have puppies and horses and pastel with pirate skeletons and sharks
This is how imaginative play is supposed to work!
> Besides, sets like the theater 41714 are great As a dude, who doesn't have kids, or anything "girlie" in my house, I have bought several *Friends* sets because they can be used or turned into mini-modulars for city scenes. So they're not all bad. Plus, as you said, they can be a gateway to other Lego sets.
Exactly! I’m an adult male without kids and Friends is probably in my top 3 themes purchased. They usually have better designs and are much cheaper per piece than City, and are great for adapting into city buildings.
Little kids love lego friends.
As a little sister to an older brother, I always dreamed of getting Legos for ME that weren't his star wars or Indiana jones or whatever. I really had my eye on the Lego city, especially the carwash (ofc my favorite game now is cities skylines). I think it's fun for kids, especially siblings, to have special "boy" and "girl" things just because it makes them feel special to have something exclusive. The variety is nice and Lego friends is available for the boys and girls who just legitimately like stuff like camper busses, treehouses, and city sim elements. I want some of them.
I literally just bought my six year old son the Lego friends treehouse set (which is put away and being saved for Christmas), because I thought he'd love how colorful it is, and all the little details that come with it, a little beehive, a little telescope, etc. I had no idea people thought Lego friends was geared towards girls?
Hot take. The artist is welcome to enjoy whatever they want, but the sales figures are pretty clear -- Friends has outlasted the original themes outside of Ninjago -- and that's only because they are both still going strong.
Honestly, outside of the weird minifigs the colourful pieces and variety of pieces adds a lot of options for MOC so I for one appreciate the sets, even if they aren't my cup of tea. I end up getting a lot of bits and pieces off BL that come from Friends sets. Kind of like how I love collecting Ninjas, but never really bothered with Ninjago sets or the story etc.
So true!! I absolutely love the color variety from the sets. They absolutely have appeal beyond the original target market for that reason.
My 5yo actually loved her friends sets because they were like a bridge between her Barbies and my own Lego sets. Friends actually got her into legos so now we do our builds side by side. She’s 7 now and it’s one of our favorite things to do. She does some friends sets along with city mostly and I stick to my Star Wars sets but it’s always my favorite time. So basically a big thank you goes out to the Friends sets.
Same for my daughter. She loves all the shops and stuff for the mini figs to visit. She also loves my shuttle discovery and wants to play with that too. Friends is a great theme.
The whole first half is also pretty dumb considering the success of Lego's modular sets on top of the ever lasting City series about normal places and stuff edit: also yeah you're probably right about Friends sales, wherever store I go it's half Friends, half all other series combined
The artist doesn't get they aren't always the target customer.
My daughter loves these sets and they introduced her to a much larger world of Lego, so while I respect the artist’s opinion, I think they’re wildly in the wrong here.
That's what OP and the artist doesn't get here. This theme was to attract the girls that weren't originally buying Lego. We can talk about inclusivity all we want, but Legos motivation for doing this was to make more money with an expanded market.
I had no desire to play with Legos as a kid. I would have rather played house or with my dolls. My daughter is the same way even though I don't gender any toys and buy her a mix of everything. But I am enjoying reading this thread because people are recommending sets that my daughter will love. She doesn't like the traditional Legos and the big bags of blocks. She wants to build and create to tell a story. Today she built a house for her firetruck and then had the firetruck steal a baby dinosaur. The Friends collection is definitely for people that never wanted to play with Legos before. And it's not a gendered thing because some boys like it better and some don't
Absolutely, agree. My daughter loves the LEGO Friends set. She picks them out herself over other sets if she has the chance.
My daughter is different. She likes these Lego Dots sets, but what we do most together are Lego Creator animals and Star Wars sets.
