With television shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday Castle has the term prepper become a dirty word? Or is the idea of prepping becoming more accepted in mainstream society? I happen to think it might be a little of both, but at what cost? The people that get cast for shows like these (or any T.V. show for that matter) are always the ones on the extreme end of the spectrum.
Let’s be realistic, most of us do not have 10’s of thousands of dollars to spend on building a “Castle” as our bug out location let alone have everyone in our family chip in and help us build one. And my bet is that most of us don’t have the money to buy an extra car, weld on iron plating, install bullet proof glass and put a turret on top “just in case.”
But this is what people want, they want to be entertained. For the most part people watch T.V. to escape reality and don’t want to have to think about the problems around them.
The truth is most of us average preppers wouldn’t make it past a casting call for one of these shows, and most of us average preppers would never go on one of these shows and be made a fool of.
Nobody would watch a show about a family that goes to work every day, buys a little extra food when they go shopping, does some gardening and goes camping on the weekends. The average prepper is too Boooring!
They want to see Cody Lundin walking through a jungle with no shoes on, they want to see danger and drama, they want to see someone like the idiot “doomsday Marauder” because it makes them feel better about what they are doing (or not doing) and make them think “I’m glad I’m not one of those idiots.”
When I talk to anyone about prepping or self-reliance the first thought that goes through their head is “Doomsday Prepper” and before the conversation even gets started I have to defend myself and explain why those shows are so ridicules. But perception is reality and when people think of prepping they think of Doomsday Preppers.
Tin Foil Hat Time
Those of you that know me know that I try to stay away from the conspiracy theories and stick to what I know to be true. But this has me thinking “Hmmm” Are these shows put on T.V. to keep people from learning more about self-sufficiency and self-reliance? Are these shows put there to show preppers in a negative light therefore keeping all the sheeple in their pens?
Whether this is true or not people take what they see at face value, and they take what they see on T.V. as truth without questioning the source or the information. This is the way the government wants it, it’s much easier to control a compliant herd of sheep than it is to control those sheep that just won’t follow the heard, and if there are too many of those “bad” sheep it then becomes impossible.
The sad part is these are the same people that would not know what to do if the government couldn’t help them, and would lose their minds if their daily routine was disrupted by a pesky EMP or a grid down event.
All we can do is hope that these people have the light bulb moment before it is too late, not only for their sake, but for our own sake as well. When the SHTF they won’t be thinking “well I guess I should have listened” they will be thinking “Whatever, I need food and you have it!”
Let’s Flip the Coin
Even though I think that these show do shine a negative light on preppers I do see some value in them. Shows like these have created awareness about preparing and have given us a conversation piece that we can use to talk to others about prepping.
If you are having a conversation with someone at work who has watched one of these shows you could have a conversation like this.
“Did you see that crazy Doomsday prepper show?” “Those people are crazy!”
“Yeah I saw it, those people are out there” “I also watched a show called American Blackout, pretty interesting stuff.”
“Yeah I’ve heard of that show, that stuff will never happen.”
“I don’t know, I looked into some of the stuff they talked about like the power going out and if that happened we would be hosed.”
“Yeah, I might check it out. Are you going to eat that doughnut?”
This has nothing to do with a doughnut, I just wanted to throw that in there.
Seriously though, a simple conversation like this could lead to that person going home and watching the show with the conversation you had with them in their mind rather than watching it with their perception of the “doomsday Prepper” in their heads.
Maybe they don’t watch it and everything you said goes in one ear and out the other, or maybe the next conversation you have goes like this…
“Hey Dale I watched American Blackout last night, pretty crazy stuff! Do you really think that could happen?”
“I thought it was kind of crazy too until I looked into it a little more. Check out some of these websites I went too, this prepper thing is not a crazy as it seems to be.”
So, is Prepper a Dirty Word?
I think that there has always be a negative connotation to the idea of prepping not necessarily the word prepper. When people think of prepping they tend to associate it with gun toting hoarders and conspiracy theorists.
We all know this is not true but perception is reality, if someone is not willing to dig a little deeper into the subject we better be prepared to deal with them in the future.
Once you decide to face your fears instead of hiding from them, once you begin to see that our lives could be turned upside down in the blink of an eye you begin to realize that prepping is not a bad thing, prepping is actually the smart thing to do.
So to me prepping is not a bad word, what is bad is the perception of preppers. But regardless of what the perception is I will continue to be “one of those crazy preppers.”
I was never concerned about being “one of the popular kids” and never concerned about “keeping up with the Jones’s” and I’m not going to start now. As a matter of fact I have spent my life trying to stay away from those people.
The B.O.L.
If you are interested in finding other preppers in your area or just want to join in on the conversation with others that are interested in self sufficiency and self reliance head over and join The Bug Out Location Prepping groups website.
Prepper may have become a tarnished word but it doesn’t matter one lick to me. I have been a prepper since my late teens but it came naturally to me. My grandparents raised me in a small town in AZ and we traveled to Mesa AZ once a month to grocery shop because the prices were so high at the local market. We’d stuff the station wagon full of food and drive the 80 miles back home.
A lot of neighbors and friends were LDS and I was interested in their philosophy of keeping a years worth of food on hand for themselves and fellow humans. It made complete sense to me.
Being prepared for an event or hiccup financially is peace of mind for me and I really derive great satisfaction from being as independant as I can possibly be.
For instance, I had to pay a big tax bill back in December 2013. I paid it all off to get those a holes off my back and in turn shorted myself of cash to cover Jan and Feb 2014. I reviewed my budget and found that I could save 500 bucks by taking canned foods and dry goods from my pantry. Raiding the pantry of goods that were at the end of their shelf life needed done anyway. I got thru Jan and this month just fine and now my commissions have kicked back in so all is well and I’m off to the store to replenish my stock.
My Dad and coworkers that know I prep think I’m a strange person and looking forward to the collapse of society. I hope a total collapse doesn’t occur but I want to live as comfortably as possible when the electricity goes out due to a tornado or should a long term event happen. I don’t want to be that person who is panic stricken and tearing their hair out when SHTF. I want to be that guy who is prepared with food, water and medicine so I can help my good friends and neighbors. I want to be that calm and assured person in a crisis whether it’s short term or long.
They can think I’m crazy for being a prepper and so be it. As long as I’m happy, happy, happy!
The first thing to remember is that people hate being wrong. so that means that their {totally unsubstantiated) belief that the economy can’t crash, or if some other catastrophe happens the government will be there in 37 minutes to make things right – even though recent history has proven that YOYO (You On Your OWN). So anything that contradicts or shakes their belief that the U.S.A. is bullet proof is just WRONG and CRAZY, but if something does happen guess who will be pounding on your door DEMANDING that you share & help them even though (now forgotten) they ridiculed anyone who was putting anything away for hard times.
When anyone questions me about storing some food I just say “I think SOMETHING bad is going to happen. If I’m right I will still be eating, if I’m wrong I’ll be still be eating but won’t have to buy food for a while.”