An Interesting, if Foreboding Resurgence.

As I’ve mentioned in the past,  I’m a firm believer in preparedness.   I never really looked at being a “prepper” as my identity, it was just something I grew up with.  First, my matriarch grandmother was a child of the Great Depression, and I spent a LOT of time with her growing up, so I’m sure that mindset rubbed off over the years. (As did religion, but that’s a story for another day). 

Then I spent my adolescence and most of my teen years in Boy Scouts, who’s official motto is ” Be Prepared”.  Several years working with my father added to it, as he ALWAYS seemed to have whatever was needed on a jobsite, even when you had no idea you’d need it.  So in a way, it feels like preparedness is part of my DNA, even if it isn’t my identity.

After the Y2K scare came and went, I got complacent and I really stopped paying attention to preparedness in a meaningful way, and didn’t really start taking is seriously again until about 2008 or so.  The big story of 2008 was the Great Recession of course, which didn’t effect me directly as I was too poor to own a home anyway, but it DID effect my employer at the time, which put the fear of the unknown into me and got me started with ” what will we do if I lose my job?” scenarios.

One thing led to another and I ended up going down a deep, dark rabbit hole regarding preparedness and survival.   It became a bit of a hobby I guess you’d say, with me spending lots of time on various websites and forums, trying to learn everything I could about surviving “The End Of The World As We Know It” or TEOTWAWKI, and I’ll tell you, it was enlightening to say the least.

From around 2010 or so, the ” preparedness space” online just exploded!  Podcasts, websites, forums, news aggregates with a preparedness slant, YouTube channels, a mountain of books in the topic, “prepping” was everywhere!  Even mainstream TV got into the act with “Doomsday Preppers”, which honestly probably did more to damage the idea of preparing more than anything, but the fact that a mainstream media outlet would sink money into such a show just goes to show you how popular the topic had become.

But then a weird thing happened back in 2016.  We got ourselves a new President and suddenly folks didn’t seem so worried about TEOTWAWKI.  Ok, that’s not entirely true, a ton of people thought his election would be then end of us all, I guess they just weren’t of the preparedness mindset to start with.  But I digress…

Anyhow, by 2018 or so, the online preparedness space had been decimated due to lack of interest according to several friends and acquaintances that I knew in that space. Many of the websites I used to follow either quit altogether or they just petered out over a year.  The main forum I was on from 2009 til that time had far less interaction and started getting stale and boring.  My YouTube feed starting having considerably fewer videos about preparedness.   It was as if everyone thought “the danger” (whatever that was to them) was over and done with.

By 2020 the focus had become covid, shortly followed by the “insurrection” (don’t get me started on that load of bovine excrement!) and so on. People were focused on censorship and government over reach and again, the economy. But still, you didn’t hear much about preparedness, other than toilet paper, hand sanitizer and face masks. Oh, and baby formula.

But now here we are in Q2 2023 and suddenly the world of preparedness has once again exploded! A bunch of old faces are showing up again, along with a number of new faces.

Now, I’m not complaining. I think it’s useful and important. What’s disconcerting is there seems to be a touch of urgency bordering on desperation, which is different from the preparedness landscape in days gone by.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand it. In fact I’ve been shoring up my weak spots over the last 2 years. This latest prepper-mania has somewhat confirmed my bias toward preparedness.

I could be wrong, but it certainly feels like something wicked this way comes. And clearly I’m not the only one.

Give it some thinkin’. If everything went sideways tomorrow, can you eat? How about a week from now? Do you have cash on hand in case the banking system blows a gasket and your plastic cards don’t work? Do you have a water supply in the event your municipal supply goes offline? Medicines?

If the last two decades have taught me anything, it’s that relying on others, especially in a dire situation, is something best avoided. You are your own first responder, your own emergency service, your own responsibility. Act accordingly.

Thanks for stopping by!