S34: Jeff Varner

[violet and green]

23 minutes ago, lookingforaname said:

PEIH-GEE: I am begging everyone to please give Jeff some compassion, the same compassion you want the world to show to Zeke. We are all humans that make mistakes, some are larger than others but at the end of the day, I hope that we all have room in our hearts to forgive and show love to each other. And just because we have compassion towards Jeff doesn't mean that we don't equally support the travails that Zeke is now facing as well. Please don't do to Jeff what you feared would happen to Zeke.

Exactly.

[Rachel RSL]

What Varner did is probably one of the most horrible, vile things I've ever seen on reality tv but Varner is definitely not even close to being one of the most horrible, vile people. I really do think this is a case of a good person who, for whatever insane reason, made a really bad decision. Unfortunately, it's one of those mistakes that can never be taken back, but I do believe that he's genuinely sorry. And not for any PR reasons or damage control, I believe that he truly regrets what he did to Zeke.

[JenMcSnark]

On 4/13/2017 at 5:12 PM, Sugar said:

Sorry, but when I follow his line of thinking and dig beneath the surface, it does look (to me) that there is in fact some prejudice there. If you're making the jump from 'trans' to 'liar', and accusing a trans person of deception, that's not an innocent thought process. Betrayal, lying, deception - these are ugly words, and Jeff chose to associate them with Zeke's status as a trans man. If it's seemingly no big deal to him that Zeke is trans, why did HE make it into a big deal? Or, does Varner think so lowly of his tribe mates that he assumed this would be their thought process (Zeke is trans > therefore he lied>he cannot be trusted)? Even that logic is problematic, and guess what? It stemmed from his brain.

I'd have more respect for him if he stopped hiding behind his "I have trans friends, I'm an activist" stance, and admitted to having personal biases against Zeke, or against trans people in general.

Saying something shitty doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone says stupid shit they wish they could take back. What makes Varner a bad person in my eyes, is that if he was truly contrite and apologetic, he'd stop defending himself. There's no need to remind people that you're an LGBT ally, that you were in a game, that you feel awful, blah blah. Own up to your bullshit and admit that there may be some confused feelings there. Being prejudiced or biased doesn't make someone an asshole - you can't help those feelings. But choosing to do nothing about it, and denying your prejudices - that's what makes you an asshole.

I completely agree with this post!  100%

And if you think that some gay people are not transphobic, think again.  Maybe Varner didn't even realize that he was a little bit transphobic, but he is definitely not helping himself with his twitter statement and interviews.  His twitter statement - which he and his PR people had almost 9 months to create! - again went with the 'thought he was out to his friends and family' angle.

This stinks to me of being sorry that it blew up in his face.  I do believe that he wasn't thinking clearly due to starvation and stress, but those things that he said came from somewhere inside him and carried at least some of his true feelings. And I do believe that he was mad that he was blindsided and then mad that Zeke didn't immediately fall in line with voting Ozzie off.  So he thought by exposing Zeke's "deception", either Zeke or Ozzie would be gone.  Anyone but him. 

[Artsda]

EXCLUSIVE: 'Survivor' Castaway Jeff Varner 'Devastated' to Be Fired From Job After Outing Fellow Contestant Zeke Smith

http://www.etonline.com/news/215312_survivor_castaway_jeff_varner_reportedly_fired_from_job_after_outing_fellow_contestant_zeke_smith/

[cooksdelight]

Jeff's going to be on the Today show this morning. Praying he's OK.

[Guest]

I'm more disgusted with the aftermath, the social media reaction, than the event.  

[cooksdelight]

Me too. It's a sad state of affairs when a person is driven to the brink of suicide by people he doesn't know.

[peachmangosteen]

On 4/16/2017 at 10:36 AM, Winston9-DT3 said:

He's had 10 months to work out what he can and can't say.  This is his third time playing and he worked in the media.  He made asshole comments after last season in the media, too, but just not many people were listening.  

I think this whole thing and the aftermath is just further proof that Jeff is kind of a petty, bitter dick, which I've always thought lol. I don't think he's a monster or even close to the worst person who's been on this show. He's just your typical bitchy guy who thinks he's a lot more clever than he really is. 

Considering he's been suicidal during this whole ordeal, I think he really needs to stop giving interviews. That is not going to help him in any way.

[fishcakes]

1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:

I think this whole thing and the aftermath is just further prove that Jeff is kind of a petty, bitter dick, which I've always thought lol. I don't think he's a monster or even close to the worst person who's been on this show. He's just your typical bitchy guy who thinks he's a lot more clever than he really is. 

I'm trying to remember if I liked Varner when I first watched Outback in 2001, and I think at best I was neutral on him. He was pretty petty and bitchy, albeit harmless, and he did give me a good laugh when he tried to warn Kimmi that Skupin had just killed a pig and that there would be all kinds of bacon and ham in camp, as if when you cut open a pig bacon and ham just magically appear. Later I think I loved him because he was part of the first two seasons and I love most of those people because that was when Survivor was at its best. (My no-doubt unpopular opinion is that Survivor began to decline slightly starting with Africa, took a huge dive with Vanuatu, and then went straight to hell starting in Nicaragua. Now, we might have a good season here and there -- as with, despite its dumb premise, Millennials vs. GenX -- but the show will never be as great as it was in the early seasons.) So my fondness for Jeff was more on general principle than based on his actual personality or ability to play the game, the latter being sort of marginal. But I don't think he's a bad person at heart, despite the truly awful thing he did to Zeke, and it's a shame he ended his Survivor career this way.

