LEGO People To Rule The World By 2019
LEGO people could rule the world by 2019. That’s right. It won’t be robots, aliens, or zombies. Little tiny plastic figurines produced by LEGO since 1978 will supposedly outnumber actual human beings by the year 2019. At least that is the findings of one physics graduate student from Massachusetts who publishes the popular online comic www.xkcd.com.
In 2006, LEGO reported that there approximately 4 billion figurines being played with by children around the world. Based on current predictions, in 2019 both real people and LEGO people will cross the 8 billion mark. The little plastic ones will just be crossing at a faster growth rate.
LEGO began in Denmark during the 1930’s in the workshop of toymaker Ole Kirk Christiansen. Lego comes from the danish phrase that means “play well.” As of 2006, LEGO estimated that they manufactured over 400 billion of their blocks, the building life of all things LEGO. That is enough for every person on the planet to own 62 blocks of their own. They have since moved from making blocks and figures towards movies, video games, theme parks, and general world domination.
The very first LEGO person produced in 1978 was made to be non-gender specific to allow children to use their imaginations. In the 80’s the first gender specific set was produced featuring pirates. Since then, LEGO has produced everything from cowboys to Star Wars to Marvel characters. And they show no sign of slowing down.
For us humans, there is some frightening news though. When the LEGO people were originally designed it was decided that they would be yellow in color and have neutral or happy expression. But according to Robot experts at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, who studied all 6000 minifigures from 1975 to 2010 and found that from the early Nineties onwards, Lego’s mini-figures’ facials expressions have been diversifying from consistently happy smiles to expressions reflecting greater conflict. The LEGO people are getting angrier! So just know that when they rule the world, LEGO people may not be those happy characters we remember from our youth!
