This week, I have been buried under a series of story tips and reporting leads that I\u2019m excited about, that I think are important, and that I am anxious to get into the world. But I woke up today and realized that I could simply no longer ignore a simmering drama that has been on my radar for weeks that is now breaking containment and demands attention: The YouTube LEGO drama, aka Bricks & Minifigs scandal.It is, unfortunately, impossible to succinctly or fully explain the YouTube LEGO drama, for I believe it is impossible for one to fully understand or suss out every angle of what is going on. The drama is buried in dozens of YouTube videos\u2014many of which are hours long\u2014police reports, local news reports, police body camera footage (!), cease and desist letters, hostage-style vertical video statements, and more. But it is important that you are at the very least aware of it, and that you know it is occurring, because it is fucking crazy. One of the things we aspire to do at 404 Media is to amplify the most important stories in individual communities to a wider audience, and this is one such case, which touches on so many things we are at least kind of interested in, is tearing apart the LEGO community, is one of the most popular things happening on YouTube right now, and appears to have become the most important local news story in a small town in Utah called American Fork.\u00a0I am not the only one who feels this way. TechDirt\u2019s Mike Masnick, in a post titled \u201cEveryone in This LEGO Dispute Should Have Spoken to a Lawyer Earlier Than They Did,\u201d describes it thusly: \u201cIf you haven\u2019t been following the Bricks & Minifigs saga, congratulations on your peaceful existence. It\u2019s a genuinely difficult story to track, partly because you have to watch a bunch of long YouTube videos to piece it together, and partly because almost everyone covering it is pushing a specific angle.\u201d\u00a0Is this goodI could not agree with Masnick more, and if you do not like my writing and want a more detailed legal analysis, then his 6,000-word blog is a good place to go. The drama has spawned its own Wikipedia page called \u201cBricks & Minifigs\u2014Reckless Ben Controversy,\u201d various Reddit Out of the Loop posts and a \u201cmegathread\u201d about the saga on the LEGO subreddit, and local coverage including \u201cUtah agencies inundated with calls as American Fork Police faces controversy over LEGO YouTuber arrest,\u201d which are also good places to track what\u2019s going on.Despite this insane intro in which I have yet to explain anything about the scandal, I will try to be brief so that you can at least tell your friends \u201chey did you hear about this insane LEGO shit\u201d and you can then laugh and\/or cry.\u00a0WHAT IS GOING ON (I THINK)(ALSO MASSIVELY ABBREVIATED):\u00a0Bricks & Minifigs is a chain of independent LEGO stores that has a series of franchises around the country. A thing that at least some Bricks & Minifigs stores do is consignment. In 2023, a man named Ed Mansell and his son Bryan asked a Bricks & Minifigs store in Salem-Keizer, Oregon, to sell their collection of LEGO bricks, which, according to the store itself, was worth \u201cover $200,000.\u201d The store began to sell this collection, but then the owner of the franchise changed hands and was taken over by Bricks & Minifigs corporate. At this point, Bryan attempted to either get the unsold portion of his collection back or money for the collection. Bryan, apparently, was told to pound sand.Bryan then contacted a YouTuber with a million followers named Ben Schneider, who goes by \u201cReckless Ben\u201d on YouTube. Reckless Ben made a series of YouTube videos, starting with the hour-and-a-half-long \u201cI tracked down the thief who stole $200,000 of LEGO,\u201d which currently has 4 million views. Schneider basically did a series of wacky but also funny things to draw attention to the matter, which included putting a giant sign on the shuttered Bricks & Minifigs store in question that read \u201cPermanently closed. We stole a family\u2019s life savings. They sued. We lost. By closing the store, we got out of having to pay the family what we owe them.\u201d (Bricks & Minifigs claims that the store was instead \u201cclosed temporarily because our staff\u2014including local teenagers\u2014faced severe real-world safety hazards, targeted in-person stalking, and explicit bomb threats driven by viral videos.\u201d)There are various other things Schneider did in the video, which included starting a company called \u201cWe Steal From Old People,\u201d which are possibly funny but also not necessarily relevant. Schneider also set up a GoFundMe page for Bryan, which has currently raised $382,000.As part of all of this, Schneider went to Bricks & Minifigs headquarters in Utah in March as well as the home of one of its executives; Schneider was arrested by American Fork, Utah police and charged with stalking and targeted residential picketing. Local news reported he was also separately arrested in American Fork on charges of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.