What do people think of preppers/survivalists in your country?

I became curious about this after reading "The Postman" by David Brin last week. It's basically a science fiction story in post-apocalypse setting, but I've noticed the author believes preppers are morons at best and dangerous psychos at worst. I wonder if the general public in the US shares this view? In my country (Poland) there's not such problem, because most people aren't aware of the survivalism movement, and I'd wager the enlightened few probably are preppers themselves or consider it an interesting hobby.

 

People generally see as as eccentric rather than dangerous, which is fine. It really does boggle my mind how some American prepper are seen as potential terrorists by their fellow countrymen, in fact I don't know any terrorist in history that was into prepping, although I'm not saying there definitively was never any. In any case, the link between preppers and terrorist seems an absurd one to draw.

 

Well, in my country most people who went through the German occupation and various civil wars and political turmoil tend to be on the prepper side without realising it. If you grow up in an unstable environment where in any day you could run out of food of a certain kind or completely run out of food, you tend to start stocking on various fundamental items, like stocking salt and canning food, or keeping a power generator around.
They consider it "good housekeeping" instead of prepping.
Of course the people who actually get themselves a personal bunker and supply themselves for years worth of food are very few.

 

I agree with this, that many are preppers without realising it. Some are even better at it than me, someone who consciously considers myself a prepper. I was never really brought up with that mindset, and it's something that I've had to acquire over time. Now even as a force of habit I've always got 2 weeks of food in house anyway (not including bulk stores)

 

The Unabomber lived off the grid and allegedly was interested in survivalism in general, and I guess the media coverage of his case might have contributed to this stereotype? Of course, it's a blatantly false stereotype, people could as well claim "all mathematicians are terrorist", but most people are very lazy when it comes to things like this, and will not rethink their views or seek better info than superficial coverage in media.

@Correy This is interesting, can I ask which country are you from? Older people in Poland tend to better prepared for an emergency too, since they witnessed things like economic collapse in the 80s, and I think the generation(s) that lived through WW2 (still known simply as "the war" here) used to be even more aware, but sadly, they have mostly passed away by now.

 

In the US it's gotten really popular, there's all kinds of shows about it. Naked and Afraid, Alone, Doomsday Preppers... even crazier ones like Born in the Wild... about women giving birth in the wild. People are really interested in it nowadays.

 

By virtue of probability, of course one or two terrorists will end up being preppers, or anything else. I'm not sure where the stereotype really comes from though. I would say American preppers are probably disproportionate opposed to gun restriction, but so are millions of other non-terrorists.

 

@Destiny That should be good, maybe it will help change the popular attitude? At very least, things like TV shows are guaranteed to attract more people to the survivalism movement. This should help improve prepper's image on its own. It's quite sad that there are people who think we're dangerous to society, when quite the opposite is true

 

It is looked on as "ANTI ESTABLISHMENT" by the establishment because it says "We do not believe you"
It is a challenge to power and authority so it must be got rid of!
All media coverage even the seemingly pro survivalist ones are designed to make survivalists look evil, stupid, paranoid or just plain nutty!
and some of them are but the media plays it to make them all bad!
The .gov wants good obedient worker drones all marching to the same tune and all in unison!

 

Here in the US, most preppers are considered crazy or zealots. People actually think that a situation that warrants being prepared for will never happen. This is especially a ridiculous notion after 911 and some of the major hurricanes that we have experienced. I don't really make it well-known to neighbors and friends that I am well-prepared for some sort of disaster though either. I really don't care if any of them think I am crazy, but if or when a situation does occur, I don't want these people thinking they can just bunk up with me and deplete all my supplies and provisions that I have so carefully stowed away for emergencies. Sometimes, I think this attitude is heartless, but the more I really thin about it, we all had an equal opportunity to be prepared for such things to happen. Those that didn't plan should not be as comfortable as those that aren't. Some people argue the economic factor with me, stating that people that are less fortunate don't really have the ability or the funds to plan for such events. However, I live below the poverty level and even though it is hard, I still am able to be more prepared than even my more financially able friends.

 

@Arboreal I'm from Greece. As you can probably guess during the economical crisis, people who are preppers around here are the ones that are able to cut down costs the most and minimize expenses by applying their tactics.
While we haven't found ourselves in food shortage yet (like Venezuela has), historically we've seen times like those back at the times of the German occupation at the 40s and the greek civil war that followed.

 

I think it depends what you're prepping for, having the resources available to eat and be safe in an emergency event is sensible, making space age weapons to combat the impending alien invasion not so much, haha.

 

It was a joke Lonewolf, I don't really think that preppers are waiting for aliens.

