194
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
generate content for companies like LEGO. 42 Hence, as the wiki TV Tropes
points out, “a lot of the film’s humor comes from jokes that can be done with
LEGO Toys, like the similar LEGO Adaptation Game series (which even has
a game based on this film)” (“Western Animation”). Therefore, as Maaike
Lauwaert has explained, “[b]y incorporating peripheral, many-to-many
activities and practices within new products, these activities and practices
are commodified […] [and] work penetrates play. The result is a partly
commodified geography of play in which certain divergent user practices
are ‘harvested’ and commercially used”. 43 True to Lauwaert’s description,
this same blogger goes on to explain that the
“LEGO Adaptation Game” has become a catch-all term for a looselyconnected series of Multi-Platform VideoGames made by Travellers’
Tales, based on combining the license for LEGO with that of another
work, generally a film, as tie-ins to licensed toy lines based on the same
films LEGO is producing and selling around the same time. These games
[…] consist of LEGO interpretations of previously licensed work, with
tongue-in-cheek, often parodical [sic] cut-scenes poking fun at both those
works and the fact that they are made out of LEGO bricks. 44
In other words, the labor of fans who have long produced “jokes that can be
done with LEGO Toys” and short films on YouTube become both consumers
of the bricks and producers of content based on the bricks. A portion of that
content is then appropriated by LEGO and ultimately feeds an organizational
form that rehashes “previously licensed work,” and maintains control over
storyworlds for the corporate generation of enormous profits.
But again, what is the big deal if everyone is having a good time? How
seriously should one take a light-hearted toy and film that, we are told, is
all about people being “inspired by each other, people taking something you
made and making something new out of it,” or making “whatever weird thing
that comes into your head and building things only you can build”? First, as
42 For a detailed discussion of playbor in various media, see Julian Kücklich, “FCJ-025 Precarious
Playbour: Modders and the Digital Gaming Industry,” The Fibreculture Journal, Vol. 5 (2005), and
Joyce Goggin “Playbour, Farming and Leisure,” Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organziation,
Vol. 11, no. 4 (2011): 357–368. See also S.C. Bolton and M. Houlihan “Are we having fun yet? A
consideration of workplace fun and engagement.” In Employee Relations, Vol. 31, no. 6 (2009):
556–568, on employee “fun.”
43 Lauwaert, 69.
44 “The Lego Movie” on TV Tropes, accessed February 15, 2019, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/
pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
generate content for companies like LEGO. 42 Hence, as the wiki TV Tropes
points out, “a lot of the film’s humor comes from jokes that can be done with
LEGO Toys, like the similar LEGO Adaptation Game series (which even has
a game based on this film)” (“Western Animation”). Therefore, as Maaike
Lauwaert has explained, “[b]y incorporating peripheral, many-to-many
activities and practices within new products, these activities and practices
are commodified […] [and] work penetrates play. The result is a partly
commodified geography of play in which certain divergent user practices
are ‘harvested’ and commercially used”. 43 True to Lauwaert’s description,
this same blogger goes on to explain that the
“LEGO Adaptation Game” has become a catch-all term for a looselyconnected series of Multi-Platform VideoGames made by Travellers’
Tales, based on combining the license for LEGO with that of another
work, generally a film, as tie-ins to licensed toy lines based on the same
films LEGO is producing and selling around the same time. These games
[…] consist of LEGO interpretations of previously licensed work, with
tongue-in-cheek, often parodical [sic] cut-scenes poking fun at both those
works and the fact that they are made out of LEGO bricks. 44
In other words, the labor of fans who have long produced “jokes that can be
done with LEGO Toys” and short films on YouTube become both consumers
of the bricks and producers of content based on the bricks. A portion of that
content is then appropriated by LEGO and ultimately feeds an organizational
form that rehashes “previously licensed work,” and maintains control over
storyworlds for the corporate generation of enormous profits.
But again, what is the big deal if everyone is having a good time? How
seriously should one take a light-hearted toy and film that, we are told, is
all about people being “inspired by each other, people taking something you
made and making something new out of it,” or making “whatever weird thing
that comes into your head and building things only you can build”? First, as
42 For a detailed discussion of playbor in various media, see Julian Kücklich, “FCJ-025 Precarious
Playbour: Modders and the Digital Gaming Industry,” The Fibreculture Journal, Vol. 5 (2005), and
Joyce Goggin “Playbour, Farming and Leisure,” Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organziation,
Vol. 11, no. 4 (2011): 357–368. See also S.C. Bolton and M. Houlihan “Are we having fun yet? A
consideration of workplace fun and engagement.” In Employee Relations, Vol. 31, no. 6 (2009):
556–568, on employee “fun.”
43 Lauwaert, 69.
44 “The Lego Movie” on TV Tropes, accessed February 15, 2019, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/
pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie.