simplyme

You aren't alone. In past seasons, Ozzy very much appeared to be a jerk to players he saw as weaker and not in power. He was at his best when he wasthe underdog and had to work with everyone else. The Brad-Troyzan chat about being the only two guys made me roll my eyes. I realize that gender is a natural bond for many people, but why are so many of the men on Survivor so freaking paranoid about women? I don't think Tai was in on the plan other than being told they were voting Sandra. I think everyone else just stuck with what Ozzy said earlier. Sandra was the most dangerous. Boot her now, then think Tai.

Hey, who's that guy Charo's with? (Kidding! Just kidding!) As to Bonner and Sharna and their "chemistry," I suppose Bonner could be used as an example of an inert element.

If you're counting on Rupert to be the smart one, you might be in trouble.

Lindsey, from Cagayan (yes, it was BBB1). She was upset Cliff was gone and was having intense conflicts with Trish. I didn't see Kass's second season, but I didn't hate her in her first. She was clearly out for herself, but she wasn't burning people's belongings. I never felt she was malicious. Intractable and playing a poor social game for a woman, yes, but not malicious.

Or she could be hitched to Troyzan as a duo and make it pretty far, but only as a goat. I feel like her edit set up the two of them working together and also showed how abrasive her personality can be. Whereas Troy, as much as he ended up annoying me when he lost his stuff his first season, has both a social and physical game. Of course, I also thought Zeke would do well last season, so my predictive ability works best in hindsight. :P

I started this as a response to a comment in the Ep.04 Dirty Deed thread, then decided it was too off-topic and didn't know where to put it, so I'm sticking it here under the theory that "Michaela's attitude is not really a generational thang" may be unpopular. Also, no idea where else to put it. :P I don't think young people are any more prone to this than any other age group. Both from personal experience and from what I've observed, that attitude can be situational and depend on how people are being treated and who is involved. Not always, but often. (I say this as a former public librarian. I'm excluding people with obvious mental issues from this analysis.) There are some people in ALL age ranges who cop it a lot more than others. Others react to criticism (actual or interpreted) in other ways. For example, at the library where I used to work we sometimes had to politely remind patrons to speak a bit more quietly. Most people handled it fine. The female librarians were more likely to get the attitude you mentioned than the male librarians, and sometimes age gaps between patron and librarian appeared to come into play. As a short, younger-looking, female librarian, I most often got it from men over 50 with a certain swagger. (A close relative of those guys were the men who thanked me and then immediately tried to hug me or pat me on the head in a way that sort of reestablished their dominance in the relationship.) If you see it more in one group than in others, it may simply be that you aren't in situations that would normally trigger other groups. SimplyMom, a former teacher nicknamed "the Generalissimo" by her principal for her iron control, agrees with me. Sure, you get the occasional real stinker or someone having a bad day, but most people in any age range are fine.

Well, yes, the word bark is associated with the sound dogs make, but "barking orders" is a well-known phrase. Actually, I'll just quote http://www.word-detective.com/2010/03/bark/ The sort of “bark” that dogs (and certain other animals, such as foxes) make, what the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “to utter a sharp explosive cry,” is, as you might expect, a very old word, derived from the Old English word “beorcan.” Many etymologists believe that the origin of “bark” lies in an ancient modification of the verb “to break,” conveying the sense of a sharp, sudden sound evocative of something being violently broken. We also use “bark” in a figurative sense to mean “to speak forcefully and harshly,” as a drill sergeant might “bark” orders. In other words, Jeff was equating Michaela with a drill sergeant type, not a dog.

On rewatch, I noticed that the bag that Michaela throws is thrown hard at JT's feet. The second one she hands to Aubry. So I think that was part of the JT-Michaela feud, which clearly predated SugarGate. I'd guess she was (fairly or not) ticked off by him during the strategizing session. The editing would have you believe she glared daggers at him every time he dropped the ball and had to restart. One other note: I am watching with SimplyMom, who was a Survivor newbie during Millennials vs Gen X so the only Survivors she knows are Zeke and Michaela. Her first exposure to JT was this. As JT leaked Sierra's name to Brad, my mother watched in confusion. "He's an idiot," she said. As he called Michaela ignorant and honey bun, she muttered he was a jerk. And as JT got his torch snuffed, she turned and said, "That was really satisfying."

This is all theory on my part, but here goes. One of the things that is very different between last season and this season is general age of the contestants and how well they know each other. No one knew each other pre-show. After the first few votes, Michaela felt close to a number of the other Millennials and trusted them. They viewed her as an integral part of a team. That's why it was a shock to her to be voted out, and one reason why she disliked Figgy so much: Figgy didn't have any interest in playing a team game with Michaela. She doesn't have that this time. Michaela is one of two Survivors with no real pre-show relationships to help (or harm) her. She's now on a tribe where Aubry is the closest person to her age-wise, but Sandra probably comes the closest to understanding her mentality. She isn't feeling valued at all. And Michaela's default reaction to not feeling valued is to become a bigger, louder pain in the rear to those she thinks are disrespecting her. After all, why be nice to people who don't like her? She knows what she's worth, and if they can't see it, well, that's their problem in her mind. And I would guess that's why Varner and Aubry see her as an attitude problem. She's feeling ignored and not valued by them (and JT, but given his women issues that was always going to happen imo) and has yet to figure out a better way to flip the script.

Well, Brad has several children. I'm sure he's seen a tantrum or two in his day.

I started to contemplate that tribe and my brain shut down in self defense.

