Is Prepping on the Decline?

[Searchboss]

I have been following a couple of Prepper forums/sites for the last few years, including this one. I have found them to be quite informative with coverage of various topics by knowledgeable people that are useful to most preppers. The discussions between members are always insightful. I have learned a lot and am grateful that I found these forums, and to the people who post on them regularly. While I don?t post that often, I try to follow the forums regularly.

I have noticed that over a longer time period many of the active members of the forums, me included, have gravitated toward what I call a homesteader mentality. It makes sense given our outlook on life and what it takes to obtain and maintain an independent lifestyle, not to mention that some of us are getting to retirement age. Regardless of this, I have also enjoyed the posts about various prepping topics such as bug out bags, bug out vehicles, communications, weapons, food storage, solar, etc. The list is long.

The real reason for this post is to present my perception that over the past few years the number of people interested in prepping, specifically as members of a forum such as this one, is on the decline. I write this because there seems to be far fewer new members each year than the last, and the number of active posters also seems to be on the decline. It appears that most of the posting is being done by the same few people. There is nothing wrong with this, but it does seem to be a trend. I am wondering if you are noticing this as well and if so, how you think it will affect us in general. I have noted over the years that when active membership in any organization starts to decline over a period of time it points to a change in the perception of the organization or movement. I could go on, but I am interested in what you think. Is this a concern?

[grizz]

The times, they are a changing and not for the better. I think many people are keeping a low profile

[Jackalope]

    I don't think forums are a useful barometric to judge whether prepping is on the decline.  Folks are using other social media sites to keep in touch, or other alternative means.

     In my particular AO, I'd say prepping is on the increase.  I'm involved with a couple of Mutual Assistance Groups, and the membership is increasing in those at an almost exponential rate.  Both groups have forum websites, and neither of those have much participation.  I'm guessing that folks are concerned about who is reading their postings, so they don't post at all.

     IMHO, the homesteading mentality is the only way to go, as being self-reliant provides the most independence.  I've had this discussion a number of times with folks that believe that they are prepared, because they have lots of food and other items stored.  I look at those particular "preppers" as consumers, not producers.  These consumer preppers will be screwed when their food runs out.

[JohnyMac]

Great question Searchboss and comments from Grizz and Jackalope.

First, about this site. This site ebbs and flows like the tide. As things heat up in the world more people participate. As things settle down less folks participate. With that written UP does average ~7,000 hits a day so someone is coming by. The hits are mostly in our archives section.

Second, I belong to three MAG's. One is in NJ and I act more as a consultant then a member. That group of late has started to break up as people are moving out of NJ for better homesteading area's. One we just lost to SE Alaska as an example.

One group, I will call my home group, is made up of ~10 members. We meet religiously once a month to discuss prepping, politics, and mutual assistance. All members are very active and to be quite honest well squared away. They tend to not monitor prepping sites like they use to. They come to UP almost everyday as a visitor and do not post as they prefer to keep a low profile.

The third MAG has ~30 members, 14 of which are active while the others just hang about for the fellowship. The 14 try to meet once a month for educational purposes and fellowship. We are having another meeting at the end of the month and the agenda is,

> Bee Keeping,
> Solar 101, and
> Hard cider making.

Most of the members are ham radio operators so there will be discussion on that subject naturally.

Last, I would say that before Trump was elected UP was more active. There was members from around the world and 20-30 posts a day was not uncommon. We had close to 1,000 members. Well Trump was elected and many folks stopped stopping by. Many folks I know stopped prepping as they though everything was going to be ice cream and lollipops.

Well I am starting to see those people returning. Not necessarily participating but swinging by to read the posts from the week.   

So there you go. Probably not the answer you were looking for. 

[zanedclark]

An interesting question.  By analogy I am a General licensed Ham KK6GTA and have been for a decade plus.  I have made one contact.  I like radio and I like to listen to radio.  I'm not particularly interested in talking on radio having had to do professionally for 31 years in LE.  So low profile or just preference?

Homesteading or prepping?  A natural progression.

When President Trump was elected a lot of people thought he would set the world aright and they needed to do nothing else.  Reminded me of the news clips of people saying about Obama, "If I take care of him, he will take care of me!"

The American Man Association began somewhere back in the 1980 by a group of Survivalists who at some point realized that the ultimate "survivalists" were the fur trappers of the 1800's and so migrated to AMA.  A natural progression.

Remember that the only constant is change. 

zane

[Searchboss]

JohnyMac that is exactly the type of response I expected. Thanks to everyone who responded. I realize I don't see all the traffic on any of the sites, I am just comparing what I can see, and traffic appears to be declining over the past year or so. I know that there are a lot of drive-by visitors on any forum that never post. The ebb and flow as you mentioned is normal for any group. I think you are probably right that many folks may be going dark, but still prepping. At least I hope that is so.

I am in Central Georgia. Sadly at present, I am not a member of any identified MAG. I used to be a member of a good one that had 12 dedicated members who met and prepped at a retreat property once a month, conducted regular training activities, and worked on several related projects on the property each year. Sadly about a year ago, there was a personality conflict between a few of the founding members, one of whom was the property owner, and the group decided to disband. Sigh... People can be problems sometimes. This was disappointing since all of the members were good people. I won't go into the backstory as it does not apply here.

