Unsure if y’all have seen this new genre of Instagram content emerging from the void, but I have to talk about it.
Imagine beautifully lit flatlays of emergency supplies, artisanal freeze-dried meals in matte packaging, stylish multi-tools that cost more than your Tiffany earrings, arranged just so on reclaimed wood.
Yes folks, we’ve officially landed somewhere between cottagecore and Black Mirror, to what I’d like to dub Apocalypse Aesthetics. And, as per usual, brands are absolutely wetting their pants in excitement.
It's doomsday prep but make it chic.
Look, I get it, I really do.
When you glance at the news and see [gestures broadly at literally everything going on right now], the urge to prepare for some kind of nebulous collapse feels less paranoid and more pragmatic.
But it gets deliciously perverse. Because capitalism has looked at our collective anxiety about societal breakdown and thought, "how can we make this a lifestyle brand?"
Are we surprised? No. Are we going to analyse it anyway? Yes, like, why else are you here?
Suddenly, my Instagram feed is full of $400 tactical water bottles that "wouldn't look out of place in a design museum.” Outdoor brands are pivoting to "urban preparedness."
There are literal luxury bunker companies selling you a temperature-controlled apocalypse shelter with imported cedar countertops. Because apparently when civilisation crumbles, what you'll really need is good interior design.
Gorpcore went from hiking gear to high fashion.
And now your local influencer is doing unboxing videos of their everyday carry setup like they're preparing for the fall of Rome when the only thing they’re prepping for is to tell the poor girl they're leading on they just have “a lot going on right now” (code for I just bought new Salomons and can’t afford date night.)
The absurdity reaches its apex with "prepper pantries.” It's a practice that emerged from the rise of modern survivalism and genuine fear of nuclear war in the 1950’s. Now, it looks like aesthetically curated shelving units of tinned goods that cost more than the food inside them.
We've somehow arrived at a place where having canned tuna is aspirational.
That is, as long as it’s the right canned tuna, displayed with the proper amount of aesthetic to put on the bench and not even in the pantry at all.
The thing that makes this particularly insidious is that real preparedness has never even been about products at all. It's about people.
The commodified version of collapse-readiness is aggressively, almost ideologically individualist.
It's selling you the fantasy that you can buy your way to safety, that survival is a personal consumer choice rather than a collective undertaking. Get your bugout bag, stock your bunker, perfect your self-sufficient homestead aesthetic. It's rugged individualism cosplay for the end times.
This is the exact opposite of how humans have actually survived every historical crisis. We've done it together. Through mutual aid and community networks. Through knowing our neighbours and building resilient local systems.
But that doesn't photograph well, and more importantly, you can't sell it.
The real doomsday prep happening right now? It's the unsexy stuff. It's community gardens where people are learning to grow food together, not for the aesthetic but because food security is increasingly precarious. It's tool libraries and skill shares.
It's neighbours organising supply chains for medications, building mutual aid networks that actually function when systems fail. It's people creating spaces for collective care because they've realised that institutions might not have their backs.
This is the version you won't see in a carefully curated grid.
It requires ongoing relationship-building, which is harder than clicking "add to cart.” But these spaces are online. It just takes showing up, learning skills from people who have them, sharing resources, being part of something larger than your personal survival fantasy.
The irony is that the community-based approach actually works. When disasters hit, it's not the guy with the $3,000 EDC setup who weathers it best, but the person embedded in strong community networks… you know, the one who knows their neighbours, and the one who's part of a functional mutual aid group.
So if you're feeling that urge to prepare, by all means, act on it. God knows the urge grows stronger every day for me.
But maybe start by like, meeting your neighbours instead of buying another tactical flashlight. Follow your community garden on Instagram. Maybe contribute once in a while. Find your local mutual aid network, learn to fix things, preserve food, provide first aid. Teach others skills you have. Build relationships of care and reciprocity.
Because the beautiful, unglamorous truth is we're not going to buy our way out of this. We're going to have to build our way out, together. And that's actually the more hopeful version of the story. Well, it’s the one I like better anyway.
The apocalypse, if it comes, won't be solved by having the right products. It'll be survived by having the right people. And I hate to break it to you, but you can't purchase those on a payment plan.
-Sophie Randell, Writer
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