What is a prepper?

[Graywolf]

Here's a question that I'm dealing with in the book I'm currently writing: What is a prepper?

And a related question: What is the difference between a prepper and a survivalist?


What do you think?

[shade]

Funny I was talking with a friend just the other day about this, I would say that those
definitions are going to be rather broad. There are a lot of different types of preppers
(including "survivalists", etc.) there are those who are planning on surviving nuclear
war, giant meteors, CME's, etc. There are also those like me who are in general prepping
for a general collapse of society, if a giant meteor hits the planet, I am just as screwed
but if the mobs from the cities head out this way, I have a good chance of surviving.

I would define prepper in a broad sense to include most people looking to survive local
or global disasters for a minimum of 3-6 months with no or little assistance from the
outside. Whether the disaster is natural or man-made is irrelevant.

Someone with generator and 3 days of water and gasoline stored for the next hurricane
is not a prepper.

Just my 2 cents...

[Graywolf]

That's a good start shade. I definitely think my definition has to have some element of self-sufficiency to it and that self-sufficiency should be in relation to some future event.

[nichevo]

Prepper is someone who prepares their home or BOL for a future event. A survivalist is one who could go out into the woods and live off the land....just my 2 cents

[reddawnspokane]

I really think that both could be used interchangeably

[shade]

That's a good start shade. I definitely think my definition has to have some element of self-sufficiency to it and that self-sufficiency should be in relation to some future event.

I would first work on the elements that make a prepper.
Event = some large scale disaster/collapse/war etc.; people will see potential events differently and live in different environments so a single event, i.e. global economic collapse will effect a rancher in Montana far differently than a auto-mechanic in Manhattan.
Time frame = months, years or longer, short term things like the tornadoes that recent hit around here (IL) would not be a considered as help was in most cases less than an hour, make 2 at the longest.
Activities = preparatory actions, these will differ based on perceived threats and environment.
Mind set =
External Networking = co-ordination with others in your locale, working on common plans, mutual support.

Prepper is someone who prepares their home or BOL for a future event. A survivalist is one who could go out into the woods and live off the land....just my 2 cents

Had not thought of it that way, good distinction.

[W.Lynn]

Prepper is someone who prepares their home or BOL for a future event. A survivalist is one who could go out into the woods and live off the land....just my 2 cents

I see it similarly. Though some survivalists also seem to be the opposite of hippies having a drum circle and trying to get in touch with their primal side. Some of them seem to be drooling cavemen that blindly hope for civilization to fall, in the belief they will be a new generation of warlords and kings. It never occurs to them that if civilization fell, they are as likely as any to fall with it. A pack made up of alpha dogs will tear itself apart fighting for spoils, or even just a bone.

Those who seem to prefer to be called preppers, wish to be prepared for the unpleasant events time throws at the whole world. Storms of rain and lightning, or of politics and war, fires, floods, tsunamis, and maybe even just keeping the family together in the unlikely event that a big asteroid hits somewhere else, and while things might be hard for a long time, some will survive. If only because there are so many of us.

So while we try to be the latter, we need some of the skills embraced by the former. If only because we know they're out there.

[kickstand]

A prepper is someone who sees the wisdom of being prepared for a local, regional or larger collapse of the economy, and with it, society. While he/she may have "stuff" to aid in keeping life as normal as possible for a while, it really comes down to being prepared to protected and provide for yourself and your family, regardless of what the rest of society is doing.

A survivalist is a right-wing whacko in the hills, who's claim to fame is that his second cousin was once on Hee Haw, and had all his own teeth. He then shot himself in the hand and had to have it sewn to his crotch.

[Tex]

Graywolf, I see a prepper as someone who realizes the possibility for bad things to happen. A prepper may not necessarily know what will happen, but they see the value in being prepared. They see the value in self-improvement along with skills improvement. Should a catastrphy happen, a prepper would like to face it with as many supplies in their favor as possible. If the prepper has someone in their family or group with a medical condition, they take that into account and make allowances for that. A prepper will have as many eventualities as possible taken into account so that they and those in their family or group will be effected as little as possible.