I am "aware" of at least three MAGs in this area, some of whom meet on a regular basis. About half of the members are hams. Most of them are what I call social MAGs because they do not seem to have a defined plan for their MAG in a SHTF situation. They usually get together every month or so to discuss prepping topics, but they seldom do any meaningful training, or preparation as a group.

There are also over a dozen preppers in this area who come to a public prepper meeting that one of them runs each month. They tried to form a MAG several years ago, but it never jelled, so they now meet when they can and prep as individuals. The meetings do provide some camaraderie. While I think that they would assist each other in an SHTF situation if they could, there is no agreed-upon plan for this. Interestingly enough, less than 10% of them post to any of the forums I am on, and most say they are not on any prepper forums due to OPSEC, yet several are quite active on Facebook.

I have my own well-defined description of what a "good" MAG should look like, and very few that I am aware of actually meet this definition. That may be skewing my opinion here. I may open a topic on the subject of what defines a "good" MAG for discussion if folks are interested. What do you think?

I seem to have gotten a bit off-topic here. Thanks for listening.

[grizz]

Great question Searchboss and comments from Grizz and Jackalope.

First, about this site. This site ebbs and flows like the tide. As things heat up in the world more people participate. As things settle down less folks participate. With that written UP does average ~7,000 hits a day so someone is coming by. The hits are mostly in our archives section.

Second, I belong to three MAG's. One is in NJ and I act more as a consultant then a member. That group of late has started to break up as people are moving out of NJ for better homesteading area's. One we just lost to SE Alaska as an example.

One group, I will call my home group, is made up of ~10 members. We meet religiously once a month to discuss prepping, politics, and mutual assistance. All members are very active and to be quite honest well squared away. They tend to not monitor prepping sites like they use to. They come to UP almost everyday as a visitor and do not post as they prefer to keep a low profile.

The third MAG has ~30 members, 14 of which are active while the others just hang about for the fellowship. The 14 try to meet once a month for educational purposes and fellowship. We are having another meeting at the end of the month and the agenda is,

> Bee Keeping,
> Solar 101, and
> Hard cider making.

Most of the members are ham radio operators so there will be discussion on that subject naturally.

Last, I would say that before Trump was elected UP was more active. There was members from around the world and 20-30 posts a day was not uncommon. We had close to 1,000 members. Well Trump was elected and many folks stopped stopping by. Many folks I know stopped prepping as they though everything was going to be ice cream and lollipops.

Well I am starting to see those people returning. Not necessarily participating but swinging by to read the posts from the week.   

So there you go. Probably not the answer you were looking for. 

What part of Alaska, I might be interested in learning more about them

[Nemo]

I have "drifted" away from some of the other boards I used to hang out around.  More of a lower profile mentality thought process.

Nemo

[Felix]

"Pulling in your horns", "going dark", "putting the bear-poking stick away", refraining from "saying shit" even if they've produced  the volume of a mouthful... all great ideas if the aim is to sink a little lower in the pool of "subjects of interest visit priority".
Who knows... maybe your "outspoken" neighbor will have "The Stack" as his door first before they think of doing you at o'dark-thirthy in the morning.
Cowards.
Shirkers.
Wear you chains lightly...

Remember Patrick Henry?
"Give me liberty or give me death".
He lived in an "all hands on deck" time - it mattered.   Really mattered.
It matters now.
and then there was:


"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out?because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out?because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out?because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me?and there was no one left to speak for me."

?Martin Niem?ller

[Nemo]

I did not stop or reduce my political activities. 

I have reduced my publication of prep type activities.

Nemo

[Felix]

"I have reduced my publication of prep type activities."
 
And for me, I've never really published much of my "prepping" activities.
Those I have shared here.   And with a handful of neighbors.
The drive to use cash expands.
What we do should have some OpSec.
I think what we say politically though... should be "over the top" - as in fearless against the machine guns they are currently outfitting the IRS with.
I have seen how contagious fear and panic is.   I _hope_ courage, speaking the truth, the act of denying an inch of ground to our would-be-slave-masters might also snag a few.

[pkveazey]

I think a few of my friends are just now starting to prepare but will not be ready when the SHTF. I started in 2008 and went at it full blast. I bought everything under the sun that I thought that I would need to survive. Since then, I've add an item or two when I see something that I think I might need. Mostly, in today's world, I seem to just buy extra items, so I don't run out of something. No matter how much crap I stockpile, we all know that we will still get caught short on something.

[JohnyMac]

Food for thought...

August 2023, UP averaged 5,966 page views a day.
September 2023, 17-days in, UP is averaging 7,272 page views a day. 

Looking at past years, August is always lite. I suspect because of vacations and other summer events.

[Nemo]

No way to tell if those were webcrawlers bots, or some other type of non-human visits is there?

Nemo

[JohnyMac]

!005 correct Nemo. 

A portion of that are folks that have auto upload to their news feed acct. daily.