When the modern prepper community really started to grow during the financial crisis and the 2008 US presidential election, the unofficial rule was that you had to keep your prepping completely hidden.
Almost all bloggers and vloggers at that time used fake names, or usernames like “ZombieDude12.” Some even disguised their faces when sharing videos or photos.
Despite this shared secrecy, we advise that you are actually better off telling your family, friends and neighbours that you are preparing and why. The benefits of sharing outweigh the risks.
Why prepping has remained (mostly) underground until now
The “keep it a secret” norm was fueled by a few factors. First, in the early days of prepping, there was a pop culture stigma about tinfoil-hatted weirdos living in the woods and giving their toddlers AR-15s. American TV shows deliberately sought out the most “interesting” stories they could find, because their real motivation was to sell sensationalism.
Closely related to this is that many in the early prepper community were motivated by (and very vocal about) a number of extreme political views. Fears such as “Obama is going to take away all my guns and implement Sharia law” motivated and guided their prepping. This caused the majority of preppers to remain silent, either because they disagreed with these political views or because they simply did not want to make prepping political.
Secondly, when prepping was something that few people did, chances were you were the only person in your social network who was into these things. Sometimes we are hesitant to share an unusual hobby for fear of seeming weird.
Last but not least, the “operational security” (or OpSec) argument has also kept many preppers silent.
“OpSec” is no longer a reason to keep your prepping a secret
It's a familiar story - you're talking about prep with a friend and he says, half jokingly, "If there's a disaster, I'll come to your house!"
It is human nature to protect what we have, especially when things are bad. After all, in emergency situations we see news reports of looters breaking into supermarkets, people stealing supplies from the weak, and a general dog-eat-dog mentality.
No matter how optimistic you are about people and their nature, when shit hits the fan, societal norms and the rule of law may not apply. For example, no sane prepper would put a big sign on their house saying, “I have emergency food in the house.”
Our rule of thumb: Share your prepping with your friends, family, and neighbors—but hide it from strangers and the public.
But many preppers don’t realize that the people around them, like friends and neighbors, probably already know. People who prepare naturally exude that they are thoughtful and “have their act together.”
Maybe they’ve noticed the solar panels on your roof and the generator in your garage, your vegetable garden or the pictures on Facebook of camping. Or maybe they’ve noticed in casual conversation that you feel like things aren’t going well in our world.
Even if they have no idea you have a basement full of supplies, chances are they'll come knocking in an emergency. It's the disaster equivalent of "can I borrow a cup of sugar?"
Interpersonal connections are extremely (even irrationally) important to the way our brains work. We think and act differently around the people we feel connected to. It even affects things like medical malpractice lawsuits—research shows that whether someone will sue their doctor has almost nothing to do with the doctor’s skill, but everything to do with how bad their bedside manner was.
All of this leads to our rule of thumb: Share your prep with your inner circle of friends, family, and neighbors—but hide it from strangers and the public.
3 Reasons Why You Should Share Your Prepping
1. You will benefit directly from having more people around you who are ready for a crisis
If your neighbors had small children, would you turn them away if they knocked on your door hungry and asked for food? What if it was a random family desperately asking for your help?
These are extremely difficult choices. While it is valuable to think about what you would do in that situation, you can take steps to prevent the problem by encouraging those around you to have their own supplies and plans.
If more people around you are prepared for a crisis:
- They will be less likely to become dependent on you or create awkward situations where you have to reject them...or worse.
- You will be less likely to stand out in a crowd.
- It creates backups and greater inventory availability, so if you need something, there's a greater chance that someone has it and will actually want to help you.
- It increases the number of places you can fall back to. Instead of just your home and maybe a fallback location, there are now more safe places.
- You can pool resources to make more expensive purchases.
- You can share skills. It's not realistic for one person to be a great doctor and a great electrician and a muscle man and a great farmer and so on.
- There is strength in numbers. Maybe you are holed up in a building and worried about criminals roaming around. How can you protect yourself when you are alone and asleep?
- You are in a crisis with people you know and trust, rather than with random strangers. People tend to band together anyway, so choose the people in advance.
2. Building prepper communities makes everyone stronger—and happier
The right balance for most preppers is a mix of “love thy neighbor” and “put your family first.”
So the argument is quite simple. Teach a manfishand he has food for all his life. If you believe that most people are woefully ignorant and unprepared for the real dangers we face, then one of the best ways you can “teach” someone to fish is to encourage them and help them prepare themselves.
It is a free gift that you can give to others. We know first hand that even if people are skeptical at first, they will truly appreciate your gift because it brings about an epiphany and impactful change in their lives.
Many preppers enjoy interacting with like-minded people, whether it's casual or doing something specific, like medical training.
It is a fact that when we work on meaningful hobbies with people we like, our happiness, energy and even our work performance improve dramatically.
Take it a step further and join or start a local prepper group. You can still be private and selective so that the whole town doesn’t know about it. But with some basic care and attention, you can start approaching people who would be a good addition to your group (like someone with a special skill).
During the Great Depression, many of the communities that did best said that a sense of community, where people helped each other, was one of the main reasons they thrived.
Annie Campbell, curator of a museum exhibition on the Depression, said: "You could find support, you could barter, you could rely on your neighbors because they were in the same boat. That sense of community is what got people through."
On our facebook groupfor example you will find like-minded people.
3. There is much less stigma and more people do it
Today the world is very different than it was in 2008. People from all walks of life are preparing: left, right, rural, urban, young, old, colored, white, LGBTQ, and so on.
There is also a wide range of well-researched, sensible reasons to prepareIt can be as simple as wanting to be prepared for everyday things like car accidents, annoying but increasingly normal events like floods, or major societal disruptions like war and economic downturns.
Part of the reason we started SOS Central is that by prepping ourselves and teaching others, we saw how it had become mainstream over the last few years. We could tell the time was right.
We've lost count of the number of times a friend or neighbor has said in a shy whisper, "Hey, I'm interested in those things. Can you help me?"
You'd be surprised how many people you know are already doing this or thinking about starting. It's really easy to start with our emergency preparedness checklist.
Tips to get started sharing
Through years of trial and error, we have learned how to discuss this topic with other people. Here are our top tips:
- Instead of immediately preaching, ask them what they have already done to be prepared for emergencies. Listen to their story.
- If you think they still believe in the outdated stereotypes of “preppers,” avoid that word altogether.
- Keep it healthy. Maybe there is something reasonable and specific to prepare for in your area, like a flood due to a dike breach or a long-term power outage due to the growing problem of our overloaded electricity grid. If you make the situation real and logical, people will quickly drop their resistance.
- Help them think about a real scenario. "What would happen if a tornado came through and your kids were home alone while you were at work?"
- Put it into context. They may think that to be prepared they need to move to the country and raise their own cows and chickens. Help them understand that it can be as simple as buying a few weeks worth of supplies for their home, along with some practice and planning.
- Talk about why you enjoy prepping and what you’ve learned. Many adults are socially isolated and find it hard to get out of the house, hang out with friends, and do fun activities these days. Even if that’s the only reason you enjoy prepping, maybe they do too!
And of course invite them to take a look at our products!