S45: Emily Flippen

[Whimsy]

From Entertainment Weekly: 

 

 

Name: Emily Flippen
Age: 28 
Hometown: McKinney, TX 
Current Residence: Laurel, MD 
Occupation: Investment Analyst  

3 Words to Describe You: Direct, genuine, aggressive. 

Why do you want to be part of Survivor? Some of the best advice I've received is to "live a more interesting life." What's more interesting than Survivor? 

What's one life experience you feel has prepared you for the game? When I was 18, I moved to Shanghai to be part of the inaugural class of the first joint Sino-American University in China. I'm accustomed to working with (and competing against) people with many different backgrounds and life experiences. 

Which previous player do you identify with the most? Who do you think you will play most like? I've been told my personality is extremely similar to Kass. I take that as the complement that it is. However, I plan on playing my own game and making an entirely unique set of mistakes. 
What will you value in an alliance partner? Openness. I want to work with someone who wears their heart on their sleeve. Who won't leave you guessing as to their emotions or intentions.

Favorite Hobbies: Doting over my cat, playing video games, meal-prepping. 

Pet Peeves: Nearly everything. Chewing, snoring, arrogance, being overly serious, being overly jokey. You name it and it probably irritates me. 

What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Passing all three levels of my CFA exams on my first attempt. (Trust me, it's a solid humblebrag in the world of finance!) 

What is something we would never know from looking at you? I'm not religious, but I am guided by my own very strict sense of right and wrong. 

Who in your life is your biggest inspiration and why? My dad. I take after him in a lot of ways. He has shown me the importance of accepting yourself for who you are while also pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. 

Why will you be the Sole Survivor? I lack a lot of the traditional qualities that make a good Survivor player: I'm out of shape, don't really like the outdoors, and people can find me off-putting. Which is exactly why they'll never see me coming! 

[tinkerbell]

On 9/8/2023 at 11:12 AM, Whimsy said:

Pet Peeves: Nearly everything. Chewing, snoring, arrogance, being overly serious, being overly jokey. You name it and it probably irritates me. 

I thought she might be racist (she still might be) but maybe she just hates EVERYONE.

[LadyChatts]

I'm cautious throwing the r-word out, especially on a show that is heavily edited.  I am questioning why she felt suspicious of Kaleb and Sabiyah, but I am wondering if something happened that wasn't shown that made her feel that way.  I can understand why she might have felt that they went for an advantage for themselves at that challenge when they said they didn't win anything (I blame the show for her thinking that).  I can't say why she thought them volunteering to go was a bad thing, unless she thought they were going specifically for an advantage.

And as for Bruce, that was weird, but maybe she was trying to put an easy target on his back since he is a returning player and might have a leg up on everyone.  Of course, she might have a better argument if Probst hadn't been asking Bruce those specific questions about his experience, if Bruce was actually on her tribe so it might have gone somewhere, and if he had lasted more than 12 hours during his previous run (which I think the large majority of those 12 hours on the island was with a head injury).

I like that she's not afraid to be outspoken, and she seems self-aware about it.  Hopefully she can be self-aware enough to know when to speak and to realize she isn't as smart at this as likes to think.  I can't even believe she was willing to keep Brandon and Hannah or Kaleb or Sabiyah.  And funny thing is, she was possibly gone if Hannah hadn't quit.

[Nashville]

39 minutes ago, LadyChatts said:

I am questioning why she felt suspicious of Kaleb and Sabiyah, but I am wondering if something happened that wasn't shown that made her feel that way.

I don’t think Emily was suspicious of Kaleb and Sabiyah; rather, I think she was jealous of them - or, more specifically, jealous that they appeared to have already established a solid personal relationship.

Emily appears to have assembled in her head a veritable Felix the Cat’s Bag of Tricks full of tools for playing Survivor;  trouble is, she doesn’t seem to have any fucking clue whatsoever as to what tool to use when.  Every time Peachy does so much as lob Emily a softball question, Emily’s immediate go-to is to divert, deflect, and throw shade like crazy at everybody in the immediate vicinity - but she does so even when strategically significant attention wasn’t directed at her, with an end result of Emily actively drawing the analytical attention she didn’t want in the first place.

Emily also has zero finesse in employing her tools; her pitch at camp to Brandon and Hannah for targeting Kaleb and Sabiyah looked less like a sales campaign, and more like a scene from one of those old ‘30s film noirs where the cops are trying to blackjack a suspect into a confession.  I fully expect Brandon and Hannah agreed with Emily, just to escape her.   Watching Emily work is like watching someone try to reroof a house with a 12-lb. sledgehammer.

Unlike Emily’s juggernaut approach to Survivor, however, Kaleb and Sabiyah appear to be growing a personal relationship - a relationship which could easily expand to incorporate a strategic layer into the personal.  Such relationships not only appear to be beyond Emily’s ability, though, they also appear to be beyond her comprehension -hence Emily’s jealousy.

[LadyChatts]

@Nashville I thought about my previous post before seeing what you wrote, and I do think suspicious is the wrong word choice.  And if anything, I think it’s just a major coincidence that her target duo happen to be black.  Emily I think is getting outwitted and outplayed by the game itself.  Really she’s making observations that I think fall back on the common tropes and advantages-at-every-turn that we’ve coming to expect in this new era.  It’s pretty much written in the Survivor script that two people go off together, the rest of the tribe usually conspired against them because they must be working together.  People disappear to go to some random island for a challenge or quest and come back empty handed, they must have an advantage or an idol.  Emily said she’s trying to play three steps ahead, and has the confidence of someone who thinks she’s in the know and isn’t going to let anyone get her.  The problem is, she’s three steps ahead of a mess she created, possibly pushed two people into working together that maybe weren’t going to work together at all (but now feel like they have no choice), and alienated people she thought were weak and would follow her lead and see what she was seeing.  Except there was nothing to see.  
 

Similarly, I think she tried to get one over on Bruce by portraying him as some kind of threat, and maybe thinking if people didn’t see it like that, they would after she pointed it out.  But again, Bruce was answering questions about his experience Probst posed to him, and he literally lasted less than 24 hours with a head injury.  So it’s not like he was acting like Sir Brags-A-Lot.  And it may have not only put a target on her back with her own tribe for being outspoken, but with the others.  Because Probst didn’t ask for her opinion on the matter. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by LadyChatts

[AncientNewbie]

28? I took her to be about my age. 

[red12]

After looking at this thread, I realized I am from the same geographical area as Emily and that might be why I didn't take to her from the first scene on the boat. I also can't believe she is only 28. That is surprising.

[Kenzie]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:27 AM, red12 said:

I also can't believe she is only 28. That is surprising.

Her age surprised me too. She came off rather cranky, dour and set in her ways for only 28.

[susannot]

My millennial son watched 5 minutes of Survivor with me.  He watched the scene between Emily and Kaleb and commented sarcastically "Oh, her first black friend."  I told him that people had speculated about possible racist tendencies and he said he picked up on that in 5 seconds.  He thought she might be a Mormon girl never exposed to black people.