Prepping for doomsday

Summary

Today, Explained: Prepping for Doomsday
Vox Podcast Network | Released May 2, 2025

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Introduction to Doomsday Prepping

In the episode titled "Prepping for Doomsday," hosts Sean Rameswaram and Noel King delve into the burgeoning culture of doomsday prepping in the United States. Featuring insights from Robert Kirsch, a professor at Arizona State University, and author Dorian Linsky, the episode explores the historical roots, cultural significance, and modern manifestations of prepping for catastrophic events.

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The Rise of Modern Prepping

Robert Kirsch opens the discussion by introducing his academic focus on doomsday prepping and its relevance in contemporary society. He poses a fundamental question: "How does one get into at the university level researching the end of the world?" (02:05), setting the stage for an in-depth exploration.

Dorian Linsky explains that her interest began with investigating doomsday prepping kits from a Silicon Valley startup named Preppy. She describes how these kits are marketed not just as survival tools but as stylish, upscale products intended for display:
"This is a bug out bag that you would be proud to display in your living room." (03:00)

This approach demystifies prepping, presenting it as a mainstream behavior rather than an eccentric obsession.

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Prepping: An American Institution

The conversation shifts to the prevalence of prepping behaviors among Americans. According to Dorian Linsky, a 2023 FEMA household survey indicates that "about half of Americans indicate that they are engaging in some kind of preparedness for some kind of adverse event." (04:42)

Robert Kirsch questions the stereotypical image of preppers, to which Linsky responds by highlighting the media's influence in shaping this perception:
"There's a sort of media spectacle version of a prepper, and that gets informed by a lot of, like, cable reality television." (04:54)

Linsky and Kirsch argue that prepping is deeply ingrained in the American psyche, tracing back to the nation's frontier mentality of self-sufficiency and mastery over the environment. They suggest that prepping behaviors are not fringe activities but rather a reflection of core American values.

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Commercialization and the Ultra-Wealthy

The episode examines how prepping has been commodified, particularly among the affluent. Dorian Linsky asserts that the actions of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel are more about "conspicuous consumption" than genuine fear of apocalypse:
"It's a sort of conspicuous consumption that maybe more middle class or upwardly mobile Americans can at least sort of try to emulate." (09:03)

The hosts explore the notion that ultra-wealthy individuals showcase their preparedness as a status symbol, which trickles down to influence middle-class consumers who purchase survival gear and storage solutions.

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Common Doomsday Scenarios

Linsky identifies grid failure as a primary concern for preppers, especially in harsh climates like the Sonoran Desert where air conditioning is vital:
"Grid failure... it's hard to imagine making it through 115 degree days without some kind of chemically induced air conditioning." (11:44)

Kirsch adds that electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes, and even civil unrest are significant worries:
"My biggest ones are electromagnetic pulse, hurricane, tornado and civil war." (12:00)

These scenarios reflect both technological vulnerabilities and societal fragilities, prompting individuals to take measures to ensure their survival.

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Psychological and Social Implications

The hosts delve into the psychological motivations behind prepping. Dorian Linsky discusses the difference between fearing the end of the world and actively wanting it for personal gain:
"There's a difference between fear of the end of the world... and a craving for it because they think that it is either going to be some kind of punishment or cleansing or opportunity." (22:59)

Kirsch echoes the sentiment, pondering why people obsess over surviving the apocalypse:
"Why do you think we obsess and maybe even wish that we would be around to see the end?" (22:19)

They suggest that this obsession may stem from a desire to find meaning in existence and confront existential threats, albeit in a self-sufficient manner.

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Historical and Literary Perspectives

Transitioning to the historical context, Noel King provides a literary analysis of apocalyptic narratives:
"The first secular narratives about the end of the world... were Lord Byron's poem 'Darkness' and Mary Shelley's novel 'The Last Man'." (16:13)

King explains how these early works diverged from religious apocalyptic stories by presenting a world-ending scenario devoid of divine intervention, thus laying the groundwork for modern secular doomsday narratives.

