For the Journalism portion of my MA of Writing, I chose to investigate zombie preppers. What follows is not a terribly well-written article, but it’s a bit of fun.
The final gory, blood-soaked minutes of the latest zombie flick splash across the screen. The credits roll and fade to black. Sitting in the darkness, you start to wonder — would I survive the zombie apocalypse?
“Do you think it will happen?” your friend asks when you broach the subject.
You scoff and shake your head, but a seed of doubt has taken root in your mind. What if a virus sweeps the nation, turning everyone you have ever known into flesh-eating maniacs? Or worse — the dead return to life, shambling around in their dirt covered rags with an unholy lust for brains.
The majority of people would be familiar with at least the basic elements of zombie survival — destroy the brain, avoid getting bitten, and find a crossbow shooting redneck with a heart of gold.
Then there are the die-hard fans; the percentage of the population that have given more thought to how they would escape a bloodthirsty horde than what they would do in a natural disaster — and it’s not surprising given the public’s growing fascination with the undead.
Frank Diepmat, founder of Zombie-Guide Magazine (www.zombie-guide.com), believes in the possibility of a real life zombie apocalypse in the form of an outbreak that could “turn people into rabies carrying mad-men”. A former member of the Netherland’s military and a fan of all things zombie, Frank writes articles on how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.
Fellow writer, Joanna Prototype, agrees that a zombie outbreak may not only be a flight of fantasy.
“I doubt zombies would actually be undead corpses, but an infected human being with cannibalistic urges, rabid behavior, no reaction to pain, and because of that slightly enhanced durability — it is not too far fetched,” she says. “Viruses mutate all the time. It’s safe to say it is entirely possible.”
Zombie Apocalypse, a documentary from the Discovery Channel, shines a spotlight on the murky possibility of a real life undead outbreak. The show features expert opinions from medical practitioners and professors, including Doctor of Mathematics at Ottawa University, Robert Smith.
“I think a zombie pandemic is something that might occur,” he says. “It’s something that’s plausible. It’s something that, at least in terms of spread, is very likely.”
Steven Scholman, M.D, from Harvard Medical School adds to the discussion in the documentary by noting, “the most likely aetiology for a zombie pandemic would be a viral outbreak, a mutated contagion, most likely a virus.”
Yet the origins of the undead genre have nothing to do with virology.
Zombies can trace their ancestry back to African voodoo traditions. The word “zombie” is derived from the Haitian, zonbi — a recently deceased victim whose soul has been captured by a sorcerer, or boko. The boko is able to control the soulless person and force the dead body to do his bidding.
The first zombie to grace the silver screen followed the Haitian tradition.White Zombie, released in 1939, featured monster-master Béla Lugosi as an evil voodoo priest and introduced the concept of a re-animated corpse to film goers.
The modern zombie was brought (back) to life by George A. Romero — who is widely considered to be the father of the undead by fans of the genre. Romero’s 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead, set a small group of people against a pack of ghouls whose lust for violence was insatiable. There was no voodoo master in control – Romero’s zombies were driven by their primal urge to feed.
In the last couple decades, the modern concept of the re-animated corpse has experienced a huge surge in popularity. The undead are big business.
Gone are the days of zombie fans reclusively watching Romero classics in their parents’ basement. The release of 28 Days Later and the film version of the popular video game series, Resident Evil, in 2002 gave the genre a boost into the mainstream. Since then, cinema has been glutted with gruesome tales of zombie survival.
Not to be outdone by their American counterparts, international films like Cuba’s Juan of the Dead and France’s The Horde have added international flavor and received acclaim from fans of the genre.
More recently, 2009’s Zombieland, featuring a gun-toting, Twinkie-loving hillbilly played by Woody Harrelson, explored the comedic side of the genre. The film was the first to provided the audience with a set of rules to survive the apocalypse.
Nowadays even the small screen isn’t safe from the rising horde of the undead. AMC’s breakout hit, The Walking Dead, is the number 1 show on TV in the key demographic of 18 to 49 year olds — the show’s season 4 premier was watched by more than 16 million viewers and has inspired some to prepare for the apocalypse.
However, small sects of the population have been planning for the EOTWAWKI — end of the world as we know it — long before Night of the Living Dead was scaring movie goers. The 1929 stock market crash and two World Wars rammed home the importance of being prepared to more than one generation of Americans.
The first wave of the modern Survivalism movement began in the 1960’s — born out of the fear of a currency collapse and suckled by the ubiquitous anxiety over US relations with the Soviet Union. Fears that the Y2K bug may take down technology at the turn of the century signalled the start of the second wave followed by the most recent peak in the movement after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Followers of the Survivalism movement have been dubbed survivalists or more commonly preppers. They are individuals or groups who are actively preparing for when the SHTF — shit hits the fan.
Preppers have developed their own vocabulary; a set of abbreviated disaster related lingo, and recently have been featured on National Geographic’s aptly titled Doomsday Preppers. The series follows preppers, everyday Americans who believe that the world (as we know it) will end as they explain how they are preparing for doomsday. Possible apocalyptic scenarios range from war and natural disasters to electromagnetic pulses and pandemics.