 

That's quite interesting, I think people in general underestimate the risk of a economical crisis occuring, and I'm afraid in the unstable global economy we will be seeing more and more fo them in coming decade. Before I started looking into prepping, I thought it was a US thing, it's good that there are so many people into our stuff in Europe.

That's a pity, I always thought the British, or the English at least, were on average more self-reliant than in other European countries?

 

On another space topic, scientists are now trying to prepare for the event that one day we might have to try and inhabit Mars once we've completely distroyed this planet. That's some serious survival planning.

 

That's gotta be the ultimate bug-out plan ever devised - how serious are these plans, however? Its sounds good in a Science fiction plot, like the Interstellar film last year, but it's not a practical solution for next decades - we (we as in, humanity) don't even have a self-relaint habitat on low Earth orbit, let alone on another planet.

That's regrettable, we keep hearing about the negative results of "Anglo-Saxon rugged individualism" so I thought you guys could also use the upside of this attitude.

 

That happens a lot with generations of people who are used to a very comfortable way of living where everything is provided by the system. It's easy to forget how far we've come as humanity within our civilization from the times where we were in a setting prior to the industrial revolution, where everything that you needed had to be handcrafted either by you or by specialists.

In first world countries some people are so detached to the way things are made, that they don't even know where their food comes from, how it's grown/raised and how it's processed.

The fear of uncertainty is more prominent with jobs that have a big risk, like being a farmer, where your entire year's crop could be wiped out by a new strain of bacteria or a locust migration.

 

Sadly, the first time I heard of prepping is when I joined this forum. See, sometimes it pays to be curious. I have learned so much on here.

 

In the tropical countries of southAmerica. Most people would think that a prepper/survivalist is someone from the guerrilla.

 

Serious preppers are seen in the US as a little wacko to be honest. Homesteaders on the other hand are seen as people going through a phase. "Let them get it out of their system and then they will come back to reality".

 

Survivalist preppers are seen as a laughing stock and the community. This is due to the fact that most people believe that a disaster will never happen and preppers are just overly cautious. Many also believe in the falicy that prepper could be potential terrorists but in reality, they are just preparing for the worst. In my opinion these people are highly sophisticated in takin precautions in the dangers of the world we have today.

 

That's actually really interesting. Probably an after-effect of Che's campaign through Argentina. If that award-winning 2008 film was any accurate, he and his men had hardly anything and were practically writing the book on successful guerrilla tactics at the end of the war. Given that that was probably the biggest shake-up in 20th century Latin America, there's no wonder people would stereotype so heavily from it.

Edit: Also, my god, was Che a crazy, crazy project. How many films do you know that get critical acclaim from Cannes and the president of Venezuela? Amazing they managed such a wide-sweeping a film that didn't upset either Marxist or Liberal sensibilities.

 

I do think people in the US share this view. If you share your ideas on survival, or the fact that you prep you're likely to he judged. People often don't understand things they are naive to. They can only hope those who are prepared help them when the time comes.

 

Damn Kieth that sort of thing makes my skin crawl!! I view your government as a terrorist organization.

I have never liked the term "Prepper" mostly because of the way the media presented it. The preppers that they show on TV shows are mostly joke. I remember a woman that had like 5 years of gourmet food stored in her basement. She bragged that while others might be starving that SHE would be fat and sassy eating well. She lived in a regular residential house in the suburbs of a large city!!! Guess where all her neighbors are going to be when they get hungry?? She failed to understand that being prepared means more than just having a lot of food stored. You have to be able to protect it and it is best if very few even know what you have.

Because of this sort of coverage preppers are or actually were seen as basically nuts that wear tin foil hats. It is basically dying out now and returning to what it has always been before this last little surge of interest. The real survivors are still out there. We are fairly quiet about what he have or are doing as far as the people around you knowing what you are up to. For people like me that have been looking at things as shaky for 45 years this is actually more comfortable. Honestly all those sheeple running around with assault rifles and MREs make me nervous. They are idiots and are just into prepping because they are followers. To them it is just the latest fad and their understanding is shallow and dangerous.

Then you have the people that are building fortresses and spending unbelievable amounts on weapons. When their food supplies are gone they won't have anything unless they just start stealing stuff from others. Survival versus prepping seems to be a matter of balance. You need some stored foods but you also need to look at gardening, livestock, hunting, fishing and foraging. There is so much more to surviving than just food and guns. Too many preppers don't seem to have a plan B, C, and D.

I am going to hunker down and bug in where I am BUT I also have bug out bags and plans in case I have to run. I have gardens but also know what I can forage from the wild and have no worry that I will starve EVER. Prepping is unfortunately based on preparing for a forseem disaster. Survival is about learning a set of skills and having the minimal amount of tools that will allow you to adapt to and survive under any survivable situation.

