In response to the Berlin Crisis of 1961, President John F. Kennedy chose to encourage everyday Americans to construct homemade bunkers. Civilians could suddenly mitigate their fears of a nuclear holocaust through consumption, and thus prepper culture was born. This week the boys are joined by the writer and community builder Anna Savina to discuss preppers, survivalists, and other groups that have doomsday inspired “exit strategies.” They begin by examining the zine she created on bunkers, Bunker Mentality, to explain how bunkers fit into the story of how Americans shifted from being citizens to being consumers. Amongst other things they discuss how the towers that existed in medieval Italian cities were an early form of bunkers, how prepper culture seems to thrive in the interior of the United States rather than the coasts, and how the prepper aesthetics depicted in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding were beautiful but ultimately not representative of prepper culture. 

Links:

Prepper Aesthetics Pinterest Board

Anya is Typing…

Anna Savina's Zine on bunkers: Bunker Mentality

Anna Savina’s Twitter

Prepper Lingo: Terms, Slang, and Acronyms from A-Z

Towers of Bologna, Italy in the 12th Century

San Gimignano

Preppers in Death Stranding

New Survivalism by Parsons & Charlesworth, The Object Guardian

Conservative guy afraid of cities meme

Why We Love the Apocalypse - EP183 by The Casual Preppers Podcast

Wikipedia Database download

Graph of the Population of Rome Through History

Artwork:

How to build a fallout shelter, 1957

Creative Commons CC0 License

Recorded on 6/19/2024