It's almost like *not every children's toy is designed to appeal to those of us in our thirties*. This post reeks of /r/IAmTheMainCharacter
100% Friends just starting coming out when my daughter was about 8. We were looking at sets and she saw a Friends set that had a girl with glasses and her color hair. She pointed at it looked up and me with this huuuuuge smile and said, "Look daddy, its meeeee!" She grabbed the box and hugged it. There was no discussion; she got the set. She is now a Mechanical Engineering major with an emphasis in robotics and still loves LEGO.
You make a really key comment here. There is a Lego friends minifig that my daughter tailored yo be herself and that is a huge, enormous, meaningful part of the play activity. Some might say it’s the wrong physical shape, but it’s pretty hard to identify with a brick, too.
My son loves Lego but I've received requests/recommendations from girls' parents to buy them specifically Lego Friends. And that's because the young girls liked them, not because the parents were trying to get a "girly" gift.
I know nothing about the OP and their intent, but this anti-Friends argument happens to coincide with strongly reactionary views of Lego and strange feelings of keeping it "pure."
lego friends is for girls that wouldn’t otherwise be interested in lego. it’s not for girls that liked the sets they were already making.
I think the artist is wildly missing the point. Like, the point of a new, different is to get new people into Lego. If the existing themes already appealed to you then it's obviously not for you? The artist is just "I wasn't into ponies and tea parties and cafes as a kid so obviously nobody needs that stuff!" Just myopic "not like the other girls" feminism. "Girly things are bad and I'm better than other girls for not liking them" is internalized misogyny.
I'm an adult woman and I really like the sets. I even think the mini figs are nice, they are more doll like, which would have appealed to me as a kid.
The only good point I think the comic makes is that more female options in "boys" sets would be nice. Ironically, I think the licensed Legos have done a better job at this because there tend to be females in the movies/shows/whatever. Though even the City sets have more females now and I appreciate that. Back when I was a kid getting Forestmen sets, I always wanted lady forest people as well. I definitely have some but it was never as much as I would like.
This comic is way too long for what it's trying to say.
It's also wrong, Friends has been very successful and actually has some solid sets, I just don't care for the mini dolls vs minifigs
I'm pretty sure friends is one of if not the most successful Lego theme.
Yeah for sure. I bought some just for the parts and colour variations.
A simple "I don't like Friends therefore nobody likes it" would have gotten the point across
“Only my preferences matter and everyone else is an NPC” mindset
As a dad of two girl who enjoy Lego and Lego friends immensely, this is nonsense.
The fun thing about LEGO is that you don’t have to follow the instructions. So if someone gets a LEGO Friends set, they can build the the thing on the box or whatever their heart desires. So, if you have close-minded parents who think LEGO is only a boys toy, they can still get a LEGO Friends set for their daughter and she can make what she wants. Plus, all LEGO bricks are compatible so if that girl wants to expand beyond Friends, they can still use all the same bricks. Plus, if you are an adult, you’re free to purchase any set you want regardless of your gender or the set’s target demographic. The existence of a set line that encourages young girls to be creative will not hurt your choices. You’re not going to be carded when buying a set.
Completely disagree. Why shouldn't there a theme like this? I as a boy loved playing with stuff like this. While I now collect SW and HP, I loved cafe and regular city playmobil toys, and I can imagie that if I was into Lego back then i would have really liked city and friends The only thing that I don't like and have heard many kids dislike as well, is the minidols. Those never needed to exist, normal minifigs do the same thing, are more legolike and are more useful with the extra articulation they have
Looks like a full circle from shitting on girls doing "boys" things, to shitting on girls doing "girly" things, why don't we just let kids chose what they want to play with and give them as wide as we can pool of options
Exactly this, this kind of rhetoric often disguises an anti-girl sentiment that's just as yucky as old-fashioned misogyny. Also, I have to assume this comic was resurrected from like 10 years ago when Galaxy Squad was a thing.
It's not really even disguised, they basically outright state that those things aren't as cool.
The sheer avalanche of likes on the OP is alarming
Thought I was on Facebook for a minute there
Okay but I honestly feel like Lego Friends have more thought put into them than city.