Just read this week's recap (Week 2) and noticed this bit: "Wow, I was just looking up Artem's past partners (Lea Thompson, Patti Labelle, Mischa Barton, Maureen McCormick), and discovered that Artem dated Carrie Ann for two years. Did you guys know this? Why did no one tell me? Now I'm going to be watching their every interaction closely." I knew that. Even better, he was married when he met her, and the circumstances and his ex-wife's comments/accusations are rather interesting. (I'm not saying you should believe his ex-wife, as exes have been known to be overly bitter in the past.)

The Woody comment was hysterical. Omg. I just find Bonner hard to watch. He's bowlegged when he dances, and when he talks I find I'm tense the entire time because to me he feels like he's thinking REALLY HARD to come up with basic, boring words. It's a relief when he stops speaking and I can relax. This may be entirely generational or depend on your interests, too. I actually found I knew a higher percentage of this cast than normal. Of the women, I knew Charo, Heather, Nancy, and Simone, and I had heard of Erika even if I knew little about her. I didn't know Normani, but I knew of Fifth Harmony. Of the men, I knew Chris, Mr. T, David, and Nick. So really, Rashad, Bonner, and Normani were the only ones whose names I didn't know, and I consider it possible that I would have stumbled across Rashad or Normani's names soon seeing that I watch the NFL and consume music. (I admit that years ago I occasionally used to cross-stitch to PBR, curling, and Law and Order reruns when nothing else was on, but I believe that was before Bonner's time. I don't remember any cowboys, though, since I cheered for the bulls.) I have to say, I don't watch The Bachelor/ette series and I've tended to find the Bachelors on DWTS annoying as heck. I don't remember Jake, I started calling Sean "Stompy," and Chris gave me weasel vibes in addition to not being a very strong dancer who simply would not go home. Omg. Nick so far is a pleasant enough change. As SimplyMom said, "Heck, at least this one is amusing."

If Len had been critiquing her dancing, that would be one thing. But he wasn't. He was ranting at Heather for the choreography, which is MAKS'S department. If Len wants different content, direct that criticism to Maks, the pro. Heather had every right to handwave away what Len said, imo. Had Len said it more politely (something like, "Since we already know you can dance hiphop, I was disappointed in the content. It needed much more jive.") instead of a personal attack for something she wasn't even in charge of, maybe she wouldn't have hand-waved it. Apparently the rules don't specify how much content has to be of the assigned dance. Not that certain people follow the rules anyways. I didn't think Heather's jive was anywhere near the worst offender in terms of limited assigned dance content that we've seen, and I don't think Len is particularly reliable on having the same standard for everyone on that.

After some of the clunkers Emma's had (sorry Waltrip fans, but that season was excruciating for me to watch), I'm thrilled to see Emma has someone who appears to have some dance potential. Granted, it's also nice when Sasha isn't relegated to the crab costume.

Or it was unintentional (which is honestly what it looks like to me) and Sharna is upset that her partner is being attacked partially on her supposed behalf. They've both said it was unintentional. For me, that's enough. I wasn't going to vote for Bonner anyways. *shrug* As for calling people stupid, sure, it wasn't a politic move. But she'd had 6 seconds of video go viral and people who don't even watch the show grabbing pitchforks and torches. She might have been a tad bit upset and not used her best public relations judgment. Also note she isn't just dealing with fans at this point. She's dealing with people who are using that video for their own commentaries on society. Generally unless someone involved says differently, I'm going to apply Hanlon's Razor: "Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding." (Also sometimes summarised as "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.")

Most of the time the judges just blather. I spend a lot of time muttering, "Shut up and critique the dance." Sometimes that blathering turns into screeching or longwinded, nonsensical rhapsodizing. Also, Len has yet to learn how to defend his own opinion without wasting everyone's time arguing that he has a right to his opinion. Overall, the judges are probably nice people, but if I were trapped on that panel, I'd want to smack someone. If Len seems unenthused, I don't think it's that the celebs' potential isn't there this time, but that this is no longer new or exciting.

I would have you give the same advice to Charo while at it. :)

I kind of wondered why she was too raunchy but Bonner wasn't, unless I missed Len saying it. For some reason the female stars seem to get that comment a lot more easily from Len than the guys do, imo. I only remember Len telling Apolo Ohno once that he felt there was too much thrusting in a dance. I could have a selective memory, though.

I'm not real big on Maks, but I've adored Heather ever since I found out she ad libbed a number of her Brittany lines on Glee. Like some others, I'm 100% sure she won't win (or even make the finals), but I'm going to enjoy watching her dance while she's there. Usually VWs bore the heck out of me, but I enjoyed both Nancy/Artem's and Heather/Maks's VWs last night.

Bonner came across like he had fallen on his head a lot even before he broke his neck. His attractiveness up and vanished once he opened his mouth. *sigh* I don't know if The Grab was intentional. There is the possibility that he may still have repercussions from breaking his neck that they didn't get into, and he wasn't looking that way.

I actually was in the next room instead of watching the tv, but I didn't have any problems understanding We as she sang. What annoyed the heck out of me was how repetitive the song was, but I feel like I say that a lot nowadays. Sigh.

Oh. Wow. Okay. Yeah. *blink*

Hey, now. I see no Carson Daly in him at all. I say this as someone with a small crush on Carson Daly from the time I was a teenager to, oh, now. *mumbles* Ken? The guy's good-looking, but he doesn't really do it for me. I'm gonna stick with my harmless Carson crush.

Actually, I fully believe the Sunday and Bret votes were defensible... just not by the nerdy, neurotic, giggling girl who talks too much and has panic attacks. The social component is the issue for Hannah imo.