The Desensitization of "Survivor" Fans [View all]

[yallerdawg]

(Does this help explain how a reality TV celebrity won a presidential election?)

Source: Medium, by "Survivor" fan extraordinaire Ianic Roy Richard

Picture sitting down to watch the newest season of "Survivor" and getting angry when somebody forms an alliance. They might be the most basic form of "Survivor" strategy in 2017, something that is necessary to win the game, but it wasn’t always like that. Back in the simpler days of "Survivor: Borneo," alliances were seen as almost immoral and unfair. For forming the first "Survivor" alliance to hold any water, Richard Hatch and his partners were almost universally hated and the inept Pagong tribe members were seen as the season’s heroes.

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Then, this:

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The funny thing is that this moment also desensitized the fans to pretty much anything that could happen down the road. It was the watershed moment that would eventually be seen as the idealization of “anything to win”. If the dead grandma lie was unpopular back then, it has become almost as popular in retrospect when people look back and see it as a brilliant strategic maneuver from a brilliant strategic mind. Two seasons later, Chris Daugherty would pull off a crazy come from behind win in "Survivor: Vanuatu" by lying through his teeth for the last couple of episodes and at final tribal council. Like Fairplay, he was hated for his gameplay at the time and since then, fans look back on him with reverence. Over time, the audience has adjusted their understanding of the game to what they see currently and it colors the show’s past differently as well.

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Much like the contestants themselves, the fans have evolved with the strategy of the game. The more we become versed in how to best play "Survivor," the less we react to big moments with anger or disgust. As of now, we may have reached a point where the audience is smaller but much more knowledgeable in terms of strategy and a moment like the dead grandma lie could never become the sensation that it once was. At least we’ll always have the original moment to look back on… “She died dude”.

Read it all at: https://medium.com/a-tribe-of-one/the-desensitization-of-survivor-fans-e5e7eb78c3ef