Topic: "Doomsday Preppers" Jumps Shark

[trapeze]

I have been watching this show for a while now (mrs. trapeze has a reality show mini obsession thing going on) and I think we have seen all of the previous season's episodes.

I find the show kind of irritating on several levels but I think the worst thing about it is how it has taken to depicting preppers as idiots. They highlight every hair-brained scheme out there. I have to wonder if there are people out there who try and get on this show by coming up with truly crazy stuff that might grab the interest of the show's producers.

The episode that I saw this evening really drove this home. They profiled a guy who has as his prep plan the notion that he is just going to go out and steal from everyone around him. They filmed him making his own body armor which was nothing short of ridiculous. And that part was after he "practiced" performing a c-section on his wife. In a barn.

I am new to prepping. I've been doing it for less than a year now. But I do take it fairly seriously. I have a plan and I follow it. There is nothing unusual about what I do. Obviously, I would never make the cut for this show because I'm not doing anything absurd like building an armored ATV or storing my preps on the bottom of the ocean or performing amateur surgery on my family.

This show is really stupid now. I always kind of found it irritating before but this season's episodes are insulting.

If you go to the Doomsday Prepper Facebook page you can read the comments about this week's featured prepping maniac/moron. It is good for a lot of laughs.

Link to the idiot's Facebook page There should be banjo music playing when you see it.

[Glock32]

If it helps reinforce liberals' beliefs about the preparation mindset in flyover country, then great. I want them believing their own propaganda, I want them arrogantly believing in their own innate intellectual superiority. So if this show provides fodder for their snickering, good.

Sun Tzu and Clausewitz both articulated how a successful strategist calculates his actions to reinforce the enemy's prejudices and assumptions.

[AlanS]

EVERY reality show I've tried to watch has idiots. Why should this one be different?

[Libertas]

It's the number one goal of producers...make fun of idiots, and if it serves the greater libiot agenda, even better.

[John Florida]

  I prefer the Alaska based shows like Life below Zero,Alaskan men,and Alaska the last frontier.

    I see them as being as close to real as anything.

Much Needed Meat | Yukon Men

Eve's Cannibal Hen | Alaska: The Last Frontier

[John Florida]

Moose Poop Fire Starters | Alaska: The Last Frontier

[trapeze]

UPDATE:

BUCKLEY, Wash. — When Tyler Smith of Buckley appeared on National Geographic's reality show "Doomsday Preppers" he did so with rifle in hand. Smith, 26, shoots at targets and tests homemade body armor while narrating his exploits for the camera.

Smith is the leader of the survivalist group Spartan Survival. He founded the organization in 2005 to train and prepare others for various doomsday scenarios.

The problem is, Smith is a felon, convicted of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and theft. He's not supposed to go anywhere near a gun.

So, NatGeo profiled a sex offender as a prepper. Do you think they knew of his background? I do.

This is what stupid looks like.

[Dan]

If I lived near this guy I think I'd be very inclined to take pre-emotive measures.
Planning to kill and steal? What a scumbag.
I've always thought that a good guy uses a gun to defend his property and family, while a thug uses  gun to steal.

[Libertas]

Aye, well said Dan.   

[Alphabet Soup]

If I lived near this guy I think I'd be very inclined to take pre-emotive measures.
Planning to kill and steal? What a scumbag.
I've always thought that a good guy uses a gun to defend his property and family, while a thug uses  gun to steal.

I'm just down the road from him (so to speak).

 

[Glock32]

It's always funny when you see these types. Here's a hint: if you're having to buy your mall ninja tactical outfit in size 3XL, you're not "tactical" for sh*t.

And yeah, there's no way National Geographic didn't know this guy had a felony background. You'd think just in the due diligence of preparing contracts for these shows they would have come across that little tidbit. There's a narrative that the media enjoys, and they're going to go with what confirms their prejudices, deliberately or not (though I say it is).

It's sort of like in the Walking Dead, the zombies are more of a background danger. The other human survivors can be the real threat.

[richb]

What real prepper would even want to be on TV?   

That would be about the last thing a prepper would want.   The less that anybody knows about you the better,,,,,,,,,,right.......  By being on TV your only painting a target on your back.   

[trapeze]

Well, the thing is..."Doomsday Preppers" used to be about ordinary people taking reasonable precautions against reasonable threats. It was an interesting show because it demonstrated what other people were doing...it gave you ideas as to what you might do yourself to prepare for disaster. And that's because disasters come in all shapes and sizes...

