My grandparents on both sides, in Arkansas, were preppers or they had no food in the winter/spring. There were no scoffers then as everyone stored or went hungry in the winter and spring before the new crops were ready.
So, when did scoffers start? Wasn't during my parent's times because we still canned - everyone did. They wouldn't have known what “prepper” meant.
When gardens were abandoned for plentiful grocery store food, canning stopped for the most part and people didn't store as before because the grocery store had it.
So, dumping on preppers as nut cases is a relatively new behavior. It's like, “I have nothing stored because the grocery down the road has it, so you must be nuts to waste your time to store items anyone can get anytime.
That is what sets preppers apart from scoffers - we see dangers on all sides that could take us back to the 1800s, where storing meant life or death.
We have life insurance not on a piece of paper as it is from Prudential or other life insurance company. Our life insurance is visible - there it is, I can see it, I know it is there. People who don't have physical life insurance that can be seen, are the nutty ones - not us.
Y2K is what made it the object of scorn. We as a nation prepared, worked to prevent any failures from occurring, and none occurred. Rather than being grateful and seeing the widsom of preparation, the scoffers saw it all as a waste of time because nothing noteworthy happened.
It’s been tinfoilt time ever since.