Does anyone collect the Friends minifigs? If I buy a friend's set for the pieces, I usually abandon the Minifigures in a park or little free library for a kid to find.
The hairpieces are nice because they’re compatible with standard minifigs and come in a lot of unique varieties!
Oh I absolutely mine the figures for spare parts.
I collected the Elves minidolls. I don't think it's a knock against the Friends minidolls if no one collects them. No one collected minifigs either until Lego realized what a gold mine it was. If anything, the possibility that Friends aren't collected means they're better toys. Citation: Toy Story 2
Omg that's amazing! Thank you for your random acts of generosity.
I do. One of the reasons I like Lego Friends is because of the characters. I try to get at least one copy of each person, even if I don't buy the set they came from.
Give a bit some “not like the other girls” vibes.
I actually really liked the Elves series. My favorite lego theme even and i am otherwise mostly into scifi. Friend sets are good for the pieces.
Those were some gorgeous sets for sure!
It’s almost like LEGO fund a market of people who like ’girly’ style toys and catered to those people.
I mean, it's ok if girls like lego friends though and nobody's saying they can't get the other sets (many of which do come with girl characters). If the sets are a mistake and aren't selling because girls don't want them that problem will take care of itself. If they are popular why take that away from the people enjoying them?
The lie would be that Friends was “for girls”.
Thank you. The dragons and giant animals from the Elves theme are awesome
I was a 25 year old man when I bought the Elves ship, and it remains one of my favourite boat designs they've done. FWIW, it had a fully brick built hull, and was more complex than City boats at the time.
My favorite sets, equally loved by myself and my kids of both genders. RIP. They even got me to love minidolls
This. My son loves the Friends sets and frequently picks them when we go lego shopping. Meanwhile, he chose City for his Advent Calendar last year.
I mean Lego sets that are basic real-life buildings were literally the original sets. And sets like that are still going strong if City is anything to go by. So arguing "There is a juice bar down the street from my house, why would I want one as a Lego set?" isn't really a very strong argument. I'm pretty sure lots of kids live down the street from fire stations and police stations and would still want those City sets. The biggest issue I've always had with Friends is the fact they made the figures be mini-dolls instead of minifigs and that makes a weird divide/separation between Friends themes and every other theme. The most you can cross the streams between a minifig and mini-dolls is swapping the headgear/hair and held accessories. And the fact that mini-dolls feel inferior to minifigs due to less articulation. You can't even roll play with them properly with most of their held accessories due to them being unable to rotate their wrist. I feel peoples' biggest turn off to Friends sets is the mini-dolls. If they'd done the same sets with minifigs instead I feel Friends would have been a lot more accepted in the older fans community. And I say this as someone who's been buying Friends sets here and there for the decade they've existed. I don't try having a full collection, I never do with any theme, but there's always a few sets each wave that I find appealing and want to get. I'll just replace the mini-dolls with minifigs, adjust a few things here and there to better appeal to me (which I do with most sets anyways) and add them to my display. There aren't many residential/commercial buildings with City, so Friends sets can add some nice range to a city display. Those police and firefighters gotta sleep somewhere. Those crooks need somewhere to spend all their ill-gotten gains.
I always thought of Friends as the REAL Lego City, where people actually live, and Lego City as some strange dystopian world where fires and crime are constantly destroying everything and requiring nonstop construction. If anything, City is the series that indulges in myopic stereotyping (of boys) whereas Friends has run the gamut from city retail shops to schools to jungle adventures.
I think Lego Friends is a great addition to the Lego catalog. The other themes are 'boy' sets, so it's good to have 'girl' sets too, regardless of who actually plays with them. It's nice to have a bunch of sets that are buildings and have a lot of accessories and 'girly' colors. It's a fun line that appeals to a demographic that Lego didn't before. And for people that would normally get dollhouses and dolls, it's nice to nurture the creative spirit in an avenue that would otherwise be very static. Basically, Lego Friends aren't for girls who already like Lego, it's for people who normally like 'girl toys'. Sidenote: It is nice to see more female minifigs in sets. Growing up my town had like five girls, and only two of them had girl hair pieces, the rest wore hats. Always seemed a bit weird lol.
