LotR and subgroups

[alatar]

Nogrod, that is so cool. Not only are we from the same time, I also like Zep (No greater rock band!) etc, but liked Tolkien for seeing the world more as I do, which is much opposite of your POV. The beating back of the Sauron and Saruman, who to me wanted to control everything, to the Scouring of the Shire, which showed "sharing and gathering" in such a poor light, only made me resonate with Tolkien even more as I grew older.

So I guess, from what I've seen on this thread so far, with the exception this group being Downers, being able to type and having internet access, we might not have that much in common.

[Legolas]

To clarify for the original poster - he is simply looking for examples of common interests among Tolkien fans that you might've noticed. alatar summed it up nicely, I think:

Though those that read may be considered more geeky than football starry, I'd think that you can find Tolkien readers across many demographics.

Thinlómien is not stereotyping, or looking for some narrow, always true classification/qualification system.

As for my own experience, I have found that many who like Tolkien also like good music. Led Zeppelin certainly was a reference point for me, and several others I know. When I was fifteen, I was able to move past my love of Queen. I lived and breathed Led Zeppelin for quite a while. It didn't take long to get past the studio albums to live recordings, websites, and figuring out what the songs were about.

There was a website then about Led Zeppelin lyrics (and the obvious/potential allusions to Middle-earth), eventually titled Stairway to Middle-earth (originally at http://www.auburn.edu/~speedhe/). It has now moved to http://www.ledtolkien.com (which redirects to http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~hayspeed/), though some of the personal content and less Tolkien-related content has been removed. Consequently, along with the newer graphics/layout, it feels a little less like the interesting little corner I found fascinating eight years ago. Nonetheless, just as Page had inspired my brother and I to pick up the guitar, Page and Plant inspired us to pick up The Lord of the Rings.

The only people at my high school who liked Tolkien (that I was aware of) were introverted and not ones to follow the crowd, but not antiestablish or nonconformists or something. Also, I often find '70s progressive rock fans that love Tolkien (possibly due to the focus on fantasy of each).

[Eldar14]

I'm glad to say that I'm in a rather odd situation regarding the demographics around me, especially in regard to Tolkien. I'm at a relatively small undergraduate engineering school (Rose-Hulman, for those interested), and as such, the demographic definitely tends towards the somewhat geeky and nerdy.

And luckily, hand in hand with that seems to come a pretty widespread love for Tolkien. I do agree that there are many Tolkien fans who wouldn't be considered nerdy or geeky, but I can say with confidence that now that living in an area with a higher percentage of nerds and geeks does improve the odds of the next person you see being a Tolkien fan.

Just as an example of how nice it is to live in a place with Tolkien fans a-plenty: As many of you probably know, Battle for Middle Earth 2 recently came out, and while it does have some content I take canonical issues with, it does provide a fun way to recreate the land of Middle Earth. Naturally, those of us who are fans thought it seemed interesting, and we therefore managed to get copies for ourselves, and we've since proceeded to recreate legendary battle after legendary battle over out LAN. I don't just mean that we've thrown together armies of elves and orcs and thrown them at eachother (which we have done), but also that we select maps and intentionally recreate actual 'historical' Tolkien battles.

And the best part? We all just sit there and drool over the fact that we're playing with elves. After just one of us installed it, we crowded around his laptop and waxed giddy over the idea of experiencing a battle of Middle-Earth; and not just because we like computer games, but because we all find ME cool.

It's nice living amongst people of similar interests.

Oh, and being able to tell a Tolkien joke at lunch and having everyone laugh is a wonderful thing.

But back to topic, even though we do have those similar threads amongst us, geekiness and Tolkien, I will say that we vary in many other ways. We all like different music, have different majors, and even have different tastes in regards to other literature. I guess Tolkien's writing power, while it may tend towards certain demographics, definitely has the ability to bridge the gap and appeal greatly to people of very different tastes.