simplyme

I'm really glad you're enjoying Gabon. For me, it was one of those seasons where I wish I could forget most of the people, though Crystal shouting out Randy's name while voting will always be funny. Always. As for Crystal sucking at challenges, in 2012 she was stripped of her gold medal from the 2004 Athens Olympics for using anabolic steroids. (Her teammates were allowed to keep their medals, presumably because she only ran the preliminary heat and not the final heat in the women's 4 x 400 m relay.) She admitted to using them from 2001-2004 and forfeited all results from that time period. I intensely disliked Corinne the first time I watched Gabon. For some reason I liked her slightly better in Caramoan (S26), though she was still a flat-out bitch and highly offensive. I think I just identified with her talking head saying, "I just want to throat punch Philip." I expect I would have felt the same way at times.

You were not alone. I'm not sure who coined the phrase, but they sometimes get called the Brotherhood of Ugly Tattoos on these boards. I'll let you work out why on your own.

It used to be a term that was used and seen as a positive thing. You know, people campaigning for basic human rights across society. Then Gamergate happened and it got co-opted as an insult. (For an overview of the Gamergate controversy, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy.) Personally, as soon as I saw SJW, I ignored the rant. If you want to convince me of a point, you probably should avoid using terms associated with a campaign of harassment predicated on lies. And tons of times that men touched women without any issue, but we're discussing a time when someone did have an issue... and also told the person. It's not like Dan didn't know. And of course then there were some cases in previous seasons that probably should have been addressed but weren't, like Jean Paul apparently groping Courtney (and other women) repeatedly at night in China despite their complaints, and Sugar chasing Colby around at night to use as her personal pillow in HvV. You know what those have in common with Dan and Kellee? If someone is openly uncomfortable with you touching them or tells you to stop, then you stop. Generally, it's not anyone else's right to decide what is an okay touch (and from who) and what is not.

He also used words like he learned them from a Word a Day calendar instead of in context. How he used them was slightly wrong. It drove me nuts since Jeff acted like Tarzan was brilliant for knowing words some other people didn't. I'm going back and watching the very early Survivors with my parents. Previously I've watched seasons 3, parts of 6, and 7 on. My parents have seen 12 on. So we watched Africa (3) together and my father found it much more interesting than current Survivor. He likes seeing the survival aspect and the challenges. He gets bored with what he calls "all the talking" (which he means strategy talk). And last night we started season 1, which I had previously been unable to get through on multiple tries. It's a lot more fun watching with them. 😊 So three episodes down...

Sandra and Reem were both older and moms by the time they were on Survivor. For a lot of women, there's a BIG difference in how much of a rat's ass you give about what other people think of you as you age, and you also learn better how to deal with sexual harassment after it's happened a time or two to you.

Every time I watch that, I laugh so hard I cry. I also simultaneously cringe. OMG.

I've got $5 on you not liking Ozzy by the end of the second episode. He has a nasty side.

Janet originally had the problem of being "the old lady" who was just trying to prove she was useful so she wouldn't get her butt voted out at the first TC, which is I think how her "I can make fire!" originally came up. It should be noted that at least some of the tribe had noticed that um, I think it was Kellee? was also really good at making fire. (There was some scene where Jamal was hogging the flint when things were wet and Jack told him to give it to Kellee because she was really good at making fire. Kellee started the fire immediately.)

Yes and no, I think. It's not just the fire-making, imo. The fire-making makes it harder to get rid of a person you absolutely need to get rid of (unless someone gets an idol nullifier that will take out the master fire starter in the group because they guessed a coin flip right *eyetic*) and men have historically been better prepared to make fire than women on Survivor. But I'd say that idols are just as big if not the bigger problem combined with cultural issues like women tend to be targeted for aggressive play more quickly than men (which dovetails with the women not being as good at fire-making. Sometimes women can only survive by being very nonthreatening. In those cases they sure can't be wresting the flint from the menfolk.) The number of idols per season seemed to increase (and increase, and increase...) after Russell cackled his way through several seasons. That would just about coincide with S26. Or as I like to think of it, Let's Create The Most Overpowered Idol We Cangayan. And going back to the EW article: So this season (which did feature women finding idols for once) was different from the beginning in that at least one tribe did not follow a gendered role assignment. Of course, you'll notice that the person who took credit for that was targeted the first week and gone the second. (And yes, I can come up with a bunch of other reasons he was voted out, too, but it is something that I note. If you buck the alpha male at the beginning, you don't tend to last too long in newbie seasons.) Returnee seasons are often a whole different kettle of fish.

It's less about taking any small grouping and freaking out then it is about seeing the larger picture. Three or four men or women in a row is bound to happen at times. (And as far as I can tell, people get raked over the coals for saying just about anything these days. 🤦‍♀️) I probably should have posted the following instead of the quote from the finale recap, but I was too lazy to find it and thought the quote was close enough. Apparently not. So here. A clearer picture of what I was trying to communicate: That was written in the middle of this season, so it's now 11 of the last 14 seasons have been won by men, including the last 5. And it's noteworthy because as pointed out, it didn't used to be that way. This isn't someone pitching a "Survivor is sexist!" fit. It was a journalist looking at a trend he'd noted (and, yes, in one thing I quoted referencing that trend somewhat snarkily). He mostly is curious what kinds of things could account for the change.