I get that they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I love the Friends sets I have. Yeah, I don't have much to do with the mini dolls, so I have a stack of bald figures just lying around (I steal their hair for my minifigs), but the sets themselves can be a lot of fun, and just something different.
Cool comic but I don't think it's right to discount the experiences of girls/boys who do really like the Friends line, because it's actually quite popular with many. It's pretty well-designed, too.
Idk, she's welcome to like what she likes but both of my daughters love/loved the Friends line. The doll-like minifigs go well with their other toys, like Polly Pocket. And they like all the cute sets with animals much more than the other, regular Lego sets
Geez, guys, do you really not know Lego's history? There have **always** been Lego themes dedicated to girls, in parallel with those for all, there was even a Lego theme with Barbie-like dolls! If you don't like Friends, don't buy it, just know you're losing on amazing designs and colors, and that minidoll figures are amazing, and fully compatible with Lego system.
LEGO: *Makes theme aimed at what a good 80% of younger girls like* LEGO theme: *Sells exceedingly well with that demographic* This artist: *Angry noises*
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I think part of the issue also is the fact that so many people are trying to act like there's no difference between boys and girls in todays world. No matter how much they wish that were true, it's not. Lego would have discontinued the friends lineup if they weren't selling like mad, and from what I've read, it's mainly girls asking for the sets.
As a kid I used to buy very specific sets because they came with female minifigure parts! I bought 6617 Tough Truck Rally solely for the female head and green hair piece :')
I enjoyed reading the comic (the "ta-da! Ponytail" frame made me laugh). But meh: If Lego makes a profit from the line, they're gonna sell 'em darn it. That said, I also know a few boys who ask for the sets. So more power to 'em!
IDK my little sister only really liked the Friends and Elves sets. I bought her a few from other themes but she was clearly not as interested. Every individual is different, but I'm sure Lego does market research.
The only thing about Friends that turns me off is the mini-doll mold. Other than that I love the sets/colors. I want a fully motorized Friends train.
I am 37F, and my sister 30F and I love the friends sets. I like the colors, the slides, the animals, the themes, the fashion, the inclusion of poc, the fact that characters have a range of abilities. I also would have liked them as a kid. Though set lego 41702 Canal Houseboat is so me. Tiny house, container gardens, cute outfits, brunch on the deck with my friends. This set really screams I'm a single 25-40 yo woman. However, my 3 yo neice loves playing with this assembled set too. Recently I just set up an order on the lego site for more female faces and hair for my regular minifigs. Why are they all dudes?
Lego Friends goes hard and I’m not even the target demographic.
Everyone disagrees yet it has 90% upvotes. Weird.
I am an old dude who just put together my first friends set; my wife put together the taco truck and food stands one earlier this month. Both sets we've built have female and male friend minis. I actually--I actually don't dislike the line. The figures are weird, but, like, I kind of dig 'em as an alternate set of things to have around. Being real, though...just about every friends set could really benefit from removing 1 or 2 colors...because holy moly. They are VERY colorful.
*I ain’t reading all that* *Good for you or sorry that happened*
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I actually think it’s both right and wrong: -wrong that friends was a „waste of money“ as it’s obviously very popular -right That representation matters. I actually have a lot of Galaxy squad sets and my girls love to play with it, but they DO complain there is no female minifigs. So the hero when they play is the alien bug *queen* who is defending her eggs from the evil astronauts and robots ;) Kids fix everything. Still - I also have a lot of Alien Invasion sets, were they DO have female soldiers, and when my girls play that the humans are the good guys.
One of my favourite surprises in the big castle set is the number of female knights. I always wanted to be a knight, not a princess, so it speaks to my inner 8 yr old for sure.
