Willie Jenkins’s nickname is “the mayor of Bridgehampton,” but to his legion of more than 128,000 followers online, he might as well be the mayor of Middle-earth.
For those who are unfamiliar with this literary place, it’s the fictional world in which J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing is set. But the realm feels very personal to Mr. Jenkins, who is such a huge fan of Tolkien’s work that he regularly takes to social media in videos to explain and engage with the writing in unique ways.
For instance, there’s “A Song of Words,” a video series in which Mr. Jenkins and a collaborator, Corey Olsen, a college professor who specializes in medieval literature, break down the similarities between Tolkien’s writing and hip-hop. Yes, you read that right — Tolkien and hip-hop.
“They are very similar, even though there are different styles,” Mr. Jenkins explained. “The structures of poetry, the lines, the metrics — we break it all down.”
Mr. Jenkins even teaches an online course on Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion,” the world-building tome that details the myths and magic behind the author’s well-known works, among them “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” To many, “The Silmarillion” is an incredibly challenging book to read, but Mr. Jenkins says he has spent countless hours studying it to be able to help fellow Tolkien fans understand it.
He is also a content creator for a forthcoming app called the Signum Collaboratory, another resource for fans of Tolkien’s work.
He recently returned from San Diego Comic Con, which he attended as a guest of Amazon Prime ahead of the release of the next season of the show “The Rings of Power.” He sat on a panel to discuss the upcoming episodes, which include preview footage and other surprises.
One of his fans, based in Scotland, tagged Mr. Jenkins on Facebook in an effusive post-convention summary that called him “one of my absolute fave folks in the Tolkien fandom. If you don’t know his content, you should totally check it out; he is so knowledgeable about Tolkien, and he always has the best vibe.”
How did Mr. Jenkins, whose online handle is @knewbettadobetta3, get to this place of Middle-earth mastery?
“That is my passion, unbeknownst to a lot of people,” he said. “If you know me well, you know I’ve been into ‘The Lord of the Rings’ since I was young. But how I got into it was I used to get in trouble in school a lot. I would get detention a lot, and detention was in the library.”
So there in the library of the Bridgehampton School, from which he graduated in 2002, he would consume book after book after book. A friend of his, Brian Noble, “came to me and said, ‘You should read this.’ He gave me ‘The Hobbit.’ I’d heard of it, and I’d seen the 1977 Rankin/Bass movie, but I didn’t read the book. What made me read it was there was a giant bird on the front, and Bilbo was in the nest, and I thought it was cool. I was absolutely drawn into the world.”
The rest is a love letter to an epic literary oeuvre.
“It was escapism for me,” said Mr. Jenkins, who now lives in Speonk but is the creator and chief planner of the annual festival called Bridgehampton Day. (This year, it will take place on Aug. 24.)
“The way Tolkien writes is the most descriptive thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s beautiful. It’s poetry — very compelling — and it literally takes me to another world.”
When he was growing up in Bridgehampton in the 1980s and 1990s, “people didn’t read ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ You were playing basketball, or you were out on the street. Everybody would support that I read it, but they didn’t want to read it themselves. They never said that was corny, but they did say, ‘I’m not reading that shit.’ Excuse my language.”
Not only is Mr. Jenkins a Tolkien expert, but he is also one of the few Tolkien-related content creators of color.
“With ‘The Rings of Power’ coming out, Amazon went a different route and decided to put people of color in the show,” Mr. Jenkins said. “There is a portion of the fan base that doesn’t like that. They think there shouldn’t be any Black people or Asian people. I run into those people, being one of the only Black creators. But I stand 10 toes down and I’m from the Bridge, and I don’t allow any of that. I refute it and argue with them. I make sure they know Tolkien’s story is about people of all different races and backgrounds coming together to complete a common task and a common goal.”
His fans have even started sending him tributes, such as the helmet of Ecthelion, Elf of Gondolin. “Someone 3-D printed it and made it for me,” Mr. Jenkins said. “It’s my prized possession.”
Mr. Jenkins is also a fan of Greek mythology, David Attenborough documentaries, the “Game of Thrones” series, classics like “Moby-Dick” and “A Tale of Two Cities,” and fantasies like “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz.” But none of that can compare to Tolkien, he says.
In particular, Mr. Jenkins appreciates the character Sauron. “He has so much depth for a villain. He is, overarchingly, the strongest person in the story by far, but he doesn’t do everything by strength. He does things by cunning. And when he can’t do things by either, he is patient. He is cruel and precise. It’s scary and admirable at the same time.”
He posts new material multiple times a week, racking up about 2.4 million views on his content. He used to do something every day, but then he started working at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital as a custodian. He also drives an ice cream truck during the summer. (“If you live in New York and you don’t have two jobs, it’s kind of tough,” he says.)
His TikTok videos are unscripted. “It’s all off the top of my head. I’ve always been like that. Even when I do activism work, I don’t write speeches. I’ve never been that person. My brain works better that way.”
He gives shout-outs to his fellow Tolkien creators and friends, people with nicknames like Nerd of the Rings, Bard of Arda, SilmarilLeanne, and Kali Cosplay; with Kali, Mr. Jenkins produces a podcast called “Voices of Arda” featuring trivia contests and other engaging content. He also is grateful for a particular friend, a creator named Belmont, and to Don Marshall, who “gave me my first boost that made people go to my page.”
“Being part of the fandom with them makes it all worth it. It would be very lonely without them,” said Mr. Jenkins.
“It’s a very elite group of people that know that much about it, so it’s great company to be in, but not everybody can do it,” he later continued. “It’s extremely hard, so I do take a little bit of pride that people look to me to give them information, and they trust me to follow my opinions and thought processes. It’s very cool to be a part of it — I appreciate the love that I get a lot.”
This story has been updated to correct name spellings.
