Two sides, one scoreboard. Storefronts on the map, search interest from Google Trends, audience size, press mentions and review standing — each weighted, each shown, so the ranking can be argued with rather than just believed.
5 of 5 scored signals (100% of the weight) come from a named source. Nothing here is invented. 2 further signals have no data at all and are struck from the maths rather than guessed at, so the composite rests on a narrow base — read the breakdown before quoting it.
Reckless Ben, the independent stores backing him, and the community documenting the case.
The franchise network at the centre of the takeover, and its corporate channels.
Bricks & Minifigs leads by 6.9 points. The composite is a weighted sum of each signal below; the two scores always add up to 100.
Every location on both sides, plotted. Pick a row in the roster to fly the map to it.
Google Trends publishes no API, so this is a committed CSV export rather than a live query — which also means the figures are reproducible. View the live comparison on Google Trends →
Relative interest, 0–100, where 100 is the peak week for either term. Not a search count.
| Week | Reckless Bricks | Bricks & Minifigs |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 21, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Sep 28, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Oct 5, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Oct 12, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Oct 19, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Oct 26, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Nov 2, 2025 | 0 | 1 |
| Nov 9, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Nov 16, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Nov 23, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Nov 30, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Dec 7, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Dec 14, 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Dec 21, 2025 | 0 | 3 |
| Dec 28, 2025 | 0 | 3 |
| Jan 4, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Jan 11, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Jan 18, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Jan 25, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| Feb 1, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Feb 8, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| Feb 15, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Feb 22, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Mar 1, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Mar 8, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Mar 15, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Mar 22, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Mar 29, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| Apr 5, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| Apr 12, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| Apr 19, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| Apr 26, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| May 3, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| May 10, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
| May 17, 2026 | 0 | 3 |
| May 24, 2026 | 2 | 38 |
| May 31, 2026 | 8 | 100 |
| Jun 7, 2026 | 5 | 48 |
| Jun 14, 2026 | 1 | 13 |
| Jun 21, 2026 | 1 | 8 |
| Jun 28, 2026 | 1 | 7 |
| Jul 5, 2026 | 2 | 13 |
| Jul 12, 2026 | 1 | 9 |
| Jul 19, 2026 | 1 | 9 |
| Jul 26, 2026 | 0 | 5 |
| Aug 2, 2026 | 0 | 5 |
| Aug 9, 2026 | 0 | 4 |
| Aug 16, 2026 | 0 | 6 |
| Aug 23, 2026 | 0 | 5 |
| Aug 30, 2026 | 0 | 5 |
| Sep 6, 2026 | 0 | 4 |
| Sep 13, 2026 | 2 | 4 |
| Sep 20, 2026 | 0 | 2 |
The same comparison broken out by region. Each row is that region's own split between the two terms, straight from the export — it is not folded into the composite, because it is the search signal again rather than a new one.
Every region leans the same way, but not by the same amount: South Korea is where Reckless Bricks comes closest, at 39/61.
Top related queries for each term, with Google's own growth label. This is where the comparison shows its seams: the queries people run are not always the terms the export was built from.
Every query is a breakout — the term has no meaningful search history before this window. 8 word-order duplicates folded in (hover a +n to see them).
Blank growth means breakout: too large for Trends to put a number on. 8 word-order duplicates folded in (hover a +n to see them).
Each signal is scored as one side's share of the pair, then multiplied by its weight. Nothing is hidden behind an index: the raw numbers are in the columns either side of the bar.
| Signal | Reckless | Split | B&M | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| StorefrontssourcedOpen and announced locations on the map. | 2 | 56 | 20% | |
| Search interestsourcedMean Google Trends value for “reckless bricks” vs “bricks and minifigs” across the exported window. | 0.5 | 6.9 | 25% | |
| YouTube subscriberssourcedStanding audience across each side's channels. | 2.5M | — | 15% | |
| YouTube viewssourcedLifetime views on the same channels. | 157M | — | 10% | |
| Social followingno dataFollowers pooled across X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. | — | excluded; remaining weights renormalised | — | |
| Press mentionssourcedPublished articles naming the side. | 16 | 0 | 10% | |
| Local reputationno dataGoogle review rating, weighted by review count. | — | excluded; remaining weights renormalised | — | |
| Composite | 46.5 | 53.5 | 100% |
Storefronts are imported from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL) — 58 US locations across 25 states, each marker linking back to its OSM record. That is OSM's coverage, not an official roster, so treat the count as a floor. Every reach figure listed below was read from the named API on the date shown.