In my opinion and the way I see it, a survivalist is more along the lines of a minimalist. Where the prepper has been gathering supplies with self and skills improvement coming in second, a survivalist has been improving themselves and their skills with supplies coming in second.

In my opinion, the prepper will fare better bugging in through most situations, whereas a survivalist may fare better bugging out.

This is one of those questions where, I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer. I think to be truly prepared, a person and his family or group really needs to find a balance encompassing both doctrines. Not knowing what could happen, it isn't really smart to embrace one viewpoint while dismissing the other. Being well prepared and having the opportunity to "Bug In" would certainly create the least hardship for a man and his family who were prepared. On the other hand, if that same man had to "Bug Out" with his family and hadn't prepared his mind and body for that and he had few if any useful skills, it only stands to reason that he and his family would suffer immensely.


Tex

[Private Frazer]

I think that it's a progressive (there's that word again) thing, those who prepare, may eventually become a survivalist should any given situation become desperate enough.

[angeryamerican]

GW, I think Tex nailed the prepper. A prepper is preparing for any foreseen event, contrary to what Doomsday Preppers says. They focus on living off what they store, learn ways to become more self reliant, gardening, maybe some sort of livestock, even small scale. They look for ways to procure water, energy and food, always with an eye towards sustainability, long term. Security is also a primary concern and that's where guns come in, but it isn't a primary focus.

A survivalist, in my opinion, looks more to the immediate. Focusing on things like snaring, trapping and wild edibles. Primitive shelters are high on their list as well as fashioning primitive tools. And I think that is the difference, the survivalist is leans to the primitive, think hunter gatherer and a prepper has put down roots just as the agriculture revolution did. I see the survivalist as being somewhat nomadic, I hope I've got the idea across.

Just my opinion.

[CasterTroy]

When I hear that question......."prepper" or "survivalist" and what defines either.....I think back to my grandparents. My grandfather was a carpenter that worked a steady job but never twice in the same place kinda thing. My grandfather built their home in Independence Virginia near the New River, in the saddle of a hill (damn rich yankees from DC would come down and slice the top 20ft off the very top of a knoll, level it and build a house..then wonder why it was SO expensive to heat/cool it) and my grandmother would have a massive garden every year. They had a few cows, hogs, and chickens, but not anything big enough to sell...unless they REALLY needed something she couldn't grow or he couldn't make or slaughter.

They had "extra's" of course. Especially eggs and milk, which my grandmother sold every once and a while for things they didn't have there on the homestead.

In summers I'd head up there from Winston-Salem, NC (72 miles away) and stay and help with the garden (GAWD I hated picking green beans!) and watch Granny can all the excess.

Their basement was lined all the way around with shelves of canned veggies, pork, anything that COULD be canned.


In today's times they'd be labeled "Extreme preppers" but in THEIR time....as well as my childhood, they were doing what they needed too to SURVIVE. But in NO way did that make them survivalists....well...not in the spirit that this thread was started in. However, in a way, they WERE.

Now...in my 40's living in a neighborhood with an HOA and driving to downtown every day to work, I look back in envy at them and what they HAD. Yes it was WORK....HARD WORK, but the payoff was greater than what I believe I get injected into my bank account monthly for the work I do. When granny died (several years after my grandfather) the basement was still so full of canned food....even though she was unable to have a garden for the last 10 years of her life..that the people that bought the old homestead had beans, pork, and corn for several years. I really wish we'd kept that old place...because NOW that's how I'd like to live. Not as a "prepper" or "survivalist" but as someone who doesn't rely on jack SQUAT from other people to maintain my family. Call it prepper....call it survivalist.....but I call it how I should be LIVING

[nichevo]

If I can, I will be prepping for my house, if I have to bug out, I will be surviving at yours

[Graywolf]

Thanks for the input guys. I still need to work on it a bit but you helped flush it out in my mind better.

[Tex]

Hell Graywolf, I've been waiting on you to come back and tell us who the winner was. Do you mean to tell us that you didn't know either? Man alive, we are so fornicated.

Tex