I Messed Up...

You didn’t betray LEGO, dude. You made an easy mistake with a confusingly distributed product. It was an accident. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.

Lego really should start sending a paper with any embargo and pres release information inside the box with the sets to make sure this kind of mistakes dont happen.

If lego had better communication instead of hoping you divine their intention from random packages this never would've happened. You're all good fam.

I can’t believe Lego is punishing you for such a minor error. I get embargo’s are to be taken seriously, but guys like you do more for Lego advertising than anything their marketing department can do. Your passion and care for everything Lego related should count for something in all this.

LEGO didn’t warn you or anything, you got a random package from LEGO, and like any normal LEGO YouTuber, you were gunna open it and upload it. Don’t beat yourself up about so much, you didn’t know.

The lack of communication from LAN has and will always be the biggest issue. I hate hearing beat yourself up like this for an innocent mistake that was caused by a companies failure to provide clear communication and guidelines. I also know of current members who have deliberatly leaked things, one of which even was banned from getting a whole IP theme for a while before being upgraded to Tier 2. One of the staff members has openly admitted in a meeting to having favourites, and everyone else they show no humanity for.

Lego punishing a well-intentioned, loyal creator certainly did more brand damage than any leak could ever do.

Throughout the video, I say September when I mean to say Late August - my apologies for the confusion! Timeline of events: August 2020 - LEGO announces Braille Bricks as an educational program, not available to the public. June 2023 - I see a post on the LEGO Ambassador Network asking if we are interested in receiving Braille kits, and assume this is referring to the education-exclusive sets announced in 2020 July 2023 - I miss an email stating an embargo date of August 26th (CRITICAL BLUNDER) August 17, 2023 - I receive a package containing the two new Braille Bricks sets from LAN. I mistakenly assume that these sets are the previously-released, education program-exclusive Braille Bricks sets. How did I mess this up? Because these were never consumer-facing, I did not know what the packaging looked like. August 18, 2023 - shortly after posting my video showcasing what LEGO sent me, I was contacted and told I was the source of a major LEGO leak, which initially confused me greatly as I was not even aware that the Braille sets were anything new. I promptly removed the video and any reference to it I could find online. August 24, 2023 - LEGO announces that the Braille sets I received are part of a new program to make the bricks available to consumers, which was unknown to me until this date - and explains why that me posting the box art was a major leak. TLDR I messed up, thought the boxes I received were for the 2020 LEGO Braille Bricks and not a new product, and now am on probation until February :(

Lego has a sticker on all boxes stating embargo dates for retailers, surprising they dont bother doing the same for the LAN promoters.

It is hard to admit mistakes, and it is even harder to do it publicly. You are still an inspiration to others and I continue to look forward to more of your great content.

LEGO should humble themselves. Finding advertisement creators as passionate as you is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I don’t know exactly how LAN works. But wouldn’t it be easier for LAN to put a piece of paper in the box to specify the dates of embargo? I’ve seen other Lego ambassadors in LAN make similar mistakes and not getting as harsh punishment as you did. Hopefully you are not being too harsh on yourself. Thank you for all your effort.

Sets for LAN should have a sticker with embargo dates on them. Would solve any problems.

This really is incompetence on Lego's part for not making it more obvious that the sets had an embargo date. They should've had a slip or something in the package

Honestly, this is at least in part on TLG. This is why you send instructions in duplicate: 1 email, 1 written and packed with the product. No form of security should have a single point of failure like this

Since no one really knew that the Braille brick sets were going to be released to the public, your initial video wasn't even a leak; everyone thought you had been given an incredible opportunity to review a rare education-focused set. 😊

Sort of makes me sad to see how heavily Chris blames himself for a mistake that is clearly on LEGO, at least partially. Even if the dates are included in the email, the fact they sent an unmarked package with no form of warning on the box itself is really a massive blunder on their part. Chris is such a wholesome member of the community and a seemingly very positive person, really didn't deserve this harsh of a punishment for such a small mistake.

Anyone who watches your videos knows you would never intentionally harm Lego. You're a great ambassador for the AFOL community.

What the heck is with the package not including embargo information? They do that for the store shipments, so why not for content creators? Like yeah, they did send an email, but it was really dumb of them to just throw you the confidential sets without notice in the box.

Hey DuckBricks - if anything this video should further demonstrate to Lego that you are the type of person they want in LAN - responsible for your actions, apologetic, honest, thorough, and one hell of a content creator. All will be well, too bad about the 6 months...on the other hand, you had incredible content before being in LAN - so in a way, Lego's discipline is their own loss! Take care.