Coronavirus preppers: Europe’s stockpiling experts have a booming business in self-survival

CNN — Do you have your “bug-out bag” ready for when the “s*** hits the fan”, or will you “bug in” for “the end of the world as we know it”? It’s a big rabbit hole and once you go down it, I don’t think your life will be better for it.” Lincoln Miles, who runs a UK preppers outlet, told CNN via email that things had been “beyond manic” following the virus outbreak in December. The researchers concluded that “prepping is not a marginal subculture, but an increasingly mainstream phenomenon, driven not by delusional certainty, but a precautionary response to a generalized anxiety people have around permanent crisis.” Co-author Sarah Browne, assistant professor in marketing and strategy at Trinity College Dublin, told CNN that preppers felt they were portrayed as “silly” or “paranoid,” and wanted to show they were “logical and practical while non-preppers are naive and ill-prepared.” She said preppers do not see crises such as the coronavirus as “a temporary breakdown in otherwise functioning system” but as evidence of a “large-scale problem.” Browne said most preppers first adopted the lifestyle because of a traumatic event such as financial collapse or losing a job. “It’ll be interesting to see if the virus scare on this level could trigger some people to change their consumption and lose trust in the market system,” she said. “People have sort of removed themselves slightly from reality compared to the 1950s 1960s … I think this will teach people to start having something in reserve just in case.” He said prepping is not about stockpiling expensive survival products you don’t know how to use, but about acting as a community.