Things have changed a lot for preppers in just the past three years. Not only do I run into more and more barely-closeted preppers in my daily life, but anecdotally I see more stories in online prepper groups that go something like: “I came out as a prepper to some colleagues and nobody thought it was weird — a few people were even interested in it.”
This month has brought two new signs of just how different things are, now, signs that still belong in the realm of anecdata but are nonetheless powerfully suggestive of how normal prepping has become in the public’s eyes:
- Earlier this month, a large Northeastern NPR show ran an entire episode dedicated to the idea prepping isn’t weird anymore, in fact it’s “kind of mainstream.”
- The Prepared was featured in TechCrunch, the Silicon Valley startup world’s publication of record, as an interesting new startup doing good things for normal people.
The whole episode of The Colin McEnroe show on NPR is worth listening to, as it features a group of really engaged and informed sane prepper voices. I even put in an appearance at the end on behalf of The Prepared, and talked a bit about my personal journey with prepping.
You could tell the NPR producers and host really “got it” that prepping is a common, everyday sort of activity in 2019, and that the freakshow aspect — which was always dramatically overblown by the media — is now well and truly relegated to the tiny, irrelevant fringes.
We were also excited to be featured in a lengthy TechCrunch profile, which went into considerable detail on just how the prepping scene has changed in past few years. In fact, it’s increasingly almost a misnomer to call it a “scene,” since it encompasses so many different people from so many different walks of life. Preparing for disasters large and small is no longer relegated to any one tribe or demographic — we’ve all been hit by enough freak weather and other nasty surprises that many are waking up to the need to at least have a plan in place.
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