Well of course my life has changed in a big way due to LotR! But I wouldn't say it had very much to do with the films on my part. I've always had the same obsession, and found the 'Downs only due to looking up something about my own surname.
The films have given me the chance to get to know a few more fans though, as they've prompted so many out of the closet, and I've also seen some new people get into Tolkien through seeing the films, which can only be a good thing. I have noticed that there is a lot more non-film merchandise available, such as sets of prints, Tolkien-inspired crafts and so on, and I always struggled to find anything interesting like this before the films. And for years I wanted a One Ring and now you can get them for all kinds of prices on e-bay. Of course, there is also all the film merchandise which I've found myself greedily consuming, from the nice (the Green Dragon beer mug) to the gloriously tacky (wind-up Gollums).
Encaitare - I was always a dork! But now it's cool to be a geek, and I find myself having 'geek matches' with colleagues, to see who's the biggest nerd. Before the films this would certainly not have been cool, but now all the geeks have crept out of the closet and to be dangerously obsessed with something like Tolkien is merely an eccentricity to those not 'in the know' and deadly cool to those who share your tendencies.