The discussion continues into the 20th century, highlighting how global conflicts and technological advancements, particularly nuclear weapons, transformed apocalyptic storytelling:
"From then on, I think almost every end of the world story has a sense of human culpability..." (20:46)

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Contemporary Reflections and Future Outlook

In addressing current trends, the hosts note the seamless integration of traditional and modern apocalyptic themes in today's media:
"It's not like we've left behind the old ones... there's still nuclear weapons, I mean, I suppose climate change and AI." (21:18)

Linsky emphasizes that contemporary apocalyptic narratives are multifaceted, incorporating fears of technological overreach, environmental degradation, and societal collapse. This amalgamation reflects the complex anxieties of the modern era.

The episode concludes with a philosophical reflection on collective versus individual resilience:
"What can we confront alone and what can we confront together?" (12:28)

Linsky advocates for building solidarity and collective action as opposed to solitary prepping, suggesting that communal efforts are essential for effectively addressing large-scale crises.

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Conclusion

"Prepping for Doomsday" offers a comprehensive examination of the cultural, psychological, and historical dimensions of doomsday prepping in America. By intertwining academic insights with societal observations, the episode elucidates why prepping has become a significant facet of American identity and how it mirrors broader concerns about vulnerability and self-sufficiency in an uncertain world.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dorian Linsky (03:00): "This is a bug out bag that you would be proud to display in your living room."
• Dorian Linsky (04:42): "About half of Americans indicate that they are engaging in some kind of preparedness for some kind of adverse event."
• Dorian Linsky (09:03): "It's a sort of conspicuous consumption that maybe more middle class or upwardly mobile Americans can at least sort of try to emulate."
• Dorian Linsky (11:44): "Grid failure... it's hard to imagine making it through 115 degree days without some kind of chemically induced air conditioning."
• Dorian Linsky (22:59): "There's a difference between fear of the end of the world... and a craving for it because they think that it is either going to be some kind of punishment or cleansing or opportunity."
• Noel King (16:13): "The first secular narratives about the end of the world... were Lord Byron's poem 'Darkness' and Mary Shelley's novel 'The Last Man'."
• Noel King (21:18): "It's not like we've left behind the old ones... there's still nuclear weapons, I mean, I suppose climate change and AI."
• Dorian Linsky (12:28): "What can we confront alone and what can we confront together?"

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This episode of "Today, Explained" provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of doomsday prepping, positioning it within the broader tapestry of American culture and historical narrative. Whether you're a skeptic or a seasoned prepper, the insights shared offer valuable perspectives on why the end-of-the-world mindset persists and evolves.

Transcript

[Noel King]

I had a dream which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished.

[Robert Kirsch]

There are apocalypses everywhere for those with eyes to see. The last of us is back. Netflix made the Aeternoute paradise got another season. People are building bunkers and buying bunkers. Mark Zuckerberg's blabbing to Theo Vaughn about his tunnel.

[Dorian Linsky]

There's this whole meme about how people are saying I built this like bunker underground. It's like more of underground storage.

[Robert Kirsch]

It's for sure a bunker. Zucky got that bunky. Costco's got 150 serving emergency food bucket. Americans love this shit. But why Today on Today explained a concise history of our obsession with the end of the world.

[Dorian Linsky]

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[Robert Kirsch]

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[Dorian Linsky]

Subject to availability valid on select items only.

[Robert Kirsch]

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[Noel King]

You're listening to Today Explained.

[Dorian Linsky]

My name is Robert Kirsch. I'm a professor at Arizona State University. And among all the other university duties that I have, I also research doomsday prepping and the end of the world.

[Robert Kirsch]

How does one get into at the university level researching the end of the world?

[Dorian Linsky]

Well, it started off as this sort of investigation into these doomsday prepping kits that were coming out of Silicon Valley from this startup called Preppy.

[Robert Kirsch]

What was the story that the preppy.

[Dorian Linsky]

P R E, P P Y an I intentionally misspelled. Of course. Yeah, right.

[Robert Kirsch]

Okay, Silicon Valley. What is the story that that bag is telling?

