These Photos of Prepper Bags Hold a Mirror to Society
Some preppers are hyper-vigilant while others are more altruistic. The common factor is fear.
“There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Not content with merely imagining disaster, preppers lurch toward it. They play out fearful futures, buying survival goods and stockpiling basements with supplies. They have bought in — spiritually, financially, and politically — to the worst worst-case scenarios. Motivated by an array of politics and theories, preppers do seem to be united, at least, by anxiety and alarm, and Allison Stewart’s Bug Out Bag puts this national portrait of fear on display.
A “national portrait” might seem a grand claim for a collection of bird’s-eye photos of arranged items. But Stewart’s simple methods shouldn’t fool you into thinking that these images convey something simple. Sure, they function at a literal level (wittingly mimicking the common, fetishistic “What’s In Your Bag” profiles of industry photography magazines), but more crucially, these photos serve as a window upon the caprice of American culture. Bug Out Bag shows us both clues to misinformation circulating the U.S. as well as a…
