How did you became interested in prepping?

[GPS]

Hi all,

I am a new member. You can see details of my interests and my full disclosure and responses to questions here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=14939&e=0). The kind people that replied to my thread suggested bringing my questions to the wider forums.

Hopefully I have posted in the right section of the forum (forgive me, I am new!).

A good place to start is by asking how you all became interested in prepping or realised you are in fact a 'prepper'? Everyone obviously prepares themselves to various degrees and some are better at this than others but when did you actually start to identify as a 'prepper' or do you? Some might have a problem with this term?

Thanks

[pseudonym]

Prepping in today's society is just a label added to people who have a bit of common sense.

Previous generations put a bit aside for "rainy days" whether that was food, wood, coal, money.

I have "prepped" all my adult life.

I prepped for:

My life ending
My house burning down
My car crashing
My local shop shutting
My bank collapsing
.
.
.



You see where I'm going with this?

If that makes me a prepper then so be it.


Oh, don't forget the Zombies....

[GPS]

Prepping in today's society is just a label added to people who have a bit of common sense.

Previous generations put a bit aside for "rainy days" whether that was food, wood, coal, money.

I have "prepped" all my adult life.

I prepped for:

My life ending
My house burning down
My car crashing
My local shop shutting
My bank collapsing
.
.
.



You see where I'm going with this?

If that makes me a prepper then so be it.


Oh, don't forget the Zombies....

haha that would most certainly be a long list. I suppose everyone to a degree prepares for most of the list you mentioned, including myself. I am wondering how some people are labelled or identify as 'prepper' (e.g. engage in prepper forums etc) as opposed to others and if you have any issues with the term as it has begun to be used in the mainstream media.

[Plymtom]

You know it's a common question to which I must say there is a goldmine of answers on a couple of threads which already exist

[Brambles]

Yep, the question has been asked a time or two.

[GPS]

Yeah I suppose its a pretty broad question (I have to start somewhere). What are your feelings on the actual term 'prepper'. It is obviously a term that is central to these forums but I have seen on other websites/forums etc. that people are reluctant to use the term or even dismissive of that. Have any of you had any experiences with that?

[Deeps]

Yeah I suppose its a pretty broad question (I have to start somewhere). What are your feelings on the actual term 'prepper'. It is obviously a term that is central to these forums but I have seen on other websites/forums etc. that people are reluctant to use the term or even dismissive of that. Have any of you had any experiences with that?

Everything has to be categorised it seems so we're no different. There are plenty on here who use the term "sheeple" for example. I'd never heard of prepping or preppers as a 'thing' until a few years ago when someone asked me if I was a "prepper". A quick visit to google suggested I was one, its not how I define myself but its an easy 'catch all' term. As others have alluded to, there are those that can't wait for the 'zombie times' (which will be happening of course....) all the way through to those who just fancy living "The Good Life" (throw in a Felicity Kendall and where do I sign).

I know its not a universally popular notion but there is a hobby element to it, people will pick the aspects that appeal to them. We don't all prep for the same things or in the same ways either.

[GPS]

Yeah I suppose its a pretty broad question (I have to start somewhere). What are your feelings on the actual term 'prepper'. It is obviously a term that is central to these forums but I have seen on other websites/forums etc. that people are reluctant to use the term or even dismissive of that. Have any of you had any experiences with that?

Everything has to be categorised it seems so we're no different. There are plenty on here who use the term "sheeple" for example. I'd never heard of prepping or preppers as a 'thing' until a few years ago when someone asked me if I was a "prepper". A quick visit to google suggested I was one, its not how I define myself but its an easy 'catch all' term. As others have alluded to, there are those that can't wait for the 'zombie times' (which will be happening of course....) all the way through to those who just fancy living "The Good Life" (throw in a Felicity Kendall and where do I sign).

I know its not a universally popular notion but there is a hobby element to it, people will pick the aspects that appeal to them. We don't all prep for the same things or in the same ways either.

Yeah labels can be a problematic at times. For instance, I am (understandably) met with suspicion by this forum and in other research I do if it is suspected I am a 'journalist' (I am not) or even because I am an 'academic'. That is understandable though when you see the terrible depths journalism has dropped to and to be in honest in some academic research areas too.

By the way, the variety of topics on this forum is incredible - topics as varied as how to make ballet shoes to surviving the zombie apocalypse - I am going to get no work done

[Arzosah]

Hello GPS, I found your email, sent good and early and appearing in my inbox very late Will reply separately, but this question below is really important, and bears attention.

I am wondering how some people are labelled or identify as 'prepper' (e.g. engage in prepper forums etc) as opposed to others and if you have any issues with the term as it has begun to be used in the mainstream media.

The word itself is American, I'm pretty sure, and so is the concept - and the associated concepts that go along with it, the whole Second Amendment right to bear arms, the suspicion that the government is setting up camps and is ready to ban/confiscate all sorts of goods. In America, those concepts make some kind of sense: the American government banned alcohol (Prohibition! Al Capone and all that) it outlawed the private ownership of gold in 1933, and it put Japanese Americans, born in the USA into internment camps (famously George Takei, Sulu on Star Trek, was interned as a child). In the desert. We had internment camps in the UK, for adult German *nationals* - and one of them was formed from B&Bs on the harbour front on the Isle of Man.

That says it all - the words are the same, but the atittudes are really different!

There are two things that make it a suspect label: one is the tv programmes imported from the States, like Doomsday Preppers. I mean really, who would self describe as part of that bunch if they weren't completely deluded? And the other is the "stiff upper lip", the ghost of which exists strongly enough so that people feel slightly odd about taking this stuff seriously. The mockery we all enjoy (which was going strong from our members on your first thread) can be turned against us just as easily, and constant mockery based on aggression and not good nature, is simply not enjoyable. I for one am not interested in justifying myself to people who just want to attack me, for a name.

Like pseudonym's list up above on this thread, most of us prep for emergencies that are almost bound to happen to some of us: a water main breakage, power cuts, robbery, a house fire, a cyber attack, a flood, illness, that sort of thing. Well before I heard the term, I'd stocked up on storecupboard goods because my health was iffy and I was getting a cold every other month and flu every winter. I had to have enough food in the house so that I didn't have to go to the supermarket for quite a while.

I've dealt with other problems too: in my 20s, I was attacked abroad (twice), lost my currency, and was stolen from; in the UK, I've been attacked in the street, I've had power cuts, ill health, an accidental kitchen fire, lots of delays on trains, and I was trapped inside my house inside the police line when my local post office had an armed robbery.

And thats what brings people here, a lot of the time: experience of one form of problem, and the determination not to fall victim to the same thing again, or another form of problem. Systematising the things that used to be done naturally, by our agricultural and rural ancestors. I like systems, I like lists though my career has been very far from that.

Plus, you'll probably see it written around the forum - quite a few people on here (including me) are pretty sure that during the economic crash ten years or so ago, the can was only kicked down the road, the structural problems weren't sorted. Which means that some kind of financial crisis could erupt once again.

And zombies. Simon Pegg is a god

[Yorkshire Andy]

Before you try to understand us let's play a little game:

I assume you drive?

Now it's -10 snowing you skid on the motorway go into a crash barrier on the hard shoulder and come to a stop on the shoulder car is dead and the pretensions / air bags have gone off seatbelt won't release .......

So how do you get out?



Once you have got out you stumble to the orange box and police tell you they are swamped but not to sit in your car but get up the embankment and await recovery truck estimated at 90mins it's blowing a gale and snowing bitterly cold and cars and lorries are whipping up a slusshy mess

What do you do?