[Dorian Linsky]

So the way that they sold it, at least at the time that we were looking at their materials, was that this was a bug out bag that you would be proud to display in your living room.

[Robert Kirsch]

This is a fancy bag. This is very upscale.

[Dorian Linsky]

This is canvas, that's waterproof coated and.

[Robert Kirsch]

All made by hand. So it's kind of like you're getting like a nice bag of Barney's, except.

[Dorian Linsky]

We put all this good survival stuff in it too. There's Mass brothers, chocolate caviar and a champagne koozie. This didn't mark you as some sort of, like, weirdo who was sort of secretly kind of stashing away goods, but was rather a sort of outward display of good taste. And so, again, these class markers become super important in telling this story. Trying to sort of pull this behavior out of the shadows and sort of trying to locate it at the beating heart of mainstream American culture.

[Robert Kirsch]

Do you have bug out bag?

[Dorian Linsky]

I don't. Where I live in the desert, FEMA issues recommendations for geographic regions for what people should have. So my co author, Emily, does have a bug out bag because she lives in the Bay area. I have 15 gallons of potable water ready because I live in the desert.

[Robert Kirsch]

Good, good, good. Yeah. I have a little. I have what I'd call a kit, a just in case kit. I have always wondered how many other people are engaged in prepping or prepping adjacent behavior. Like, how many of us are there out there?

[Dorian Linsky]

So it can be hard to track, because on the one hand, there's no, like, bright line where a certain behavior turns into prepping. Right. But FEMA does give a national household survey, and their 2023 results indicate that about half of Americans indicate that they are engaging in some kind of preparedness for some kind of adverse event.

[Robert Kirsch]

Huh. If you told me to envision a prepper, I have a picture in my head. Is my picture fair? Is there a type of person who preps?

[Dorian Linsky]

I think you're right that there's a sort of media spectacle version of a prepper, and that gets informed by a lot of, like, cable reality television.

[Robert Kirsch]

Mm.

[Dorian Linsky]

Tyler Smith and his cousin Chris are building homemade body armor. They hope it will give them the upper hand if society collapses.

[Noel King]

I never want to go too far without a good metal pot.

[Robert Kirsch]

This is going to allow me to cook my food and get all the nutrients and also make lots of teas.

[Dorian Linsky]

And I'm not even just talking about the, like, extreme preppers. There's an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians where they go into an atlas bunker and try to imagine what it would be like to ride out the end of the world.

[Noel King]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Kirsch]

I can't be in here. Chloe, if we treat this like a joke, then we won't get the full experience out of this, and we won't know if this is what we need.

[Dorian Linsky]

And so I think that's an interesting starting point. But again, as Emily and I were digging into this, what we eventually concluded was that this behavior can be sort of marginalized and sort of seem to be extreme, but it actually is a kind of behavior that is constitutive of being Americans. In other words, we argue that prepping is an American institution and that from the founding, Americans have seen themselves as a prepared citizenry where Americans are invited to see themselves as the self sufficient frontiers people who are able to tame the elements and dominate the wilderness and sort of bring America into, into new spaces. This kind of behavior is actually pretty close to the heart of the story Americans tell themselves about who they are.

[Robert Kirsch]

And that 40% of us are preparing in some way. This feels like a very high number to me. Would seem to suggest you're right, this is part of the identity of many of us. When do we see this put to the test?

[Dorian Linsky]

There's a couple of ways to tackle that. The first is that I think at the sort of apocalyptic register, think things like nuclear war or the sort of total social collapse. Americans really haven't had to deal with that. And that's an important part for our analysis too, because we argue that one of the reasons maybe what we call a bunkerization fantasy is potent because Americans have never actually had to go to ground, never actually had to take cover in the way that, say, many Europeans had to during the Second World War. That's one part of the story, is that it's easy to think about readiness and what to do in the face of total collapse because it's been deferred and so it becomes a site of fantasy. On the other hand, you're also right that the US has ongoing extreme weather events. You know, hurricanes, wildfires, dust bowls, droughts, the list goes on and on. And the way that we tell that story is sort of the way that we diagnose the sort of neoliberal condition of American political life, which is these disasters happen, there is an oftentimes inadequate or incomplete state response. And so the reaction to that becomes, well, I can't rely on the government to do things or to sort of reorganize things or to play a role in this. So it's up to me to take responsibility for my own preparation. And the way that I do that is through consumption choices.

