When It Comes To End Times Survival, Viewers Can’t Get Enough

04.01.2024 - 14:42 / forbes.com

Want to know what’s on the minds of Americans and others around the world? Just study what they’re watching. Netflix recently released its first ever biannual viewing report which gives insights into what people across the globe are craving on their screens.

One trend that is unmistakable is viewer obsession with apocalyptic survival. The Obama-produced Leave the World Behind about the aftermath of a cyber-attack on the US, scored a massive opening weekend on the mega-streamer. More than 2.6 million U.S. households viewed the doomsday film within the first three days of release alone making it a chart topper.

That film follows on the heels of the post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us, which premiered in early 2023, and had 30 million total viewers over six episodes, averaging five million per episode and an astounding 8.2 million people watched the final episode.

There are scores of other movies and series, of course, that focus on what might happen after a collapse of civilization (hint, lead might be more valuable than gold and silver in a post-doomsday economy). As fans of AMC’s mega-hit The Walking Dead and its spin-off series know, the shows are far less about coping with zombies than they are showing audiences the tribal behavior that emerges when desperate people try and survive without societal support.

You can also bet reality networks are taking their cue from the success of these scripted programs and are now busy developing their own series to feed America’s (and the world’s) insatiable appetite for information and characters in the world of prepping and survival. Preppers, if you didn’t know, are people who plan for a wide assortment of disasters (man-made and natural), and they are part of a movement that began at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s when fear of nuclear attack was top of mind for most.

By total box office revenue, dystopian movies and TV series have been among the most popular in the United States for at least the last two decades. Many believe the surge in the genre’s popularity is driven by the plausibility of catastrophic events fundamentally changing life on our planet. The question on the minds of most viewers drawn to these productions is simple: Would I survive if this ever happened?

The obsession for dystopian content helps explain the massive surge in interest in prepping across the globe. In a recent Finder survey, roughly one third of the US adult population now identifies as preppers—spending some $11 billion annually to hedge against a breakdown of society. That figure is up from just six percent 15 years ago. While many might think prepping is a male behavior, nearly one-quarter of adult American women also prep in some form.

When it comes to age groups