Bloggers on FIRE Performing Identity and Building Community: Considerations for Cyber-Autoethnography

Abstract

As a research approach, autoethnography has revolutionized qualitative inquiry. To date, most autoethnographies represent the lives of academics and are published in the research press for a small audience of other academics. However, in the digital world, a subset of blogs has emerged in which the self-narratives are substantially similar to autoethnographies in content, quality, and level of social commentary, but with a broader scope and audience. For example, FIRE bloggers write about how they are striving to reach the goal of Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE). They share detailed accounts of their financial circumstances, personal stories, strategies, and social insights. Through an analysis of FIRE blog texts, I examine digital presentation and performance of identity, relational aspects of online communication, and strategies these bloggers and their followers use to create community. The success of bloggers in bringing together people around the world to form communities with shared aims points to possibilities for how cyber-autoethnographers might broaden the reach of autoethnography while also building a collaborative sense of agency to accomplish personal and political goals. My interest in this cyber-community is theoretical, but intersects with challenges I have grappled with in my personal transition to retirement.

Exploring fire for financial independence retire early (FIRE): a netnography approach

“…Loss or perceived potential loss of these two resources may affect consumers’ attitude and behavior toward the adoption of FIRE. While prior studies on FIRE or financial independence showed individuals’ desire to retire early from paid work to follow their passion or pursue more meaningful work (Lapadat, 2020; Perrone et al , 2015), this study shows that participants also experience motivation to adopt FIRE goals to recover their health and well-being resources. The boundary conditions such as individual competencies (DIY attitude, ability to live frugally, planning and execution ability), a well-paying job and support from one’s spouse strengthens, while the resistance from social groups weakens FIRE adoption motivations.…”

“…We developed a conceptual model from these findings, as shown in Figure 1. Second, while prior studies mainly focused on FIRE experts and pioneers in developed economies (Lapadat, 2020; Taylor and Davies, 2021), this study explored general consumers’ FIRE behavior in an emerging economy context. Third, this study is one of the first to apply COR theory to understand consumer motivations for FIRE goals.…”

“…For example, high job demands lead to emotional exhaustion (Singla et al , 2021), lack of professional growth/training after a certain age, negative perception about older workers, poor physical or mental health and workplace norms (Feldman, 1994; Topa et al , 2018) may push individuals to retire from paid work. Other factors that attract individuals toward achieving financial independence to retire early include the freedom of choice to do paid work, follow one’s passion (Lapadat, 2020), break out of the “earn and spend” cycle and achieve financial security (TD Ameritrade, 2018).…”

“…Research on FIRE participant behavior is scarce, and extant research on FIRE has certain shortcomings. First, the very few studies focusing on the FIRE movement have either conceptually analyzed the phenomenon (Grossan and Huffman, 2018; Helaine, 2019) or empirically studied FIRE experts (Lapadat, 2020; Schulaka, 2019; Taylor and Davies, 2021), but less attention has been given to general FIRE participants’ behavior, which presents an important gap in the literature. Second, literature has considered early retirement to be slightly earlier than the traditional retirement age of 60 or 65 years, but the desire to retire unusually early by those in their 30s or 40s in the FIRE movement has been understudied.…”

“…Though scholarly research on FIRE is in its nascent stages, studies have focused more on FIRE’s conceptual analysis (Grossan and Huffman, 2018; Helaine, 2019; Schulaka, 2019) or on analyzing FIRE experts and pioneers (Lapadat, 2020; Taylor and Davies, 2021). However, little empirical research has been conducted to understand the motivations and concerns of general FIRE practitioners.…”