[Robert Kirsch]

One beautiful part of the American economy is that there is always somebody who will sell you something if you have enough money. And when we think about preppers, when I think about preppers, I do tend to think about ultra rich people like Mark Zuckerberg buying a private island, raising their own food, these guys in Silicon Valley buying land in New Zealand. What is the deal with the ultra wealthy and their preparation for the end of the world? Is it like, do they know something that we don't or do they just have a lot of money and need to spend it?

[Dorian Linsky]

I think it's the latter. I really think this is a sort of conspicuous consumption. And so these, these ultra rich people, we hear a lot about their preparation plans. You mentioned Zuckerberg and Thiel, and those are, I think, the two most sort of high profile profile examples. And what I think is notable about those is that they get profiled in Forbes or Fortune or these sorts of monocle publications for the sort of upwardly mobile people, and they lavish the reader with all sorts of details about the extravagant things that these folks are doing. And then there's always this kind of coy like, but we'll never tell you where it is, right?

[Robert Kirsch]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dorian Linsky]

And so it's a way to sort of signal this kind of conspicuous consumption that maybe more middle class or upwardly mobile Americans can at least sort of try to emulate. But I do want to suggest too though, that this takes on kind of strange dimensions. I'm sure for your instance, you've read a lot about Elon Musk's desire to go to Mars so much.

[Robert Kirsch]

Yes. And we're going to take Doge to Mars.

[Dorian Linsky]

Right. And it's a fantasy. It's in many ways based on this sort of like, mentality of like, well, you know, there's nothing we can do here anymore and so we're going to have to try again on another orb.

[Robert Kirsch]

There's a risk here of upping the ante. So what starts with the rich often trickles down to the less rich, which is why I have a life straw and an L.L. bean knife. And I wonder like, if we talk about people who are not the Elon Musks of the world or the Peter Thiels of the world is prepping big business among the kind of middle class as well.

[Dorian Linsky]

Yeah. And I think like many other industries in the US it ebbs and flows or booms and busts. And we trace that back to the Cold War where there were home fallout shelter kits that you could buy and those kind of went under in the 60s and now they're kind of coming back. You can look at different kinds of preparedness markets that pop up. A lot of shelf stable food is becoming an increasingly common thing to see. I know at my local Costcos there are often aisle end caps that have like pyramids of these food buckets that you can store in your house. And so we might just be in a period of upswing right now. I mean, there are still companies that will come bury a fallout shelter in your backyard and promise not to tell anybody where they put it.

[Robert Kirsch]

You're in Arizona. What's the scenario that most worries you? For real? For real.

[Dorian Linsky]

Grid failure.

[Robert Kirsch]

Uh huh.

[Dorian Linsky]

And that's just because, as you can imagine in the Sonoran Desert, it's hard to imagine making it through 115 degree days without some kind of chemically induced air conditioning.

[Robert Kirsch]

My biggest ones are electromagnetic pulse, hurricane, tornado and civil war. Yeah, electromagnetic pulse is akin to grid failure. Right. It means the electricity goes out and you're trying to figure out what to do. We just saw this happen in Spain and Portugal. Really a nightmare. It makes me wonder, should we really want to survive a doomsday scenario?

[Dorian Linsky]

It sounds like a bleak question, but I think in some ways that is the politically animating question.

[Robert Kirsch]

Yeah.

[Dorian Linsky]

What can we confront alone and what can we confront together? Right. And if we limit ourselves to confronting things alone, I think that threshold is pretty low.

[Robert Kirsch]

Yeah.

