Over the top hype.

“The world as we know it is coming to an end. Plague and pestilence are sweeping the planet. Click here and purchase our emergency food rations….before the world runs out of food.”
I understand that the economy stinks, and current events both here at home and abroad have us all concerned for the future, but within the past few months my email is overflowing with doom and gloom dire predictions put out by companies with “the solution” to sell. Food supplies, underground bunkers, and the ultimate guide to living off the grid are just a sample of the products being pushed. The last time I saw this many predictions of world wide destruction was during the run up to the year 2000. These types of campaigns do a disservice to all of us in the real world of emergency preparedness. After a thousand emails, so called news stories, and a whole host of fly by night internet sites spreading hype and questionable science, it makes the real need for preparedness seem trivial. Our messages get lost in the “noise”. I did find it a little ironic that as I sat down to delete a dozen of just such emails that the news scroll announced the passing of well known pitch man Billy Mays. Now I can’t help but hear his voice in my head every time I read one of these over exaggerated predictions of our demise. “Hi, Billy Mays here, the world is coming to an end!” (May he rest in peace.)
With any luck as the economy gets better, we will hear fewer and fewer predictions of chaos consuming the world. As we all witnessed in the year 2000 we can only hope that the producers of this garbage disappear and take their overhyped campaigns with them.