It’s a bit of a long story. I read some of the Bionicle Adventures/Legends books forever ago at my local library. At that point I’m not even sure I knew they were LEGO, or really what LEGO was. I got into LEGO in 2008ish and loved getting the Bionicle comics with the magazines and reading them. I only actually got a couple sets, I was more into the comics, but at some point they just stopped coming with the magazines.
A bit later, I can’t remember when, remembering the comics and books, I went onto the Bionicle Wiki and read up on the whole history of Bionicle. I also ordered a few of the old books off Amazon to read them. I loved - and still love - the story, I’d read the serials all the time, and wait for an ending for “The Yesterday Quest”, wondering why it was taking so long to finish. Then one day, while frolicking on the Lego Message boards, I found the “Ask Greg” topic and asked some questions about Bionicle. Over time, however, my interest in Bionicle kind of faded and I stopped visiting the wiki or the LMB.
Then one day, months later, I randomly decided to check out the topic again, and found people asking Greg about the “return of Bionicle”. I did a few searches and found TTV episode 117, talking about the sets. I liked it, so I watched the next one, 118, and the next, 119. 119 is probably the one that cemented me as a fan. The awesome insights in their discussion of internet anonymity and the whole people vs. statistic thing was really cool and interesting. It’s still one of my favorite episodes. And I became a fan ever since. I’ve watched most of their videos, and joined their boards.
But being a fan also kind of changed me, as TTV was more or less the first YouTube channel with a community I followed, which introduced me to so many new things. People compared Autopsy to Game Theory, so I checked that out, which introduced me to video game culture as a whole. TTV’s discussions about the MCU was one of the main reasons I started watching Marvel movies, and now I’m a dedicated fan. And more recently, TTV Talks about RWBY got me to check out RWBY, which led me to Roosterteeth and RvB, and now I love all three.
It’s really weird to think about the fact that randomly checking the “Ask Greg” topic has led me to where I am now and probably changed my life at least some. And I’ve kind of rambled on some, but there we are. And thank you TTV for helping me be the person I am now!