[Dorian Linsky]

And so you can think about again, the sort of ultimate example of this, of thermonuclear conflagration. I would say, no, you don't want to go through that. Right. Like you'd want to just sort of vaporize. But once you start sort of thinking about smaller scale or maybe more, you know, regionally located catastrophes that might emerge, I think the tolerance for persisting through those things is amplified when they're done in concert and collectively with other people. And so I would think that when considering risk tolerance, that should be part of that narrative. And so for me, what makes me a cheerful apocalyptician is that for me, the response to that is not there's more I need to do, but rather we need to form these sort of solidarity networks of concerted collective action to face collectively the problems that we face together.

[Robert Kirsch]

Robert Kirsch studies the end of the world at Arizona State. He's co author with Emily Ray of Be Prepared Doomsday Prepping in the United States.

[Noel King]

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[Dorian Linsky]

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[Robert Kirsch]

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[Noel King]

The first secular narratives about the end of the world, which as far as I could tell, were Lord Byron's poem Darkness and Mary Shelley's novel the Last Man. Both appear in the first quarter of the 19th century, and there's lots of different things happening at the same time. There's the discovery that the world is much older than people had imagined, for example, skeletons identified for the first time as dinosaurs. There was the discovery of the ruins of Pompeii and herculaneum in the 18th century, and a general fascination with ruins, like British tourists go through Europe visiting the ruins and reflecting on hubris and nemesis and so on. So all of these different currents are converging. And so it makes perfect sense that this is the era where Byron would come up with the possibility of an end of the world story which doesn't feature God. And as soon as you exclude God, you exclude what happens at the very end of the Book of Revelation, which is that the righteous are chosen and that they ascend to paradise. So in darkness, which really sort of shocked and confused critics at the time, it is just the end. It is nothingness. And that was a very startling proposition.

[Robert Kirsch]

How influential was that poem?

[Noel King]

Well, if you judge it by how many similar works emerged in the coming decades, you would have to say not many. And Mary Shelley, who was actually living in the same part of Switzerland as Byron when he was writing Darkness, and in fact, she was coming up with Frankenstein at the same time when she writes the Last man, about a decade later, it's absolutely destroyed by the critics that they think that it is a loathsome idea from the start. This is a novel about a pandemic that wipes out everybody in the world except one person. And it was seen at the time that this was just not something that you should do, perhaps, certainly not in the form of a novel, that there were religious poems about this idea of the Last man, there were satirical poems about it. But this very long, and has to be said, not particularly great novel, it was seen as the product, as one critic said, of a diseased mind. And essentially, there are no successors to these works for decades. Not until the late 19th century do you really get a whole wave of these. But I think the reason it becomes so influential in literary terms is because of H.G. wells, who is the first person that comes to this and pulls together all these things. Fear of foreign invasion, fear of social collapse, fear of runaway technology, and just does it better than anybody else.

[Robert Kirsch]

Okay, so that's the late 19th century. That takes us neatly. Time takes us neatly into the 20th century, famously a time when we had a lot of conflict, two wars that we now call world wars. How does the narrative change, evolve, adapt to meet the 20th century?

[Noel King]

Well, end of the world fiction is inspired by catastrophic events. You know, when I was Talking about the 18th century, the Lisbon earthquake, which seemed like a genuine sort of local apocalypse, if you were living in Lisbon, it probably felt like the end of the world. And that is how the first and Second World wars felt to so many people. The First World War seemed like carnage on a scale that was considered impossible and yet sort of predicted in some of H.G. wells novels. In fact, in 1913, before the first World War, he writes the World Set Free, in which he invents the phrase atomic bomb and just imagines how an atomic bomb might work. And the Second World War, obviously not an apocalyptic event, but producing these Horrors, particularly the Holocaust and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was such a shock to the human imagination that these things were possible. And as soon as the bomb drops on Hiroshima, the whole sense of the end of the world shifts pretty much in an instant. Because before then, we're generally thinking about things like comets and asteroids and floods and things that would have kind of made sense to somebody in the Middle Ages. And now there is a weapon that really exists that theoretically could destroy the whole world.

[Robert Kirsch]

Yeah.

