From NPR: "Y2K seems like a joke now, but in 1999 people were really freaking out." People were freaking out because the media, government, and corporations were telling us that the world was going to end unless we threw a bunch of tax dollars at the problem. So, of course, people prepared by stocking up on food and buying guns. The Family Guy animated TV program even made an episode on this topic (you can see a clip here). I have a book, Surviving Doomsday, by Boston T. Party (real name, Kenneth W. Royce) on surviving Y2K which pulled a lot of material from his other books. Looking back, Y2K was a major catalyst of the modern prepping movement and began to get people thinking about disasters beyond just economic collapse and nuclear war.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
A Look Back At Y2K
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Fast forward 21 years and toilet paper replaced the food and gun buying during the panic de jour. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteThere is the old saying about amateurs talk about tactics but professionals study logistics. Y2K and much of the ink spilled over prepping is akin to talking about tactics, while the disruptions during Covid exposed people to issues of logistics.
DeleteMost seem not to have learned from the exposure and the next time may be more serious than mac'n'cheese and TP.
DeleteYup, it was a big part of having people think about the systems that they normally ignore.
ReplyDelete