Cultus Dispatches: Tolkien Fanfiction and Demographics

Cultus Dispatches - Who Are We? Tolkien Fandom Demographics

In a lot of communities, you can get a sense of who is present just by looking around yourself. In online communities—especially online fan communities, where pseudonymity is a cultural norm—it can be harder to know just who you share your online spaces with.

This month's Cultus Dispatches column looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data from 2015 and 2020 to answer that question: Just who is in this fandom? Who is present? Who is missing? And why are some groups of people heavily represented in the fandom while others are barely present or absent altogether?

Remember that Cultus Dispatches is always open to contributions! If you'd like to share a piece of fandom history, consider writing an article for the Cultus column.

Posted on 30 September 2022 (updated 29 October 2022) by SWG Moderators

good piece of analysis. 

interesting that such a niche and literary work as the Silmarillion nevertheless attracts non-academics. but there are often financial obstacles to the pursuit of knowledge, so perhaps it’s that very feature of the Silmarillion that attracts some fans. 

while it’s bad that people feel left out, it’s one of the good things about this fandom that it is highly educated and provides an space where scholarly types can speak their minds and hope someone understands them. let’s face it, the scholars are the minority in the real world, it’s here that we can let our hair down, pedal to the metal…

maybe a 'glasses' emoji if your story is very nerdy? or people could just look things up…

thanks again for the interesting analysis, especially the fabulous word cloud 🧐👌👍