Giant Lego Man washes ashore in Florida

Photo: Jeff Hindman

Boing Boing reader Jeff Hindman says he chanced across a "giant Legoman washed ashore" today while strolling on the beach at Siesta Key Village, Fla.

"It is very big, about 8 ft. tall," Hindman said. " ... I worked with Lego in my younger days, but this piece is amazing, it's still there on the beach."

A photo of the creature shows it beached on a sandbank, in otherwise good condition. On its chest is the message, "No real than you are."

This suggests it has the same origin as Lego men who washed ashore in Zandvoort, Holland, three years ago, and then in Brighton, England.

A tourist shot footage of the Holland landing:

Some more coverage of the earlier beaching was posted at Emvergeoning.

Further searching reveals the homepage of Ego Leonard.

My name is Ego Leonard and according to you I come from the virtual world. A world that for me represents happiness, solidarity, all green and blossoming, with no rules or limitations.

Lately however, my world has been flooded with fortune-hunters and people drunk with power. And many new encounters in the virtual world have triggered my curiosity about your way of life.

I am here to discover and learn about your world and thoughts.

Show me all the beautiful things that are there to admire and experience in your world. Let’s become friends, share your story with me, take me with you on a journey through beautiful meadows, words, sounds and gestures.

Has this Lego man been afloat for years on a translatlantic journey?

UPDATE: Video! HowBoutJoey shot some video of the beached Ego Leonard. He also stood it up, revealing the number 8.

• [Ben Gott]

  That’s wonderful.

• [S.G.]

  Ego Leonard = Leonard, Ego = L. Ego

  C’mon son

• [Gordon Bird]

  That lego man is all wrong.  Where is the negative space in his feet?  If I stood him up , he would just fall right over.  Useless!

• [kellycraven]

  Additionally, there is a Lego Land park getting ready to open about 2 hours north of this beach. While there are closer beaches to that site, none so high-end as Siesta Key and no local population so delightfully engaged in fake art as those in the Sarasota area. 

  • [Christopher Doelling]

    Its open already.

• [Guest]

   the brick is a lie

• [Brian Riggins]

  Dibs on the Halloween costume.

• [Hubris Sonic]

  ooohh..  that’s where that went.

• [Paul Bokel]

  How smart of him that he only ‘washes ashore’ in popular seaside resorts….

  • [Guest]

     I think it’s smart of the resorts to be by the seaside.

• [Oliver Schmieding]

  Lo! A Urethane Rayon.  

• [Kevin Pierce]

  EXISTENTIAL HULK TWEET ON CHEST

• [Bad Girl Alexambiah]

  Meeh! Another marketing strategy to sell t-shirts on Ego Leonard. I’d be more than happy to take the giant lego home tho..

• [Chang Terhune]

  Man, if that guy washed up on a beach near me I’d haul him into the back of the truck, strap him in, race home and weld him to the deck.  That thing’s hype!

• [John Eppley]

  Not enough barnacles for years at sea. I’m going with Lego Land publicity stunt.

  • [plus MEDIC]

    Why would the text on its chest be in such poor english? What’s the connection to the ones in Britain and Holland? I really doubt it’s a Lego publicity stunt, and more likely done by a group of artists.

    • [Barbara Dace]

      I saw a lot of English errors like that in Asia, where learning English is strongly encouraged but correcting your superior’s grammatical errors is not (“Um, Boss?  It’s should say, “N0 more real…”—oh, never mind.”).  

      • [秀平 月]

        Ahem… if anything, Danes speak better (and more intelligible) English than Britons themselves ;-).

• [Larry Rubinow]

  Worth a link: http://books.google.com/books?id=HqLXpq6s_-sC&lpg=PA237&ots=1SNGsHmOga&dq=ballard%20corpse%20giant%20beach&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q=ballard%20corpse%20giant%20beach&f=false

  • [Jamie Sue]

    Loved that.  Thanks.  :)

    • [Larry Rubinow]

      Happy to share it.  It was in an anthology my dad had when I was a kid, and that one story really stayed with me.

• [Sarge Misfit]

  Hmmmm …. with all those incidents where people have helped beached dolphins and whales to return to the sea, maybe they’re returning the favour?

• [Layne]

  Weird that the guy left it on the beach. 
  If you don’t want to keep it for the kitsch-factor, then at least clean up the beach and take it to the thrift store.
  Also, if it’s some kind of viral/social/yawn marketing attempt, shouldn’t it be better executed? This is the lego-man equivalent of ‘SOY BOMB’. 

  • [Guest]

    Not a fail. LEGO men are huge in south florida!

• [dwiegand]

  When are they saying this washed up on shore?? I live in Sarasota and I can tell you it was not that light before 5 in the morning as I was up and it was pitch black at 6:30am. I want to go see if it’s still there, but honestly I’m not so sure I believe it…

  Ok – so I did go down to the beach to see if I could find it, but I couldn’t…apparently the sheriff’s department got there and took it a little while before I got there. And yes, Legoland did just open (last week) about an hour and a half northeast of here, so my guess would be that it has something to do with the opening and a publicity stunt.

  • [Natanael L]

    Go! Go look! :)
    Take a picture if it’s there too, me wanna see :P
    Can you get some close-ups maybe?

• [Ryan Nance]

  we video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uksSlgYG01U#!

• [Eric Jensen]

  Ego Leonard= Lego on Dare?

• [jarmstrong]

  Ego Leonard = A Drone Lego

  I, for one…

• [geeky monkey]

  “Has this Lego man been afloat for years on a translatlantic journey? ”

  No.

  I live in Brighton and saw them leave it on the beach in 2008. They drove it down with a van, then carried it to just below the high-tide mark and left it then. Then sat back, called all the local papers and let them ‘discover’ it about 15 minutes later.