[Noel King]

And from then on, I think almost every end of the world story has a sense of human culpability, and that introduces all these themes of punishment and whether it is something that we actually deserve.

[Robert Kirsch]

If we move up to the present day, what do our. And now we're beyond books, Right. We're into television shows, we're into movies, we're into music. What is the culture telling us about how we now think the world ran or what we're worried about now?

[Noel King]

Well, it's sort of everything now.

[Robert Kirsch]

It's everything, man. It's everything.

[Noel King]

It's not like we've left behind the old ones. There will still be movies about floods or being hit by asteroids or a new ice age or all these things that sort of, you know, predate the atomic bomb. There's still nuclear weapons, I mean, I suppose climate change and AI.

[Robert Kirsch]

AI. Yeah.

[Noel King]

So they're relatively recent. And obviously pandemics take on a different resonance now in fiction because of COVID 19, but it's sort of everything and it is entirely mainstream entertainment. You know, the Last of Us is one of the most talked about TV shows based on one of the most talked about video games of recent times.

[Robert Kirsch]

You had your chance. I'm infected. I'm infected.

[Dorian Linsky]

I'm not infected. I'm infected.

[Robert Kirsch]

Really, so are you. A couple months ago, there was some news that a comet was headed toward Earth and it was a big one. They were calling it a city killer, not a planet killer. I started checking in on that comment every morning. Right. How close is it? What are the odds that it's gonna hit? And then I read something that cheered me up, made me feel a little bit better, which is that everybody seems to think they're going to be alive when the world ends, and they never are, because the world has not yet ended. But why do you think we do this to ourselves? Why do you think we obsess and maybe even wish that we would be around to see the end?

[Noel King]

Well, you can see this in religious terms and that when Jesus talks about the end of the world in the Gospels, and certainly in Book of Revelation, it is. It is imminent. This will happen in your lifetime. So you could say that it's a legacy from that. But the critic Frank Mode, who wrote a sort of great essay about this, and he saw it more in narrative terms, and it was almost like nobody wants to live in the middle, where nothing really important seems to happen. And you think if there's going to be an end of the world, there's an almost this kind of temporal narcissism that you're going to be around to see it. And that is, of course, what makes it quite dangerous. And people who see it in religious terms as something where ultimately will be good for them, it could deliver them from the corruption and misery of the world. And because they are righteous, they're the ones who will receive the reward. They will actively seek it. There were Christian ministers in America in the 1980s who opposed nuclear disarmament because they thought that nuclear weapons would be the device that God was going to use to bring about Armageddon and the millennium and so on. And if you look at, you know, preppers and survivalists, like, well, they're going to look quite foolish if it doesn't happen. It's almost like they've been. It's like sunk cost fallacy. They've invested in the catastrophe happening, so they kind of want the catastrophe to happen because they think they're going to have a massive advantage. And so there's a difference between fear of the end of the world, which perhaps seems most natural to people, and a craving for it because they think that it is either going to be some kind of punishment or cleansing or opportunity. And that's where it can get very dangerous. Because you're. But you're basically talking about, we want this event to happen to get rid of all these people that I don't like and preserve this core of, you know, strong, virile, righteous men with guns and lots of canned food.

[Robert Kirsch]

Dorian Linsky, the book is Everything Must Go. The stories we tell about the end of the world. Hadi Mwagdi has a go bag, I bet. Jolie Meyers is our editor. Laura Bullard checks the facts. Andrea, Kristin's daughter, is our engineer. The rest of our team, Amanda Llewellyn, Avishai Artsy, Amina El Saadi Miles Bryan, Gabrielle Burbay, Patrick Boyd, Victoria Chamberlain, Miranda Kennedy, Devin Schwartz and Peter Balin on Rosen. Sean Ramas Firm is the male host. I'm Noel King. Today Explained is distributed by wnyc and the show is part of Vox if you want to support our journalism, you can join our membership program on this day. Go to Vox.com members to sign up. Remember, we make a show on the weekends. Now to check out Explain it to me in this feed every Sunday morning.