Another here who recently discovered EDC. Came across it during online searches for a new commute rucksack. I learn that it has a big brother too - BOB.
I was shocked at first, particularly by the paranoid Americans who seemingly can't step through their front door without carrying two different kinds of combat knife, a torch, two backup torches and 30 batteries, pepper spray, a concealed 9mm pistol, 3 loaded magazines for said pistol and a 3G iPad everywhere they go, just in case.
Quite what they're preparing for that they think will require such specificity of stabbing and 50 odd rounds to be fired off, I don't even want to know.
However, after a while of satiating my morbid curiosity I saw that actually, the majority of it is fairly harmless. Particularly outside the US. It's just guys wanting to feel prepared for stuff by carrying paracord, carabiners, torches and first aid kits.
An old colleague of mine, a nice bloke, good laugh, RPG playing, computer programming, lead figure painting, proud-to-be-geek used to keep a zombie survival kit in his car with no hint of embarrassment. Everyone took the piss out of him till we ended up getting stranded overnight in the upstairs office when the river bust its banks and the RAF crew from the Sea kings hovering overhead phoned to say they couldn't justify airlifting 150 staff to dry land.
This colleague had got a roll mat, a sleeping bag, a torch, toothbrush, those army meal ration things, he was comfy, not hungry, totally sorted. While we were all trying to prise the vending machine open in the pitch black to get at the Mars Bars because the power had gone out.
Admittedly that's an exception scenario. Like most ultimately pointless hobbies we blokes have, it's probably 90% about the toys. I got the impression that a lot of it seems actually to be more about the collection and creation of the kit, rather than the use of it. It's like any hobby - a way for people to spend their money and pass the hours on chat forums.
But also like many a hobby - ours included - the nobbers give it a bad image.