\u00a0After Schneider\u2019s video came out, Bricks & Minifigs got pissed at him and has posted two different, very long blogs about the incidents that the company says has required them to \u201cprocess a massive wave of online chaos.\u201d The company basically says that this is a big misunderstanding, that Schneider\u2019s videos are unfair, that its employees are now getting harassed, and that the LEGO bricks at issue weren\u2019t actually worth $200,000, anyway.\u00a0\u00a0Understandably, Schneider has turned this response into additional content, which has also gone viral. Then, this week, body camera footage of Schneider being arrested by American Fork police was released and is being poured over by the community. The American Fork police department also quite possibly created a brand new YouTube channel to release an extremely bizarre, 30-minute YouTube video filmed in a facsimile of The Matrix\u2019s The Construct void room about the arrests that simply must be seen to be believed. The police do not come off looking good in any of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Patreon (@patreon)<\/p>\n
THEN, Bricks & Minifigs sent a cease-and-desist letter to Patreon, asking them to take down Reckless Ben\u2019s Patreon, where he has been posting further updates and early access to future videos about the saga behind a paywall. Patreon\u2019s CEO Jack Conte filmed a hostage-style video about this takedown request and said that \u201cafter an extensive review \u2026 we have determined that Bricks & Minifigs can stuff it. We\u2019re keeping Ben\u2019s page up. And if Bricks & Minifigs doesn\u2019t like that, they can sue us. Patreon out.\u201dThat\u2019s more or less where we\u2019re at today, factswise.THE FALLOUT \/ WHO CARESAgain, I am glossing over much of what has happened here because to try to parse all of it would take many, many hours of my and your time and would result in even more excruciating detail than I have already provided. This has become a major, major deal in the LEGO community, on YouTube, and in the Utah and Oregon communities where this all happened. It is extremely feeding the content industry\u2014here\u2019s just a tiny sample of some videos from the YouTube commentariat about the saga:Bricks & Minifigs CEO Responded\u2026And Made Everything Worse (478,000 views, LEGO Empire)I Help YouTuber Arresteds Over Lego Videos (Part 1) (2.8 million views, The Civil Rights Lawyer)LEGO Scandal Explodes as YouTuber \u2018Reckless Ben\u2019 is Arrested Twice (104,000 views, Law&Crime Network)\u2018We Never Thought It Would Get This Crazy.\u2019 Reckless Ben on what\u2019s next in viral Lego Case (450,000 views, Fox 5 Washington DC)The Lego Bodycam Footage Has Been Released (140,000 views, xQc)Bricks & Minifigs IS DEAD ($200K STOLEN LEGO) (83,000 views, TNT_Bricks)LEGO Scandal Company Response Is Horrible (2.4 million views, penguinz0)RICO Suits and Restraining Orders: The Bricks & Minifigs Chaos Just Got WORSE (388,000 views, Lawful Masses With Leonard French)As Masnick explains in his article, this should have been sorted out by lawyers probably years ago, but it was not. What is happening now is classic YouTuber drama that has spilled out into the normie \u201creal world,\u201d which I say not derisively but because objectively we have a bunch of police officers and local news outlets and local governments wondering what the fuck is going on. This happens a couple times a year, such as in 2020 when the YouTuber Boogie2988 went to another YouTuber\u2019s house and shot a gun into the air. It happens when YouTubers get swatted, arrested, or otherwise intersect with broader society.\u00a0Here are local news stories about the scandal:Nationwide LEGO resale store caught up in alleged theft scandal, YouTuber lawsuit (Fox 54)Conflict Over Purportedly Stolen Legos Leads to Accusations of Misconduct Against American Fork Police Department (ABC4)The latest on Keizer Bricks & Minifigs and Prized Star Wars Lego Set (Statesman Journal)Sign on Shuttered Keizer Store Accuses Bricks & Minifigs of Lego Theft (Statesman Journal)Utah Agencies Inundated by Calls as American Fork Police Faces Controversy Over LEGO YouTuber Arrest (ABC 4)\u2018I Just Thought It Was Such a Crazy Level of Injustice\u2019: YouTuber at Center of Lego Dispute Speaks, Explains Why He Got Involved in the First Place (ABC4)A dispute over a prized Star Wars Lego collection led to a YouTube crusade. Then came the stalking charges in Utah. (Salt Lake Tribune)This is all to say that this is YouTube drama executed perfectly by all involved, and perhaps the most disastrous brand response one could imagine. Bricks & Minifigs could have sorted this out ages ago but did not; it has since become a massive clusterfuck and content bomb for all involved. The perfect internet story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"