Well, I'm probably not the one best to explain why this business has become so popular with a mass audience as I was really just pointing out where the idea came from. But if it helps, this business has gone onto be much more than just stuff for "paper nerds". An example on the top of my mind: J Crew carries these notebooks in their retail stores and online: http://www.jcrew.com/mens_feature/ingoodcompany/fieldnotes.j.... But I think Aaron captures it best:
“Will they go out of style? Oh yeah!” Draplin says. “The people who have a loop for frivolous shit, they’re one out of 100. There’s 99 other motherfuckers who take notes because that’s their job. The UPS guy that comes in here, he uses them. I gave him one a year ago he just fills full of shit. I would much rather see him using the things. It’s just paper. It’s not cool. The fonts aren’t cool at that point. But it works for him. And that is a cool thing."
“Will they go out of style? Oh yeah!” Draplin says. “The people who have a loop for frivolous shit, they’re one out of 100. There’s 99 other motherfuckers who take notes because that’s their job. The UPS guy that comes in here, he uses them. I gave him one a year ago he just fills full of shit. I would much rather see him using the things. It’s just paper. It’s not cool. The fonts aren’t cool at that point. But it works for him. And that is a cool thing."
http://wweek.com/portland/article-17913-the_write_stuff.html