1. So who are preppers anyway?
2. Poundshop Prepper:
3. Preps Prepper
4. Para Prepper
5. Paranoid Prepper
6. Proportionate Prepper
7. Professional Prepper

So who are preppers anyway?

Preppers are people who practice self sufficiency ready for government not saving them in a disaster. They don’t trust the system. They doubt experts and markets will avoid economic collapse. They tend to hope for a reset of riches or nature or through violence, and stockpile goods rather than prevent risks. They tend to fear anthropogenic risks and assume non-anthropogenic risks are compounded by reliance on technology¹1. They prepare personally rather than engaging in collective activist to prevent²2. They prepare for dangerous world rather than worrying about minimising risks they can control, and may hope for disaster to strike to their preps aren’t wasted³3. They fear network dependency and privatisation of own infrastructure of survival⁴4.

Preppers emerged in the 1950s from the nuclear bunker mentality after WWII⁵5. The boundary between condoned and pathological prepping shifted with Brexit, when remainers went public with their food and medicine stockpiles, and again with Covid, when government told the public to stock up and hunker down. Other shocks have encouraged prepping, like World war II (eg ‘dig for victory’), the 2008 bank collapse and the 2011 riots.

They are not necessarily into survivalism as they may not be adventurous, nor into bushcraft as they may not be outdoorsmen or even outdoorsy. Food preservation is perhaps a sub-culture of prepping, with some into canning, pickling, dehydration and vacuum packing, whilst others just stockpile MREs and tins.

Research has found preppers are typically married homeowners.

Academics have variously claimed preppers are men with rugged individualistic personality, a masculinity crisis and a bunker mentality. They certainly seem to obsess over preps and value what is valuable in a disaster even though it looks worthless in the present. Preppers are dismissed as anxious or excited about a future that probably will not happen. Some are crafters who like adapting preps. Many are sceptical of bunkers as they are a big fixed investment that does not suit many scenarios. There may be a hierarchy of peppers from archair preppers through gear junkies to those who espouse redundancy and survival skills training. Ultimately preppers see capitalism and government failing when infrastructure collapses, so seek self sufficiency ready to usher in a type of pure, but only family-wide, communism in their own home on the basis of ‘to each according to their preparedness’. It has been suggested that preppers are ridiculed for challenging the assumption that capitalism will endure so there is nothing to prepare for.

A common thread is preppers do not trust government. It has been claimed that insufficiency of the welfare state drives some people to become preppers in reacting to previous or existing personal crises, often accompanied by hypervigilance following illness. Perhaps trauma often triggers it. It has been suggested that some arrive at prepping from a nihilistic delusion caused by PTSD.

One suspects preppers are more likely to be high on conscientiousness, low on agreeableness, high on neurotism, low on openness and low on extroversion, none of which are disorders, but preppers probably sit on that side of those personality continuums. In that case it would make sense that people with such brain chemistry have the discipline and organisation to prep, to not trust the government or blindly go along with whatever they say, and to be more comfortable with solitude, whilst disagreeableness would explain some of the preponderance of men in the prepper community. If it is right then preppers tend to be the persistent, resourceful, proactive skilful trustworthy guys you need in a crisis, although they would not be big on empathy or altruism, so maybe not the best relationship builders for prepping communities. However, those who are tend to be too loud when it comes to opsec.

The problem would be with neuroticism, as those who worry enough to prep would presumably also tend to be moody, anxious and insecure, and so less mentally resilient and less willing to fight the necessary battles when SHTF. Perhaps surprisingly, creatives who like hobbies and making stuff tend to be liberals, whereas one could be forgiven for thinking preppers tend towards conservatism. Another mystery is that those high on conscientiousness that helps them be preppers tend to be slightly higher on agreeableness (and so more likely to trust government) and lower on neurotism (and so less likely to fear doomsday or to be depressed).

It seems then that there cannot be a typical prepper, but one thing for sure is that prepping needs a mix of personalities, certainly to include creativity, persistence, planning, tact, calm, confidence and cheerfulness.

Poundshop Prepper:

You just know there are ‘preppers’ in the UK, slumped on their sofa, putting away a 12” pizza, boxset binging Angry Prepper youtube instead of practicing skills, on their own in their bedsit, juggling rent with credit card payments – barely scraping by in peacetime, let alone after SHTF. With their crate of Macro baked beans under the bed, crossbow on the wall, pound shop poncho in the back pocket next to their depression pills and wish.com paracord watch on the wrist, they stagger down the loose carpeted stairs in a dingy deathtrap stairway, Strongbow in hand, boasting “yeah I’m a prepper, me, I’ve got everything squared away mate.” Of course, they are not ready to even start prepping, as they will go down with the first punch in the boxing match of life. They cannot even avoid dying young, let alone dying of disaster. This is not to denigrate an underclass or the poor or the foolish, in fact it will be the overclass who try to kill us off with a Great Reset – or however they eventually do it – and the working class who will have to try to rebuild. But Poundshop Prepper helps us understand how we need a solid foundation of preps against likely or non-fatal risks before we can build preps against fatal or less likely risks.

Preps Prepper

Preps Prepper has it all. The Big Berkie. The MREs. The trauma kit. The tent. The INCH bag. The sat phone. The drone. The only problem is, he has never done a day’s training in his life so would be dead within a month. He has ‘All The Gear, No Idea’.

Para Prepper

Para Prepper does not need preps. He will just head for the hills and live off the land. The only problem is, he has never done it for real and his family have no training. In reality, this Billy Badass will be dead within a fortnight because he never thought about bugging in with a full pantry.

Paranoid Prepper

Paranoid Prepper is the real deal. He has the preps and he has the skills. The only problem is he assumes the only disaster will be a zombie apocalypse, so when something else happens he is SOL. For example, All American Prepper is only ready for an invasion of commie Urban Preppers.

Proportionate Prepper

Proportionate Prepper is dismissed in prepper circles as an kitchen gardener, never even camped out and does not even own a gun. Their skillset is wide rather than deep. Yet, funnily enough, when disaster strikes it turns out that is all they need survive, and with preps for everything it does not matter which particular shit hits the fan.

Professional Prepper

Professional Prepper knows it all as he is a disaster recovery manager in government. He can spout procedures for rest centres and spew plans for water bowsers and how government will handle everything and we will all be fine. Insulated from reality by his gold plated job, he ignores the fact that government nearly collapsed during covid and could not even handle a flood or financial crisis.