'Survivalist' or 'Prepper'.

[Devonian]

As you have said, both terms "prepper and survivalist" are largely interchangeable and mean the same thing.

Personally, I don't think we should get too hung up on whether one is right or wrong, or what the difference between them may be, and whether such terms are relevant to our interest/lifestyle, afterall we do what we do because of beliefs and concerns, and that will not change according to what anyone calls it.

At the end of the day it's just a cultural thing as language changes and develops over the years/decades, and yes in ten years time we could be looking back and thinking that yes we used to be called preppers, but now we are know as something completely different.

Other examples through history could include Automobile/Car; Gay/Gay etc

But.... having written this, one thing that does jump out at me (from the language/words) is that the term Prepping or Prepper is more about what is being done BEFORE an event; whilst the term Survivor or Survivalist infers that you are surviving AFTER an event......

So maybe we are simply prepping to become survivors????