It refers to someone who is prepared or making preparations, for example, accumulating food and ammunition. It can be contrasted slightly with the Survivor, who emphasizes outdoor survival skills and self-reliance. As a result, the definition of coach has evolved over time. Prepper has a different meaning for different people.
A better definition of preparer is someone who prepares for social collapse, natural disasters, or any other type of large-scale event that disrupts life as we know it. Preparers tend to accumulate supplies, learn primitive skills, etc. Faith and optimism go hand in hand. Whether that faith is linked to organized religion or not, it is there, however.
Along with the will to live, having faith is what keeps us going. It allows us to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward, one small step at a time. Some will pray while others will calmly reflect in their own way. Many preparers included pandemic preparedness as one of many reasons to justify personal preparedness.
We also found that Preppers are overrepresented among samples of remote IT workers, which is a good fit for their interpersonal style and preference for predictability. Like Mel Tappan, these preparers come to prepare as a natural extension of their interest in firearms and self-defense. For any sensible person sitting at home watching, preparers seemed like a term that described a bunch of crazy people with irrational fears and out of touch with reality. Stephens would write other books, including Personal Protection, Here and Now, Retretreating on a Shoe-string and The Complete Survival Guide.
Speaking from personal experience with several reporters, even reporters now seem to understand this, that — collectively — their reputation among preparers is poor, and rightly so. A person who believes that a disaster or catastrophic emergency is likely to occur in the future and actively prepares for it, usually by accumulating food, ammunition, and other supplies. Still, based on the market that has been created to supply preparers with everything from freeze-dried food to water storage barrels to bags and everything in between, it's safe to say that the number of people taking some kind of steps toward preparation is nothing short of gigantic. While everyone may have the same ultimate goal, personal preparation, which leads them to prepare, the reasons they prepare are often what sets them apart; and, due to negative connotations, some want to affiliate with a certain subset, so they are known not to be that type of preparer.