 

The people back up in the hollars are all "preppers". If you ask them what a prepper is, they'll have absolutely no idea. OK, so maybe in this day and age they'll know, however they won't think preppers are strange. In the hills of Southern Appalachia, there are more guns than people ... add to the people-number the number of their dogs and cats. Everybody has food put back -- but not like back when. When I was a boy, there'd be a year's supply of food my grandmother had canned or we could forage -- and a lot of foraging we did for food and remedies. Grandma would have salt and pepper put back, and home grown pickled peppers for spices ... plus the mountain-picked spices, herbs, and mints.

This apparently was healthy. If you lived past childhood and some accident or feud didn't kill you, often-times people lived to be 85 - 100 years old. Many of my kin, my grandparents lived to be over 90; one close lived to be 100. Too, there's the matter of them just being too dang stubborn to die -- no joke, I'm being serious about them. My mom's dad died then kept on living. That man scared-off the grim reaper. His eyes could melt the eyes of a hawk.

 

I'm from France.
Here preppers (we are using survivalist) are consider as weird paranos. Mostly in town.
In the contry side that's a bit different. There's a lot of hunter, people consider the gouvernement is far from them. They don't trust in the system. There is a lot of preppers.
The other point is about security. Our laws about weapons are very restrictive. Survivalist are consider like dangerous paranos.

 

People that live in the more rural places just have a different view of a lot of things. With no cops you have better be prepared to defend your place. We have hogs that will get belligerent and there is always the snakes and and ocasional rabid skunk. I went to war with a longhorn bull one time over my garden. He was a good critter but could jump like a lipizzan stallion and occasionally got the wanderlust if he was downwind of a cow in heat on another pasture. After visiting with his lady friend he really liked to catch a snack before going home. When you live in the country you are expected to just deal with things. I have a 6' signal whip that I am deadly with and I chased the bull home and watched him go right over a 4 strand barbed wire fence with at least a foot to spare in clearance.

When it is a 40 mile round trip, 20 miles each way, to a big store you tend to keep more food on hand. Delivery pizza is only in your dreams and if you get hurt you had better be able to get yourself to the hospital because ambulance service is iffy out in the woods.

All of this adds up to a people that are pretty prepared compares to their city cousins without ever really thinking about it as prepping. A lot of people can their own food from the garden. I've know several people that got nearly all of their meat from hunting and fishing. I probably feed a half dozen households fish all the time. I pulled 20 pounds of fish filets out of the freeze yesterday for a memorial day fish fry. I average about 20 to 30 pounds a month of all meat fillets. I have a friend that I feed fish to his family year around and he keeps my entire familly in venison.

None of this is prepping it is just how you live when you live in the country. Nobody thinks that it is odd to have a big pantry full of food. Another thing around here that is different is that because of all the prisons most of the blue collar people here only get paid once a month. The butcher shops have meat packages that they sell for people that only shop for groceries once a month. Also guards tend to be of a sort of pessimistic mind set and tend to think ahead more than other folks.

In general the ants in the ant piles think anyone that lives on a dirt road is already pretty primitive so who really cares about what the sheeple think anyway?

 

Let the sheeple laugh. They'll not be laughing so much when their ribs are sticking out of their skin. And when it hits the fan, show no mercy. When they had the time to prepare, they hosed their resources away. These sheeple fall into two categories; they are arrogant or they are pathetic. Disgusting.

 

For sure but we are a lot in a small cowntry. desesperate ppl can be dangerous. Most of them are unarmed but they are a lot.
The rule for preppers here is the low profile.

 

In the end it's about public perception more than fact. The public are led by the media who in turn will only ever chase the most sensational stories. This means that the media will only ever show the crazy side of prepping (and there are plenty of crazies out there to supply them with a story) the media never write about the wise person who keeps a well stocked larder and is capable of keeping a cool head while looking after themselves or others during a crisis (who would Want to buy that boring old story? It sounds like my Grandma)
Truthfully forums like this can contribute to the misinformation because the crazies (oops sorry, active members) tend to be more likely to express strong opinions when they believe that they're amongst like minded people. (these forums are often watched by search engines used by journalists searching for source material) We need to keep our statements factual and uncontravertial if we want to escape negative media attention.

 

The perception of someone who is prepared here in the US has definitely been swayed by the media and by so-called reality shows like Doomsday Preppers and Survival Bunker. They seem to pick the most extreme example of those who crawled out of the shallow end of the gene pool to put on TV.

