Today marks the LEGO company’s 80th birthday. LEGO seems to be taking a fairly low-key approach to turning four-fifths of a century old, but over on the Rebrick Blog, the ReBrick team have put together an interesting brief article outlining the early days of the online adult fan community.

The early users, many of whom were also hackers (a hacker, in its true and original sense, is “an enthusiast, an artist, a tinkerer, a problem solver, an expert”), embedded in the AFOL community their love of creativity, problem solving tinkering, and sense of detail. Till this day, these values continue to define the AFOL culture.

As the Internet began to mainstream (beginning 2000s) many AFOLs “came out of the closet” (AFOL expression) and found their way to the fan sites. Compared to today, however, it was very rare to find adults who openly confessed to being LEGO users.

Read the rest at ReBrick.

Check out this special video that tells The LEGO Company’s story.

Lastly, Lego fan Lasse Vestergård built a Lego museum to celebrate the occasion. It features iconic objects like the System bricks, minifigure, and the wooden duck.