IIRC Survivor has always covered any sort of feel good "Someone gave one of our castaways money!" I think they just consider it interesting and good publicity. I don't remember the details, but way back in China there was some to do where Denise claimed her school didn't want her interacting with the kids anymore because she was too popular and blah blah so they changed her job. I seem to recall she got money. (I also seem to recall that afterwards there were accusations that she was lying.)

Fairplay went home with her? That's terrible!

And this perfectly sums up why sexual harassment is generally a no-win situation for the victim, both in Survivor and usually the world in general. The victim either has to continue to be sexually harassed or he/she suffers other negative consequences in terms of loss of power, money, job, etc. They are also likely to be doubted and face social backlash for speaking up.

I have mixed feelings about S14. There were a few people I enjoyed (Earl, Yau-Man, Michelle), some people I was neutral on or wavered on, and then some really problematic personalities. Holy Jebus, five minutes of Rocky gave me an eye twitch and urge to punch someone and I believe @fishcakes once called Lisi a flaming garbage heap (or similar). Very apt. That said, there are some stupendously satisfying parts, especially The Blindside.

It's also not okay to be an overly affectionate woman. If it isn't very, very clearly consensual, keep your damn hands to yourself. A female friend of our neighbor is always all over men. Kissing their cheeks, playing footsie, grabbing their butts, ruffling their hair and so on. She's over 70 (and married) but age appears to be no obstacle. I know she had issues at work before she retired because of this. Both of my parents duck and run when they see her. I mean, I'm a hugger, but there are ways to do that where you give the person an option. You kind of turn towards them and start to lift your arms a bit to each side and then pause to see if they reciprocate or put a hand out to shake or what. And you can always ask what someone prefers. I don't really understand people acting like, "OMG! I will never be able to have any contact with another human being without being sued!"

For me, the following is why it's significant. This is taken from EW's latest recap at https://ew.com/recap/survivor-season-39-episode-14/ The author does go on to give Tommy his due. The problem is not with any individual winner but rather the overall trend (which imo has been either caused or influenced by changes to the show. More HIIs, the fire-making challenge, even going back to the change from primarily an F2 to an F3 seems to have had an effect.) The one thing that really amused me? The person who won was the person who never made it to IotI to get "mentored" by BRob and Sandra. Clearly they were a huge help. 😂😂

It looks like they aren't just addressing the sexual harassment issue but also Julia's complaint about the n-word and similar issues. Or at least they're putting in programming to talk to the castaways about this stuff. Biases just means prejudices someone has, such as racial, gender, religious, sexual orientation or identity, etc. An unconscious bias is simply a prejudice you don't even realize you have. (My guess would be they'll talk about learning to analyze one's thoughts with an awareness that most people have unconscious bias so that during the game, a castaway can go through his/her thoughts and identify biases.) The most exciting thing in that release for me is that it mentioned seasons 41 and on. So at least they haven't decided to kill it yet.

But keep in mind that it's been almost 20 years. What you found compelling and new 20 years ago might seem boring now. The old seasons probably hold up for you because you were fond of them. I mean, I started watching with season 7. I loved it. Going back and rewatching older seasons, I still love them. However, when I went back and watched seasons I had never seen? Holy Jebus. I made it through season 3 (mostly because I was hoping a lion would eat someone) and 90% of season 6. I've tried season 1 at least six times. I am never making it through that season. I'm just not. I could do with less sitting around talking strategy (especially when it's just misdirection) and more camp life. I know my father liked when they showed both the challenges each episode as well as showing the cast doing things like attempting to fish. All talking tends to put him to sleep. Literally.

Actually, he did get cast by Spillman. Dan made the cast for Edge of Extinction but had a broken foot when it came time to tape so he ended up being deferred to this season.

Either I'm missing where it does that or that's now been removed. Edit: It's been removed. I can see in the Google search results where it named her, but it's not there now. It just says one of the contestants witnessed it.

Yeah. I started regularly watching Survivor on TV at season 7. Since then I've gone back and rewatched most seasons and picked up a couple I missed. I got most of the way through season 6, but I couldn't be bothered to finish it. As a family bonding thing, I decided to show past seasons to my mom and watch them with her. She got hooked. Somewhere in there, my father got interested and started watching too. So my mom has seen almost 30 seasons and it's the one show we watch together weekly. (We're all disgusted by this season.) After 30-ish seasons, my mother's favorite season remains season 13, Cook Islands. There are some fascinating people on there (Cao Boi) and the story that gets told that season is one if the more memorable ones. I also love the season right before that, Panama (12). Cirie is both fun to watch as she learns to adapt to the environment and fascinating as a social and strategic force. Some of the other castaways clash regularly, but none of them come off as terrible people (to me, at least). Spoiled, lazy, half insane, but not inherently mean. I thought they did a good job of storytelling with this one too.

Erik has always been my Survivor crush because he seems like such a genuinely nice guy.

Doh! *facepalm* My bad. There are something like four Survivor seasons I haven't seen. Take a wild guess what one of them is. 🤦‍♀️ Thank you for explaining. Knowing that changes what @Al Herkimer wrote to really funny...

Only people in unhappy marriages commit sexual harassment?

Pretty much. I expected to hate BRob and Sandra's part. Instead, their Statler and Waldorf routine has turned into one of the few things I still enjoy. Also, most of the players who were there don't seem to understand what actually happened. I'm sure not going to cast blame on the mentors who were on a different island 99% of the time (or in the hotel).