Nothing like starting young girls worrying about their appearances early, Lego. Surprisingly, the US Lego Club magazine featured some handy how-tos for 7-12 year old's on haircuts, with such charming tips as: 'For heart faces, deep side parts accentuate your lovely eyes. Long, curly layers and thinned out curls and bangs also play up your angular cheeks.'
Apart from the fact that seven year olds don't usually get a say in how their hair is cut because it's usually purely practical, why do seven year olds need to care how their face shape works with their haircut anyway? Can't we keep them blissfully ignorant until they're at least in double figures?!
'My little girl, the shape of her face, and whether her haircut is flattering are none of Lego’s concern,' wrote Sharon Holbrook in The New York Times, after her daughter came in one day and asked her whether she had an oval face shape and what she should do with her hair. 'It wasn't even her concern until a toy magazine told her to start worrying about it.'
This comes after Lego outraged parents with the introduction of Heartlake City, a range aimed squarely at girls and including pink stables, hair salons and princess-y houses. Considering Lego has always been fairly genderless (anyone who didn't enjoy the haunted house set is dead inside), it's a shame that they've started introducing segregation - notably, the 'yellow brick' version of the magazine for girls and the red brick magazine for boys, featuring ninjas, cars, Star Wars, superheroes, builders. We'd take ninjas over a pony stable any day.
Regarding the advice column, Lego's brand relations manager Michael McNally released a statement apologising for the problems the article caused: 'One particular thing that readers asked us to include was an advice column,' he told Mashable. 'In the most recent magazine, we attempted to deliver against this request by elaborating on a current Lego Friends story line. We sincerely regret any disappointment it may have caused. We value this feedback and have already shared with the Lego Club team in order to positively impact future stories.'
Couldn't you have just created an advice column on how to build lego? Surely fervent Lego fans would prefer that over being told they should have a fringe because they have a pointy chin or whatever.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.