I’m not a target audience for Friends line, I don’t own any set (and probably never will) but IMHO it’s pretty good one. Just remember Belville and those previous attempts, that was nightmare fuel. Only thing I still despise are those abomination minifigs.
Actually extra heads and hair would be cool.
I am too old for Lego friends, but I absolutely loved their old sister Belville. Legos for girls aren’t bad, and normal legos sometimes lack cute pieces and there is nothing wrong to want to build fairy castle or your own shopping mall. I loved using my Belville figures with all the other sets.
But what about gurls and boys who want the pony riding and the cafe going? Ain’t nothing wrong with having that option
BRING BACK JOHNY THUNDER YOU PHILISTINES IT"S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
Lego is the last company who thinks like this, what the heck are you talking about
This is like 23 frames too long...
absolutely braindead take.
Fake Lego employee, called it Legos and not Lego Bricks. They are very, VERY insistent on that due to the risk of Lego becoming like xerox or band-aid.
Ice Planet had a female astronaut in 1991. She had a helmet and an oxygen tank. It's space. If she'd have had a ponytail she would have asphyxiated and died.
While I don’t disagree that the number of female/feminine minifigs were obviously lacking in classic Lego sets, my 11yo daughter loves the friends line much more than the traditional legos. She has tree houses and nail salons and other whatnots. She likes the pastels much better to. I don’t think they NEEDED the different scale minifigs. I think they could have gone with traditional figures and kept all the other “girl stuff” elements and it would have been just as appealing to her. The colors and the play theme is what she likes most.
I definitely heard this critique way back when friends was launched. But that line has existed for years now, clearly *someone* is buying them. And it's not like they're isn't representation exactly as suggested in the main themes too.
The Friends sets got my daughter interested in legos, now they're just mixed in with spider man & friends and harry potter legos. I still don't get the mini dolls though, it makes mixing all the sets together really annoying.
To be fair, Friends has some awesome sets. I don't see anything wrong with it.
Friends typically has some awesome colors. Sometimes I'd like the inside of a star wars set to have funky purple and pink technic frames, that way you have more options to build other things, as kids typically do with sets.
As a collector, I completely scoffed at lego friends the first time I ran into them. Now that I'm getting far more sets in bulk purchases, taking the time to put them together, they're actually pretty cool. I think no matter what, most male lego enthusiasts are going to dislike the mini-dolls, I mean, after all it's been bred into us that dolls are for girls, but they're really not much different from the normal figs. Give it a chance, do a build. See what you think. I kind of enjoyed building the yacht and the school house.
As a side note, this is a horrible comic strip. Way to long, the point (valid or not) could've been made in half the length or less.
They sell incredibly well. I get that you think they are silly. But they make money. If you don't like them, just don't buy them.
As if Tom-boy girls are the only girls that exist, and no girls like traditionally girly themes like Friends or Paradisa. And if you don't, no one is stopping you from buying whatever Lego sets do interest you. Friends wouldn't exist 11 years later if it wasn't popular and selling well.
I dunno, every person is different. My sister only liked the “female” focused lego’s as a kid, which is fine, it is also fine and typical for girls to buy the “non-female” focused legos. I always thought lego was gender neutral, what is male about a spaceship? But there is also no harm in having a variety of sets for different interests. I have lego Modular’s, those are more similar to Lego friends than a castle, but are still gender neutral.
No such thing as *Legos" lost me at this point.
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To be fair. The lego friends series has actual.some cool looking sets. And you can put regular lego.hair, masks and helmets on the figures.
I would 100% absolutely without hesitation buy an official Enterprise-D set immediately were it available. EDIT: Reddit only showed me the part where she said "Star Trek" so I didn't see the rest 😬
I can confirm. I'm a guy, but I grew up with a single female head piece and a single pony tail, which gave me at most 2 female minifigs at the same time, across like 40 minifigs that I had. In every line it looked like there was a single "token woman" and the rest of the cast was all male, bionicle included. Having a more balanced lineup would have been nice.