Being a retired cop, former SWAT member and narcotics officer...I watch some of these shows when it focuses on "tactics" (I hate that word by the way), and firearms and it looks like Bonzo The Chimp Got A Gun when they practice room clearing, or any other drills. I think to myself..."they are going to be the first ones eaten". But, the television producers also see that, and put it on TV because it makes good entertainment, not because it reflects the reality that some people are actually getting training in defensive techniques (I like that better for civilians), and aren't like the boobs on TV.

There are also two distinct stereotypes in play here. The Survivalist which is the loner, anti-government, EOTW, type who is rinning around in camo with tinfoil on his head. They are played up in the media with all the negative connotations that go along with it. Then there is the benign "Prepper" type who thinks the EOTW is coming from many different places, yes, they have guns for self defense etc...but they aren't seen as much more than eccentrics.

I fit into the "I recognize that the world can go to hell in a hand basket with little to no warning" group, and had grandparents who lived through the Great Depression and just flat believe in being prepared for whatever comes along. I am good with that. I have a very small circle of friends who are on board, and if TSHTF, then my house is where everyone will come to...but they all bring something to the table. Whether it's a Ferguson MO style riot in the city, or some other long or short term disruption we plan to bug in here together because it just makes sense. I am out of the beaten path in a place that is inhospitable unless you know the place and have made it hospitable over the years with some good old fashioned common sense thinking.

In any event, I plan to be able to weather out hard times for a long time. We all "gotta go sometime" so in the interim I want to be as comfortable as possible.

 

The people that make the TV shows are massively stupid. People that get their ideas about gunfights from TV will die fast if they ever try to do most of that stupid crap. The only good thing is that I have seen several film of stores being robbed where two guys went at it across the counter shooting as fast as they can and NOBODY gets hit!! ROTFLMFAO!!!

There is one show where the cops run around with their handguns about 6" from their face with both elbows bent. It is silly looking and a good way to get your teeth knocked out. I also like the ones where they hide behind a garbage can or beside a window in a wood framed house. If you are going to get behind a car you want the motor between you and the shooter. At the very least have a tire and wheel in front of you. Cars these days don't offer you any real protection from rifle fire.

With laws the way they are now a cop can't hardly even defend themselves for fear of ending up in prison themselves. A Black person can just say no and refuse to be arrested and if you cause them any sort of harm you are in deep crap. Not a job that I have ever wanted. My temper isn't that good.

 

Urban dwellers disparage preppers. They can't fathom the concept that the power could go off and stay off. According to them, the government would fix it. Water sources, pumps, and/or the large water distribution systems fail -- that can't happen & if it does, by golly the government better have it fixed and soon!

2012 hurricane Sandy hits NY, NY. Bunch of damage is done, power goes off, the looters come out dressed as Con.Edison workers or relief workers -- locals are numbed because "this sorta thing can't happen." To this day, folk there are damning the US Gov. for not doing more -- even if they were living right down next to the water.

In rural America / small town America, preppers aren't called preppers. They are called "the next door neighbor". Who doesn't own guns?! Who doesn't grow a garden?! Who doesn't hunt?! Who doesn't can veggies for winter?! Come fall, canning jars, wax, lids, spices, ... all begin being stocked in stores. Hunting supplies start filling the aisles. You'll see bushy bearded men who have also stopped using deodorant = not pleasant, however game animals can smell perfumes a mile away, literally, maybe further.

Back up in the Appalachian Mountains where I'm from, in winter, the Cherokee simply left the place. Not the Scottish nor the Germans. They were ALL preppers. There was no thought given to prepping or not prepping. Post harvest / post hunts, you started preserving food to get you through winter or your family died. End of discussion. Get ready or get dead.

Where I'm from, unless you start building a pillbox or a machine-gun emplacement, you will draw little or no attention from your neighbors. The Sheriff's department WILL get mad if your kin begin cutting down trees behind officers who've been called up into the hollars. This has happened. The sheriff will go ballistic. And, your kin WILL get into all manner of trouble. So, don't do that. This began happening in an adjacent county, so the sheriff armed his men with military M-14s with selector switches. After some "unpleasant interactions" this crap stopped.

 

Where I live people are a lot like you describe. A lot of people have lots of guns and keep a good food supply on hand. Even the preachers may have a gun in their pants and I know several that have pretty good arsinals. Most of the people that I know and hang out with are beyond well armed and most have a concealed carry permit. Most of this sort of thing just isn't considered prepping. I don't know anyone that has turned their home into a fortress. I guess that would attract a little attention. Most of what a big city person in LA or NYC would consider "prepping" is just normal in rural Texas.