Posted on 04/05/2025 7:31:52 AM PDT by Towed_Jumper
Bob Friedland’s home in Little Falls, NJ, is filled with Lego. Lego flowers adorn his dining room table. A Lego reproduction of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” hangs in his office. He has 10 Lego city skylines scattered throughout his abode (one for every town he’s visited). On Halloween, he strings lights on his Lego “Nightmare Before Christmas” set and displays it at the bay window at the front of his house.
“I had to move out of my condo and into a house to find a place to put them all,” Friedland, 50, told The Post.
Friedland has worked in the toy industry as a marketer for decades, but he only began seriously playing with Lego in 2020.
Like many adults stuck at home during the Coronavirus pandemic that spring, Friedland found himself alone and anxious. He remembered how playing with the snappable plastic building blocks had brought him joy as a child. So he bought a 1,000-piece Lego “Voltron” set — based on the 1980s cartoon. And then bought another, and another. He’s completed at least 50 sets since, re-creating everything from a bonsai plant to the set of Jerry’s apartment on “Seinfeld.”
“They’re a stress reliever,” Friedland said. “They don’t fall apart, you can put them on a shelf and look at them and they give you fun, good memories.”
Friedland isn’t the only grown-up embracing their inner child. What started as a pandemic pastime has exploded into a phenomenon, with companies such as MGA Entertainment, Hasbro and Lego pumping out products targeted to these so-called “kidults”: miniature fake food, limited-edition Formula 1 figurines and intricate building sets.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Jeeps and a .50 cal Hawkens that
Belonged to Hatchet Jack !
**there are more manly hobbies like 49 willys jeeps**
Me, I’m just waiting for a new right rear brake caliper to arrive so I can install it on my wife’s Highlander.
Toys, games, and pets. I’m almost the only millennial left who doesn’t have toys, games, and pets.
What’s so wrong with real life?
Everyone’s a cat collector, or betting online, or obsessed with some toy collection or saving for their next tattoo. They can hardly cross a street without checking their messages. Nearly clipped another one today.
City needs bigger pot holes so these imbeciles will have to look where they’re going.
An unserious generation, with another coming up right behind them.
Viagra is made for men with a medical condition making them unable to have sex, not for men who don’t have that sex problem.
Let that percolate for just a moment before reading the story.
Don’t those come without a drivetrain?
My extended family had a WWII jeep. It had a 2.3L flat or L-head engine and got terrible mileage. I think a small-block V8 would have been a good upgrade. Like the 260 we had in our ‘63 wagon.
Anyway, you have to put something in there!
That wasn't just joy those toys brought him as a child, it was security, and he needs to resolve what drove him toward them. No maladaptive mechanism in use today is going to fill that hole from childhood.
Check out Rod Stewart’s model train setup.
I had two project jeeps that I wound up abandoning due to medical bills and some parts were just too absurd in price.
The guy who bought my 65 Willys is still planning to buy my parts CJ7.
Besides where I kept them was becoming impractical.
I noticed my local Target prominently features complex - obviously adult - Legos kits in their toy section.
I got a kit for a Legos “succulent garden” for my birthday - I put it together and it is sitting on a shelf in my front room.
Saw a beautiful Legos Thanksgiving centerpiece that I may tackle next year...
His toys as a child were anchors in an unstable life-situation and he's re-anchoring by using them.
He's an adult now, and needs to seek counseling to resolve early child instability and embrace the adult understanding that we don't have the control we think we need.
I’m more partial to RAT Patrol.
Pets are real life.
Interspecies relationships are precious.
(And they are good practice for rug rats.)
I agree with your sentiment but fear some of these same toy people would opt to get their "pets" from a Furries Convention.
The USS Missouri seen here as a lego kit is 279 feet longer and 11 feet wider than the USS Arizona.
The Mighty Mo is also 5 feet longer and 18 feet wider than the RMS Titanic.
Just how big is the Missouri? If you could stand the ship on end,
it would be 332 feet taller than the Washington Monument.
I can't argue with as it's applicable to so many boomers. I can tell you I personally gave up watching professional (and college), sports decades ago. The last time I watched a pro football game was when Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier were still in the backfield for Pittsburgh.
“Grown-ups are buying more toys than preschoolers”
Grown-ups have more money than preschoolers.
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