• [waltbosz]

  I’m not sure how to feel about this. I like Legos, and I like oversized art, but I’m not a fan of fake viral marketing as this appears to be.

  • [Guest]

    I share your dislike of fake viral marketing, but what we have here is bona fide viral marketing.
     

  • [Michael Dawson]

    No, you like Lego, why you would say Legos is beyond me, the plural of Lego is Lego, same as Fish, Sheep etc.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      No, you like Lego, why you would say Legos is beyond me, the plural of Lego is Lego, same as Fish, Sheep etc.

      Well, if you feel that language norms should be set aside in favor of corporate-dictated branding, sheep is a good example to choose. They’re legoes.

• [efergus3]

  Well he made to land so I guess immigration will let him stay.

• [Jack Daniel]

  I know a Legoland amusement park just opened in up in Florida, perhaps this is related. 

  Also, I wonder if our state’s coastguard was busy blasting it back into the ocean with a fire hose, as they do with any humanoid,  per our wet foot/dry foot policy. 

• [Miss Demeanor]

  I never trust anything washed up on a beach with its feet still attached

• [Gary Hendrick]

  Whatever the origin, it is quite nice to see something novel
  Incidentally, there’s no chance that this is transatlantic. Siesta key is in Sarasota, which is on the Gulf Coast rather than the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

• [oculus]

  So this happened before, in 2007…  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-08-08/giant-lego-man-washed-up-on-dutch-beach/2524654?section=justin

  I liked it then, but did not pursue the story, did not find the marketing angle at the time.  Still, it’s a work of art on it’s own, I think.

• [cubby96]

  First of all, yay for living in interesting times.

  A new Legoland theme park just opened in Winter Park, FL on October 15th.  This might be related.

  The writing on his shirt is quite likely to be an anagram.  NOREALTHANYOUAREEGOLEONARD could translate to, perhaps: Here, or on a Legoland near you.

  It was pitch black out at 7am in Sarasota today.  Well, at least it was on my back porch.

  • [cubby96]

    Then there is this: http://www.egoleonard.nl/vrienden_gb.html

  • [Todd S.]

    Winter Haven, FL. But clearly he was seeking asylum at Legoland. As usual, the cops nabbed him and now he’ll probably get sent back to the waiting arms of the Mega Bloks junta.

• [Blaine Kehl]

  One of his shoes washed ashore in BC.

• [frijole]

  Nothing is art, everything is marketing. 

  I feel sorry for people who go through life with their hearts so cold they can’t appreciate something random and cool when they see it, and instead try to cram it into their preferred narrative of corporate manipulation.

• [tmcsweeney]

  Whatever you do DO NOT CARRY IT INSIDE THE CITY WALLS!

• [booomer]

  This is actually quite common. It has been shown in studies that Lego men will beach themselves when disoriented by boats, or when trying to mate in unknown waters.

• [ultranaut]

  Looks like garbage to me. I hope they find the litterer and issue a hefty fine!

• [Aaron Swain]

  He’s obviously the vanguard of an impending Lego invasion.
  I’m arming myself as I write this.

• [GrumpySteen]

  It’s an artist’s attempt to get attention.  His/her paintings are for sale here

  http://www.prescriptionart.com/prescription-art/ego-leonard/cat_57.html

  • [waltbosz]

    This makes me feel better about it. I thought maybe it was a marketing ploy by Lego, but BB  probably wouldn’t have posted it if it were. 

• [Joseph]

  I was just on that beach on Sunday.

• [estragon_nyc]

  It was Earth all along!  We finally did it!  You maniacs!  You blew it up!  Damn you!  Damn you all to hell!

• [Tiffeny Nervig]

  Oh there he is! I dropped him in the water a few months ago, nice to see he finally found the beach! Can someone send him back home for me?

• [lecti]

  It’s not giant, it’s bloated.

• [2experts]

  really this art breaking theory of copy..thanks many

• [sarah kas]

  Chuck Norris, we found your lego.

• [Palomino]

  Trojan Horse, all hell is going to break loose…..RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Or maybe it’s just  a pinata. 

• [proc_kcore]

  So is this world the LEGO man’s Inception Limbo?

• [RYAN]

  Its from the future… They belong to the Giants…. its a Cursed Object… it came from Japan’s Tsunami… some body stole it from a toy convention and hid it to his room but got suspected and decided to ditch it in the middle of the night by a dork who believes in Aliens because he’s Doped!

• [Julio Cesar]

  Its an alien invasion. . .

• [Tyler Lathrop-Allen]

  I agree with Mr. Bean. –  Sr. Frijole.  This is great.  So what if it’s an advertising gimick.  It’s great.  And what are they advertising?  Legos.  I have a hard time understanding how this could generate any negative feelings from people at all.

• [Guest]

  Although this is not my opinion, he does not qualify for the Immigration and Naturality Act of 1965. He will be removed from US soil unless he can prove that he was born in an “Independent” nation or that he has family here, and a special trade.

  Someone claim him as a relative please. I feel for him.

• [jordan yerman]

  So, this would be a maxifig.

• [Ethan Robbins]

  OK,
  So thats where that went. I was looking for that! My kids just said they saw it walking around in the backyard. I guess it jacked our neighbors car and took a deep sea swimming trip! I need that back! Don’t anybody take it!!

• [Daniel Miller]

  It’s ridiculous no one has figured out its Leon Keer all along … the proof is here; http://sarasotavisualart.com/2011/10/origin-of-ego-the-artist-behind-the-lego-man/

• [Jerry Schafer iv]

  Where Is David Curuso? This could be a really wacky CSI:Miami Ep!