- My sister and her late husband had to deal with no power and no food or water in Houston for over a week when Hurricane Ike came through in 2008.

- We live in an area that can be devastated by fire in any summer.

- And, of course, it seems that our country is on a path to economic disaster which could occur at any moment.

So, prepping is something that I am now pretty much invested in. I think that it is extremely prudent to do. The downside is minimal and the upside is priceless.

But, NatGeo now treats preppers (its primary audience for this show) as idiots. Lunatics. Morons.

I think that prior to the episode listed above, the first real indication that the show was doomed was when they broadcast the episode (later spun off into its own show) called "Doomsday Castle." That one was absolutely horrid. Not as bad as the looting/raiding "prepper" featured above but almost. "Doomsday Castle" features a family of idiots ruled over by an insane patriarch. Yep, typical preppers just like you and me.

I stopped watching after the episode listed above. I just don't care to have my intelligence insulted.

So, no, I don't think the people featured on this show come anywhere close to being what most of us consider preppers to be. And now, more than a few of us don't even bother to watch it.

[Libertas]

So...

In a way, are they not doing the real preppers a favor by making them out to be a bunch of bumbling idiots?

Let them make fun of people, why would I care?

I don't know about you, but I don't mind being underestimated.  IYKWIMAIKTYD! 

[Weisshaupt]

So...

In a way, are they not doing the real preppers a favor by making them out to be a bunch of bumbling idiots?

No, that makes people more likely to attack when they are starving. .

The whole purpose of this show (from the beginning) was to discredit anyone who actually took even basic preparedness seriously.  The govt doesn't want anyone caring for themselves, and since the prepping portion of the population is obviously exploding.. they wheeled out the propaganda cannon  as usual.  If you don't have shows that portray  people with ideas you want squelched as hicks, rube, morons and villains then one of the sheep might listen to what they have to say. Theses shows are produced to keep ideas from spreading to the "cool kids" - because of the cool kids get infected, the cheaters risk loosing their carefully cultivated herds of suckers.

[Libertas]

So...

In a way, are they not doing the real preppers a favor by making them out to be a bunch of bumbling idiots?

No, that makes people more likely to attack when they are starving. .

The whole purpose of this show (from the beginning) was to discredit anyone who actually took even basic preparedness seriously.  The govt doesn't want anyone caring for themselves, and since the prepping portion of the population is obviously exploding.. they wheeled out the propaganda cannon  as usual.  If you don't have shows that portray  people with ideas you want squelched as hicks, rube, morons and villains then one of the sheep might listen to what they have to say. Theses shows are produced to keep ideas from spreading to the "cool kids" - because of the cool kids get infected, the cheaters risk loosing their carefully cultivated herds of suckers.

Wasn't that going to happen anyway?  Hey, lights on, shyt running...they got shyt, get 'em!

Wait...wait...not yet in range...hold...OK, let it rip!

 

OK, now set the pikes...

[Glock32]

So...

In a way, are they not doing the real preppers a favor by making them out to be a bunch of bumbling idiots?

No, that makes people more likely to attack when they are starving. .

The whole purpose of this show (from the beginning) was to discredit anyone who actually took even basic preparedness seriously.  The govt doesn't want anyone caring for themselves, and since the prepping portion of the population is obviously exploding.. they wheeled out the propaganda cannon  as usual.  If you don't have shows that portray  people with ideas you want squelched as hicks, rube, morons and villains then one of the sheep might listen to what they have to say. Theses shows are produced to keep ideas from spreading to the "cool kids" - because of the cool kids get infected, the cheaters risk loosing their carefully cultivated herds of suckers.

That's also why schools have these "zero tolerance" policies that punish kids who defend themselves. They actually make a bigger deal out of preaching to kids that fighting back against an aggressor is just as bad as being that aggressor, maybe even worse because as a member of the herd you're supposed to "be above that" or something.

Our whole culture is riddled with propaganda designed to short circuit our nature, to turn us into dependents with no sense of taking initiative. It's all to create a docile serfdom, not unlike breaking the wild out of domesticated animals.

It's really quite amazing to observe how most people's default condition is one of helplessness. They will literally stand around while someone chokes to death in a restaurant because everyone is conditioned to defer to some sort of authority. These are the people who will clamor for the State to do literally anything necessary to restore normalcy when there is a crisis. They will give up any liberties they still have.