My YouTube feed has been inundated with economic calamity videos lately. Housing and groceries and gasoline and fertilizer and concert tickets and healthcare and fast food are all on fire.
I won't say none of this affects me, but I didn't have the privilege of growing up middle class, where acknowledging the plight of the poor was optional. Having to choose between rent and lights, gas or bread, that's just another average Monday in the world I grew up in. So now as an adult, I prep. Not in the underground nuclear bunker way, I'm not rich enough for that mess. I live in an apartment, so gardening isn't really an option, either. What I have is just good, old fashioned beans and rice. Canned tomatoes and spices. Flour, sugar, and powdered milk. you know, basics. Lots of them.
Remember a few months ago when the US government shut down, and several services were shut off? People weren't getting paid but were still expected to somehow make it to work blah blah blah. I was on reddit, and r/foodstamps kept popping up. All the NewPoors™ were in a full blown panic because all these working class folks, mostly moms, suddenly couldn't afford to feed their children. Everyone was suddenly hitting up their local food bank(s) to try to supplement their meals. I'm not blaming them, because gods know how difficult it is to feed a picky eater who's been used to on demand chicken nuggets and Hot Pockets as long as they've been old enough to handle a microwave. It's impossible to cook sometimes when you're working 10 hour shifts on top of a 2 hour commute and 1,000 chores, homework, bathtime, whatever before you finally get to bed. Plus, these folks are modern poor. They might be driving an older car, but it's not being held together with tape and twist ties. They might not be wearing designer brands, but their clothes haven't been sloppily mended so many times it's now a shapeless, colorless blob of unidentifiable fabrics. For most people living somewhere along the poverty line, they can still afford to not live and look like medieval peasants, and that's a good thing.
But they're so dependent on the system, none of them had stopped to think about what would happen if that system were no longer dependable, even if it was only for a week or two. A month, tops. Reddit was suddenly flooded with hundreds of clueless people who don't follow the news, don't do politics, don't vote, who had no idea why their EBT card was rejected when they stopped by their local supermarket freezer section to buy a frozen pizza after work.
I've been there, though. I come from a long line of elite poor. My entire adult life, I've always kept stores of dry goods, even if we didn't have to eat them everyday, because you never know when shit's gonna hit the fan. It's not paranoia, it's not crazy, this is literally how our species has survived for thousands of years - by squirreling away extras during times of abundance for the lean times that always come sooner or later. Communities survived winters by making sure they rationed their spring and summer harvests. They learned how to preserve, ferment, dehydrate. I don't know how to do any of that, but fucking hell, I can buy an extra 10lb bag of rice, just in case.
So, back to YouTube. I've watched a couple of these videos going off about how to survive the impending economic calamity, and it's absolutely ridiculous but apparently Youtube pays well if you've got even an ounce of common sense. "Buy matches, in case you have to start a fire in the winter!" Oh really, Captain Obvious? Except that video will have 1.9 million views so maybe it's only obvious to us elite poors. I don't know what it is about July 4th, but the closer we get, the more I see these videos. I think it's because people are too broke to afford fireworks and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for 20 of their closest friends and family this year (have you seen the price of meat?), no beach vacation in an Air B&B condo with a $700 cleaning fee where YOU still have to do the cleaning. Something must be wrong! You know there's something wrong when the middle class is worried about it, when the IT guy earning $105,000/y is looking up easy taco recipes because 3 "street tacos" and a Corona at his favorite mexican bar costs $60 now. He's been watching videos on how to build a primitive hut in the woods because he heard a rumor his company might be replacing 80% of their staff with AI soon. His nurse wife has been watching videos about canning your own squash and swears she's gonna start her own garden next year, probably. Somewhere in the mix, the algorithm has started slipping in videos about Walmart dynamic pricing and flock cameras and how to pack a bag with essentials in case you have to escape the country overnight. Independence Day is a lie, we're just dependent on corporations and China and Saudi Arabia now instead of England.
It's not untrue, I suppose, but it's been like this for like 50 years. You were fine with it before because it was cheap. For you.
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