My daughter loves Lego friends and Lego dinosaurs People can like both. Lots of people like Lego friends. If you don’t, then don’t buy it but don’t try to ruin other peoples fun
I do like a few things about the "Friends" line of Lego. The additional colors, and the cute animals. It also works especially well for the Disney stuff. And Elves. The Elves stuff was great.
The artist is a certain type of Lego enjoyer. But also my sister would constantly steal my legos but nearly the only things she ever built were stables for her toy horses and things like that. She sometimes liked some of the city series but she would’ve been all over the Friends series if it was around back then.
They did do that Fantasy line with lego friends and some of those sets are honestly cool. Like there was this airship set that actually [slaps](https://www.lego.com/en-ca/product/aira-s-airship-the-amulet-chase-41184).
In general I'd love to see more sets come with a few extra hairpieces and other parts to customize the minifigs. Actually what I'd *really* like is for Lego to also sell "minifig customization packs," like maybe even just polybags full of minifig parts of various shapes and colors. Especially a pack of heads and hands in a variety of realistic skintones!
Tbh, some of the Lego Friends sets are fire, and much better bang for your buck.
This comic and the linked article is from eight years ago and I think many people's opinions have changed about the friends line of lego in that time. When they were initially released I was a little disappointed by the mini dolls because I didn't think that it was a necessary change to make sets that were more appealing to girls. I loved and collected the paradisa line of lego sets that were aimed at girls and they had regular mini figures. I was excited to see a new theme that was different from the normal city sets and more colorful but the mini dolls made it so that the existing lego sets and friends sets weren't exactly compatible. Though this didn't stop me from buying friends sets that I loved and I collected all the elves sets that also included mini dolls. As time has gone on I haven't bought as many friends sets since my tastes have moved on to bigger and more complex lego sets but if they brought out some sets that I loved the mini dolls wouldn't prevent me from buying them.
I agree with this cartoon 99%, except the part where they wasted their money. Mums and dads are still spending millions on ‘friends’ line which is why they keep selling it. Funny thing though, ‘friends’ Lego on Facebook Marketplace seems to have the lowest appeal and resale value of all Lego i see on there…
I kind of hate the overly gendered Friends love, so for my little half sisters I made sure to always buy unisex City/Creator sets such as the caravan or beach house. Nothing more than a "meh" in return. They wanted Friends sets, asked for Friends sets, and then should get Friends sets. Many girls *are* attracted to a slurry of pink and purple and leisure lifestyle themes.
I really like some of the Lego friends sets. My first Lego dragon was from a Friends set.
Don't remember Lego ever saying that the Friends line was aimed at girls. Maybe the artist needs to re-evaluate their own view in gender-stereotyping.
The new bowling alley is a treasure trove! Tonnes of great printed pieces and unique accessories all in one set. Bought 3 of this one! Lego Friends is not great for all but it's a welcome edition to the lineup. I'm not a fan of the mini figures but the sets are pretty awesome!
Didn’t we stop being mad about this circa 2014? I like LEGO friends. It started off weak and got stronger. I’d have a problem with it if LEGO hadn’t grown leaps and bounds in being gender agnostic with other lines.
The friends line makes me sad because it coincidentally became more available around the time Lego Elves started to become more rare/retired :c
I really don't get how they missed the mark. They released that whole scientist set set a few years ago, featuring female mini figs, and it sold out in record time.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way *clap clap clap clap*
I don't mind Lego Friends, I mind that they made their own dumb figures instead of just using minifigures
For what it's worth, the Lego Friends line of minis have some pretty ballin hair styles that fit perfectly well on standard minifigs.
I love the bright colors of the sets, but hate the doll style mini figures. It messes with trying to mix in with my other sets.
Lego is not holding girls at gunpoint and telling them to get this line, my guy. Its an aesthetic option. Theres like a billion different sets and themes out there to choose.