Von Pfetten: Head for the heels Is the reported growth in survivalism for real or just a media invention?

Frequent news stories claim a spike in sales of emergency rations, guns and backup generators amongst anxious suburban men (and they are all men).  So is survivalism growing or is it just the number of stories about it that has gone through the roof?

The answer seems to be a bit of both, but, boy, those same few survivalists that give all the media interviews must be getting awful sore throats.

The stories, like a recent one in the Huffington Post by fashion editor Verena von Pfetten, all feed off and lift information from each other. And its always self interested parties who are quoted – an emergency rations company saying their sales have rocketed, or a survivalist web site claiming audiences are doubling.

Coverage of books like Neil Strauss’s Emergency play their part, as does data about the rising sales of guns.  But gun sales are rising in response to President Obama’s plans to tighten gun laws, especially on semi-automatics. And rising sales of canned food does not really add up to a major social trend.

What has perhaps changed is that the new wave of survivalists have a movement to identify with. Referred to as “modern survivalists” or “preppers,” they are taking steps to protect and provide for their families should something bad happen. Theirs is a different breed of survivalist, far from the militants or religious extremists who hole up in bunkers, live off the land and wait for the apocalypse.

Preppers are regular people with regular jobs who decided after Sept. 11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can’t rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry.

“We are normal people just like you,” one said. “We just understand that, sometimes, stuff goes wrong.”