DuckBricks

Christopher Lee (also known as DuckBricks), is an American YouTuber, entrepreneur, project manager, businessman, and electrical engineer best known for his LEGO videos, his private LEGO collection, as well as for winning LEGO Masters Season 4.
==Content==
Christopher started DuckBricks in October 2020, after repurposing a personal channel he operated for several years prior. He started off by posting videos about his massive LEGO collection, LEGO reviews, news, and story analysis videos, and rose to popularity due to his popular video series retelling the lore and story of LEGO Bionicle, a major original LEGO theme. Now, he focuses primarily on a mix between LEGO review videos, LEGO-related travel vlogs, LEGO competitions with his friends, story and lore recaps, collection showcases, and more. Since he appeared on the TV show LEGO Masters in September 2023, he has regularly posted content about his time on the show, leading up to his big victory in December 2023.
==History==
Christopher was a private LEGO collector with virtually no online presence until 2020, when a friend convinced him to start a channel showcasing his LEGO collection. Little is known about his life before this point other than what Christopher has revealed himself, whether on Discord or Youtube. He attended Lakeside Middle and High School, and returned there to give a speech about LEGO ten years after he first enrolled.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0usF16iVnFE&t=20s From there, he attended college at the University of Pennsylvania, where he pursued a dual degree in entrepreneurial management at the Wharton School of Business and electrical engineering at the engineering and applied sciences school, via the Jerome Fisher Management and Technology Program.https://www.linkedin.com/in/duckbricks/ In his junior year of college, Christopher started DuckBricks, and has been posting regularly ever since. Despite starting off with a 3-video-a-week schedule, Christopher quickly moved to a video every other day by late 2020, and by late 2021, he transitioned to daily videos or livestreams, and has not missed a day since.
On September 7, 2020, Christopher officially launched DuckBricks with a video titled "Welcome to DuckBricks! Home of one of the world's largest LEGO Collections!" Before that, the channel was primarily used to post unlisted videos about Christopher's startups, some of which have since been made public following the closure of business deals. 
Christopher has stated it is his goal to launch a LEGO Museum one day in the future, and he will use his LEGO Masters prize money towards this goal.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzYr59ubKNE To that end, he has collected nearly 9000 LEGO setshttps://brickset.com/sets/ownedby-Duck_Bricks, which is more than the current Guinness World Record holder at 6,005 setshttps://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-collection-of-interlocking-plastic-brick-sets#:~:text=The%20largest%20collection%20of%20LEGO,at%20the%20age%20of%205.. Christopher has stated he eventually wants to officially reach the goal, but the process of obtaining the world record is "long and complicated," so he is willing to wait until he has to move houses before manually counting each set. His second most-viewed video at 2.5M views, showcasing the collection, was published on September 7, 2021, to celebrate the channel's one year anniversary. https://youtu.be/-8vFRYlumLU?si=v12iF6eNDfLtNFjm He has stated that an update of the video is long overdue, and promised to make another version in early 2024.
On February 15, 2022, he posted a video titled "LEGO Minecraft is SO Underrated: Building a Massive World Diorama!" This went on to become his most-viewed video at over 3M views. DuckBricks has stated he was "embarrassed" of the video and that it was hastily put together and "poor quality." He went on to produce an updated version of the video on January 29, 2023, titled "I Combined EVERY LEGO Minecraft Set into One Massive Layout! (2014-2023)". This is now his third most-viewed video, at nearly 800K views. 