The Discovery Channel documentary, Zombie Apocalypse, features real-life preppers who are training for a zombie outbreak. Patti Heffernan admits that her preparations for the undead influence all major decisions in her life. Her house, for example, was chosen specifically for its defensive capabilities. She says that even her young daughter knows “that we only shoot zombies in the head”.
Juan Verde, who runs a blog titled Zombie Preppers (www.zombie-preppers.com) says that his website gets between 150 and 200 hits per day — impressive, considering he hasn’t been able to upload regular content due to strains on his time. The site is a one-stop-shop for everything you could ever want to know about surviving the zombie apocalypse from food to firearms and even a guide to picking your ultimate fighting team.
As a former Boy Scout with a background in the US military, Juan has seen the devastation of being unprepared first hand. His two young girls, 6 and 7 years, study self-defence and gun safety. The family has 6 weeks of rations and a stockpile of weapons including two AR-14s, handguns and assorted weapons chambered for .22 gauge ammunition.
If the shit does hit the fan, as preppers are fond of saying, Juan has backpacks, or “bug out bags”, filled with essential items that the family might need to reach the safety of his mother’s property in rural Florida.
But does Juan Verde believe in the possibility of a real-life zombie outbreak?
“It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference, really,” he explains. “I’m not really concerned with apocalyptic scenarios. I’m much more concerned with the super storm (ala Katrina) hitting the area.”
For some preppers, zombie no longer refers to an undead, or even virally infected, cannibal. Zombie is a term that is used to describe the unprepared, hungry and dangerous hordes of people roaming the streets after an apocalyptic event — people that might try to steal your stockpile of food and weapons.
When asked what sort of disastrous event he thinks might occur Juan replies, “Sort of doesn’t matter how it happens… Other than an EMP, which would really cramp my style, it’s all the same.”
Thanks to the growing popularity of zombies and shows like Doomsday Preppers, survivalists like Juan Verde have come to the attention of the general public. This begs the question — why are the people of developed nations, who enjoy relative safety and prosperity, so paranoid and preoccupied with an apocalyptic end of the world?
Historically, interest in prepping peaks during times of social or political upheaval: threat of nuclear war, technology breakdown, terrorist attacks and even the Mayan doomsday prediction.
Ordinary, middle-class Americans are getting on the brand wagon — previously reserved for die-hard extremists, religious cults and conspiracy buffs. Driven by fear of a worsening global financial crisis or natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, survivalists are popping up everywhere.
Then there are those who are wishing (secretly or otherwise) for an end of the world, doomsday-style event. In an article written for Psychology Today, Dr Steven Scholman explores the allure of the apocalypse.
“In our modern world… a world where we are fed data that feels miles long but only millimeters thick, perhaps the allure of destruction is the simplicity that it procures,” he muses.
Frank Diepmat agrees. He thinks that zombies and end of the world scenarios are on the rise because they are relatable.
“I think people can relate to the fear people go through in an apocalypse. And they love seeing people that were just like them turn into heroes. That and girls just watch to see Norman Reedus feed a baby,” he says.
Whether people are watching because of a psychological yearning for simplicity or to perve on hunky actors snuggling infants, there seems to be no stopping the zombie juggernaut.
The Center for Disease Control has even gotten in on the action. After a series of bloody crimes — such as the Miami cannibal incident where a homeless man’s face was eaten off – that sparked a media storm, the CDC issued a statement to the Huffington Post stating that they did not “know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).”
Yet this hasn’t stopped the CDC from using the popularity of the undead to their advantage. Their official blog features several articles on The Walking Dead and how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.
“You may laugh now,” one entry says. “… but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.”
Though the articles are satirical, they capitalize on the popularity of zombies to spread information on disaster preparation to the general public.
Joanna Prototype sees the increase in zombie prepping as a positive step towards public awareness of basic survival strategies.
“People make it into a fun thing, preparing for zombies, but then if something really happens, like a natural disaster… you are prepared,” she says. “Zombies make extreme circumstance survival more fun to think about. Plus, who doesn’t feel like a total badass making preparations for a zombie apocalypse?”
Zombie fans, preppers, and general badasses planning for the apocalypse have received a fair amount of flack from the mainstream media. Nutbags, crackpots and weirdos are just a few names that get bandied about when the subject comes up — something that followers of the previous vampire fad never had to deal with. But how many fang-fans have planned out an end of the world scenario that could be used in a real-life disaster?
Even non-believers such as Juan Verde and the CDC are using the raging popularity of zombies to broadcast their message to the public. Given the cult following of The Walking Dead and hype surrounding all things zombie, it seems likely that apocalypse planning and survivalism will continue to boom.
Whether you believe in the possibility of a real-life undead invasion or not, prepping has practical applications for any SHTF scenario.
For more information on how you can get prepared, visit the CDC website (www.emergency.cdc.gov/planning).