But We Are Living in a Material (and Virtual) World: How Tiny-House Blogs are Transforming the Bildungsroman

Small Houses, Big Community: Tiny Housers’ Desire for More Cohesive and Collaborative Communities

“…Like voluntary simplifiers, they may use these communities to exchange information, have fun, and/or coordinate larger events. It seems, however, that many tiny housers see those virtual networks as inadequate psychosocial substitutes for the communities they truly seek (Huneke 2005;Katra 2017). While it remains unclear to what degree non-place-based (or virtual) ties can truly "bind" participants (Turkle 2011), studies have hinted that virtual communities are most satisfying when they co-evolve with or turn into place-based communities (Blanchard and Horan 2000).…”

“…While prior studies have demonstrated that community is an important motivator for living tiny (Boeckermann et al 2019;Jebbink 2019;Mangold and Zschau 2019;Mutter 2013), little is known about where tiny housers ideas surrounding community originate. Some scholars have suggested that since the tiny house movement remains primarily an online phenomenon (Hutchinson 2016), tiny housers derive much, if not most, of their information from blogs, news articles, and web-based forums (Katra 2017). Although many of these sources provide merely building advice, legal information, and/or stories of success and failure, there is an increasing number of blogs or websites dedicated to issues of community.…”

“…We acknowledge that this approach may not have yielded a perfectly representative sample, and that there might be a hidden selection bias (e.g., Some participants in the sample were recruited from social media and thus may present a more community-oriented subpopulation). However, the social profile of our participants and the nature of prior research, which suggests that the TH community is primarily located online (Katra 2017), makes us believe that the sample still constitutes a "fair" approximation. While little is known about the overall demographic makeup of movement, the fact that the social characteristics of our participants compare to those suggested by others lends at least some credence to this claim.…”

“…Tiny housers, like individuals in other lifestyle movements (Huneke 2005), have also formed loose but active online communities. They use blogs, online forums, and websites to share information, which may help reinforce TH identities (Hutchinson 2016;Katra 2017). Despite the growing popularity of the tiny house lifestyle (Ro 2018), however, there is little or no systematic research on the types of community tiny housers would actually want to live in.…”