FINDING ONESELF IN Finfluence:

SIGNALS OF COMMUNITY& IDENTITY

KPMG, Matilda Centre & AreMedia Social Media

Industry & Community Project

Timeline: 1 year

Role: Researcher, Designer & Editor

Industry and Community Projects provide the opportunity to work on authentic problems and issues set out by an industry, community and/or government organisations. Within this project, I was able to research, analyse and present solutions to real-world problems set by these external partner organisations. These organizations where KPMG, Matilda Centre and AreMedia with a hyper-fixation on Social Media. This project duration was over the entire year and was completed with multi-disciplinary teammates.

Creating and understanding one’s identity is a lifelong pursuit, which is increasingly enacted in communities formed online. This project explored the TikTok “finfluence” space, where participants, mainly young men, share investment advice and related experiences. We wanted to establish if it could be considered a community, to determine if it was a place where identity could be constructed and performed, before articulating the defining aspects of its content, to theorise the specific kinds of identity involved. To do so, we employed mixed methods, first using linguistic analysis to conclude the finfluence space could be considered a community. Subsequent thematic analysis articulated five main content themes: stock tips, wealth flexing, hustle mindset, lifestyle and uncertainty absorption. We then theorised its implications for identity construction and performance, concluding that for the young men who make up the majority of community members, finfluence content may help construct and express independence, prowess and a sense of masculinity. Additionally, it potentially offers belonging and approval from likeminded peers, bolstering one’s sense of identity and purpose.

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