CDC Encourages Citizens to Be Ready For Zombie Apocalypse

by AdamS on September 12, 2012

Following a string of unsettling events that occurred earlier this year, including the story of the man who attacked and ate the face of a homeless man in Miami, and the story of the man who ate his nearly forty pound dog, the Center for Disease Control created a tongue in cheek campaign to raise awareness of being prepared for natural disasters. The CDC used the scary headlines of crazed people in America and the terrifying revelation of people consuming a flesh eating drug called krokodil in Russia to encourage people to be prepared for major disasters. The Zombie Preparedness campaign has proven to be a very effective platform to reach a new audience for the CDC. They claim that if citizens are prepared for a zombie apocalypse, they will also be thoroughly prepared for a slew of other disasters including hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks or pandemic.

Zombie Popularity Skyrocketing

The CDC is not the only organization cashing in on America’s renewed fascination with the undead. AMC’s adaptation of the graphic novel series “The Walking Dead” has been nominated for six emmys in just two seasons and the season 2 finale had an audience of over 9 million viewers which set a record for most watched basic cable broadcast. In video games, “Dead Island” and “Left 4 Dead 2” were among 2011’s most popular titles and this years release of “Call of Duty Black Ops 2” which features an expansive zombie mode is destined to be the biggest seller of the year. However, perhaps the most genius exploitation of zombie popularity belongs to Reed Street Productions, who created an event called Run For Your Lives, which is an event where participants pay $70 a person to run through a 5 kilometer zombie obstacle course. These runs take place in cities all over the United States and seem to always sell out, producing a windfall for the organizers of the event.

Will The Popularity Fade?

With so many companies and organizations flooding the market with zombie related merchandise, interactive events, and media, the American public will likely get tired of all the zombie coverage soon. However, today the zombie trend is still garnering a ton of public support. Season 3 of “The Walking Dead” ,which starts in October, is likely to break all of the viewership records that season 2 already broke earlier this year. Right now, the popularity of the subject is soaring at an all time high, but at this rate it seems to have little room to continue to rise and will likely start to fall in the next few years.

It is good to see that organizations like the CDC are using the popularity of zombies for everyone else’s benefit and not for personal gains. Their hope is that by using the recent events surrounding the Miami “bath salts zombie” and the proliferation of the flesh destroying drug krokodil in Russia they can warn people to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. The more people prepare for these events by making sure to have clean water, medical kits, flashlights and numerous other provisions, the better off the nation will be when a natural disaster occurs. Visit https://www.thewatershed.com/blog/cloud-9-bath-salts-pose-extreme-danger/ to read more about bath salts

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