Koolau
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Although I had wanted to retire earlier than normal ever since I started working back in the 1980s, it was not until the advent of the internet in the 1990s that I discovered the early retirement "community." First, there was a Retire Early forum on the Motley Fools board that I frequented. Then, when MF wanted to start charging to participate in it, I and others migrated to John Greaney's Early Retirement Home Page (John was an engineer who, I believe, early retired in about 1994). Then Dory36 started this board and I ended up here (and joined after lurking for a few years).
But young people throughout time have often felt that history began the day they were born, so it is not surprising that young writers think this is something new.
I found John Greaney's site around 2002 I think. I then found this site from there. Heh, heh, I used the company computer (I didn't have one at home) to peruse the site until I FIRE'd. THEN I joined here a couple of years later when I finally got a computer of my own.
When I first started lurking here, the company often warned us about misusing the internet. I often wondered if they thought a site on retiring early would have been considered "misusing." In any case, I quickly realized from this site (FIRECalc, etc.) that I was FI. If they fired me, then it was just the nudge I needed. A few years earlier, I created an assignment that I loved and decided to stay on at Megacorp. When Megacorp realized I was enjoying my w*rk, they said I had to do something different. I said "no" and the rest is history.