In the LEGO Bionicle community, DuckBricks is known for his Bionicle Retold series, which retells the lore of LEGO Bionicle in chronological order. Famously, he combined all these videos into one, 9-hour long videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKgSMTON4fI&pp=ygUPYmlvbmljbGUgcmV0b2xk, which quickly became one of his most popular videos. Twitch streamer Atrioc watched the video live on stream, which eventually led to a live interview with DuckBricks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88t1CbH2-eA The two have stated they plan to play LEGO Fortnite together because of this collaboration. DuckBricks has also promised to make a similar video series for Ninjago, but has since put the series on hiatus after covering seasons 1-13 of the show due to the lack of an official soundtrack release making it impossible for him to complete the series until the tracks are publicly available.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Sozt-4bZC6jdeA3ZlnuGA/community?lb=Ugkx0BKUHrokxo5GvJq_yH0Ocv3GwKIcIZdR
In addition to the Bionicle lore videos, Christopher is known for Bionicle Fanon Reviews and Contests, a series of videos that reviews fan-created, canonized Bionicle models. In the summer of 2022 when the Bionicle canon contests were cancelled, Christopher took it upon himself to continue them, and regularly hosts non-canon building contests to recapture the spirit of the older canon contests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3PU7FBiiFQ 
Christopher was accepted into the LEGO Ambassador Network (LAN) on November 9, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=71BpDT-UKuw He has stated the experience has been mostly positive, and harkened some of his criticisms to his feelings about his primary job at Microsoft, stating that both companies could benefit from better cross-department communication.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wimmdUZ1Z-g 
Between the months of February to April 2023, Christopher left his home to film LEGO Masters Season 4. To cover up the fact that he had gone, he pre-recorded videos to be released over the entire duration of the 2.5-month period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKgMSeqGGc When LEGO hosted a 2K Drive event in California and invited DuckBricks to attend, Christopher instead sent DuckBricks team member Jake in his place. Youtuber HollyOnFilm, who was also at the event, deduced that Christopher was filming LEGO Masters due to his personal absence from such an important event, but kept the secret. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeJg-baUF1g&pp=ygUTZHVja2JyaWNrcyAySyBkcml2ZQ%3D%3D Christopher's involvement in the show and his eventual win was kept a total secret from the public, with no leaks occurring over the nearly 11-month period from start to finish. 
On June 17, 2023, Christopher attended LEGO Convention Brickworld Chicago, where his fans encouraged him to join LEGO Ninjago band The Fold onstage and perform the theme song live. Despite having no prior singing experience, Christopher agreed, and both channels posted videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndQF7PUT35I about the experience shortly after the fact, with the band promising to keep in touch with Christopher for future events. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yn1tqtk5ew 
In September of 2023, Christopher visited Billund, Denmark, home of the LEGO Group, for the fourth time in his life. He has stated that this was the "trip of a lifetime" https://www.instagram.com/p/CzPknuXPdkn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==, where he got to attend LEGO Fan Media days and see upcoming 2024 products, meet Bionicle creator Christian Faber and Ninjago creator Tommy Andreasen, attend a private factory tour, LEGO vault tour, Idea House tour, and even visit the Innovation House where new products are made. Alongside some other LEGO Youtubers, Christopher got to meet former LEGO CEO Kjeld Kirk Christiansen, and visited the private home of the original founder of the LEGO Group, Ole Kirk Christiansen. Additionally, after spending a day with Christian Faber in Copenhagen, the two announced they plan to collaborate on future projects and videos in 2024 and beyond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vga_J1copQI 
On December 14, 2023, Christopher won LEGO Masters Season 4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Masters_(American_season_4)#:~:text=Paul%20%26%20Nealita%20are%20declared%20as,into%20a%20real%20Lego%20set. alongside his teammate Robert Zhang. Prior to filming the show, both competitors stated that they did not have much custom LEGO building experience, but were asked to apply due to the prominence of the DuckBricks Youtube channel. Robert was chosen as teammate due to Christopher's past experience working with him on their startup PillBot, whose work ethic and dedication to win was praised by Christopher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKgMSeqGGc&list=PLhzUYcq9zQchuVI7YS-9KR8hNGSbmaJZp&index=39&pp=gAQBiAQB To train for the show, the pair worked "nonstop for a week" and practiced building custom LEGO creations to be in fighting shape.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtS0p1jPKHA Their prize for winning the show was $100,000 USD split among the pair, their winning model being displayed at the LEGO flagship store in New York City, the LEGO Masters Trophy and title of LEGO Master, and an official LEGO set being made based on their build. 
==Trivia==
*Christopher works as a project manager at Microsoft in the Cloud & AI division. He also runs several startups on the side, and operates businesses related to DuckBricks, such as a Bricklink store, merch store, and 3D printing marketplace. He has since explained that the combination of all of these businesses have been what has allowed him to acquire such a vast LEGO collection. 
*Christopher is a self-described entrepreneurhttps://www.christopherslee.org/home/entrepreneurship, and has stated the first serious startup he ever made was in 2014. In college, he worked on a medical device startup called PillBot, which has been referenced in several of his AMA videos and was even featured on the news.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeUkc4Mj-iw 
*Christopher has stated that he usually only gets 3-4 hours of sleep every night, and is working constantly throughout the day to be able to balance Microsoft, DuckBricks, his current startup, his BigCartel 3D printing store, his Bricklink store, and his social life at once.
*Christopher's LEGO Collection was featured in a MrBeast video titled "Most Extreme Collections!" 
*It is presumed that Christopher has met and interacted with Microsoft founder and former CEO Bill Gates. Not only did they attend the same middle and high school, but Gates once publicly tweetedhttps://twitter.com/BillGates/status/656488796851191808 about a startup Christopher was working on in 2015, and Christopher hosted several presentations at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwy8Q6U7wLw 
*His personal website reveals he was friends with the son of Jeff Bezos, former Amazon CEO. When asked, Christopher confirmed this was true, and that his copy of LEGO Bionicle Set 8924 was purchased from the Bezos family collection. https://www.christopherslee.org/
*Christopher has stated he will never prominently feature a romantic partner on the channel unless the relationship was, in his eyes, very serious. Despite this, he has confirmed that past and current romantic partners have made cameo appearances in prior videos, such as a video on his LEGO Masters Party in NYC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRh_9ClNxts&t=352s 
*Christopher announced a DuckBricks Team https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqv9cEqchuI&pp=ygUPdGVhbSBkdWNrYnJpY2tz on August 7, 2023, made up of his personal friends who were excited about appearing on the channel. Despite the launch of several videos featuring these friends, he later stated on Discord that due to the extremely high output of channel videos and the very busy personal lives of his friends, it would be difficult to get them to regularly appear. https://discord.com/invite/cWEfaHHftH
*Christopher often brings his IRL friends into random videos, such as Johnny, the former world's youngest hackerhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2784488/Meet-13-year-old-boy-hacked-school-computer-online-store-insists-hes-using-powers-good-just-trying-fix-websites.html, Srisa, a major Wall Street analyst https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei2WCMuUDAE, Jake, an astronomy researcher who discovered several asteroidshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IETb-BBcwjs&t=1961s, Julia, a medical researcher working on a cure for cancerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5JY7cOpips&pp=ygUUZHVja2JyaWNrcyBjYXJkIGdhbWU%3D, and more, including a major film director, and a programmer at OpenAI. Due to the incredibly impressive personal lives of his friends, Christopher often jokes about how the DuckBricks channel stacks up to their groundbreaking work. 
*Christopher attended the same middle and high schoolhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeside_School_(Seattle) as Chris Miller, director of The LEGO Movie, who returned to his school to talk about his life journey and future projects, including the ill-fated Solo: A Star Wars Story, which he eventually departed from. Christopher has cited other notable alumni from the school, such as Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Adam West as inspirations in his personal life.
*Christopher operates a Letterboxd with nearly 700 entrieshttps://letterboxd.com/DuckBricks/, and is a self-identified film enthusiast. He also operates a food channel, FoodBricks, but has stated he plans to turn it into an Instagram account instead. He often cameos in videos from fellow LEGO YouTuber Just2Good, AKA Sarah, talking about food or movies, as she is also an enthusiast of both.
*Christopher shares his first and last name with prominent actor Christopher Lee, who famously played Count Dooku in the Star Wars franchise, Saruman in the Lord of the Rings franchise, and Dracula.
*Christopher often collaborates with Johnathan, AKA MiniSuperHeroesToday, after the two hit it off after randomly meeting in Tennessee during one of Christopher's work trips in May 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_KtaYmSduw The two have since announced plans to travel together in 2024 and beyond on a LEGO World Tour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCCk0bF1wFM 
*Christopher has been featured in several television and news publications, including Good Morning America, CNBC, The Seattle Times, The New York Post, Fox29, and more, mostly in the form of interviews regarding his startups, LEGO collection, and LEGO Masters. 
*Christopher's video editing, cinematography, and directorial work has been showcased at SIGGRAPHhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81hFAj0dXbQ, the world’s largest, most influential annual conference and exhibition in computer graphics and interactive techniques.
==References==
Category:Vlogging YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2020