I also agree he needs to stop giving interviews. Whether he's wholeheartedly sorry or whether he thinks there's some wiggle room in terms of his motives for doing what he did is beside the point. Anonymous people on social media can be like sharks who detect blood in the water. I would bet that a healthy percentage of the people who are battering Varner on Twitter, Facebook, and in the comment sections of his interviews don't give even half a shit about Zeke or transgender people in general. They just see some drama and want to get in on it. A few years ago, a no-name blogger I sometimes read wrote a post about how she was having lunch in the park and saw a cute guy that she wanted to talk to but because she was too shy, she created this whole internal dialogue about how he was probably not worth it anyway to justify not introducing herself. She was obviously making fun of herself and her shyness and not this guy she didn't know. Normally she would get 10 or 15 comments on a blog post, but someone posted the link on digg with a "get a load of this conceited bitch" introduction and hundreds of people flocked to her blog to call her names ("c*nt" being the overwhelmingly popular choice), tell her to drink bleach, and of course inform her that she was "obviously a lesbian anyway." It was a festival of misogyny, homophobia, and random hatred directed at a person none of them knew on behalf of another person none of them knew, and it demonstrated that oftentimes alleged moral outrage is just people looking to unleash their own inadequacy in the most cowardly way possible.  So for the legion of people who feel like they have something to say to Varner, it really doesn't matter that what he did was wrong because the narrative has shifted away from "Varner was wrong and here's why," to "Varner seems vulnerable, let's see if we can make him kill himself."

Edited April 17, 2017 by fishcakes

[EVS]

2 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

Me too. It's a sad state of affairs when a person is driven to the brink of suicide by people he doesn't know.

Was it people on the internet who drove him to suicide?  I got the impression that he was suicidal shortly after the incident. I didn't think there was much reaction on the internet until a few days or weeks ago. 

I think it must be hard for Zeke and Varner because this is something that happened almost a year ago and it must be hard to relive it all now, but I think that Varner needs to realize that people are reacting strongly initially because it is new and raw to most of us. I hope he has a good support system. I think the initial furor will die down in a few weeks or at least when the season ends. I don't think the guy should have his life destroyed over one horrible action.  

Having said that,. I think he is very sorry for what he did, but his explanations or excuses in interviews don't justify his actions to me and just make him look worse.  And I'm sorry if this sounds harsh or bitchy, but all these interviews where he talks about how he lost his job of only 3 weeks or how he was suicidal seem to me like he is trying to make the incident too much about himself and how he has suffered instead of about Zeke. I don't doubt he was suicidal, and I'm sorry about that and do feel sympathy for him, but it seems to me like he is trying to use that to deflect from his actions. Again, sorry if that sounds harsh. He is obviously a friend of yours. I don't wish him ill and I obviously don't know him,  but that is how his recent interviews come across to me. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by EVS
Correct autocorrect

[ByaNose]

I don't think Varner was prepared for the edit/non edit of that Tribal Council. In his video about the 500th Episode of Survivor he mentioned his favorite thing. He alluded to the Zeke outting. I wonder if he thought it was going to be edited in a different light? Like, he thought he was "helping" Zeke come out to the tribe. I think he saw the aired show he realized how bad it was going to be. I'm not sure if he should be fired from his job though. Maybe, if he had did this to some co-worker but it was out of the job way before he even took the job. This was a whole year before.

[cooksdelight]

29 minutes ago, fishcakes said:

My no-doubt unpopular opinion is that Survivor began to decline slightly starting with Africa, took a huge dive with Vanuatu, and then went straight to hell starting in Nicaragua. Now, we might have a good season here and there -- as with, despite its dumb premise, Millennials vs. GenX -- but the show will never be as great as it was in the early seasons

Totally agree.

I think Jeff losing his job was the worst of all of this. And I don't think the realty company realizes how it makes them look petty. They should have stood with him, supported him... in my own personal opinion. No one knows what goes through a person's mind out there in the situations the game puts them in.

And I don't know for sure how he thought it might be edited, he can't talk about that. But I'm getting a strong feeling that he didn't think it would go down like we saw it.

[DEL901]

1 hour ago, ByaNose said:

I don't think Varner was prepared for the edit/non edit of that Tribal Council. In his video about the 500th Episode of Survivor he mentioned his favorite thing. He alluded to the Zeke outting. I wonder if he thought it was going to be edited in a different light? Like, he thought he was "helping" Zeke come out to the tribe. I think he saw the aired show he realized how bad it was going to be. I'm not sure if he should be fired from his job though. Maybe, if he had did this to some co-worker but it was out of the job way before he even took the job. This was a whole year before.

 

43 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

Totally agree.

I think Jeff losing his job was the worst of all of this. And I don't think the realty company realizes how it makes them look petty. They should have stood with him, supported him... in my own personal opinion. No one knows what goes through a person's mind out there in the situations the game puts them in.

And I don't know for sure how he thought it might be edited, he can't talk about that. But I'm getting a strong feeling that he didn't think it would go down like we saw it.

In an interview (he really does have to stop doing them), he said he told his new employer that there might be some stuff coming regarding this episode.  Considering he had been with them only 17 days and clearly (even if he thought he'd explained sufficiently, but clearly he hadn't)  I think the company might have been afraid of being in the spotlight ... too much trouble for a brand new employee.  I can't fault them for that.

Edited April 17, 2017 by DEL901
Grammar / added last sentence

[ljenkins782]

2 hours ago, DEL901 said:

 

In an interview (he really does have to stop doing them), he said he told his new employer that there might be some stuff coming regarding this episode.  Considering he had been with them only 17 days and clearly (even if he thought he'd explained sufficiently, but clearly he hadn't)  I think the company might have been afraid of being in the spotlight ... too much trouble for a brand new employee.  I can't fault them for that.

Yeah, I think we need only to look at the now-daily stories about United Airlines to see why a company might be gun-shy about an employee who might invite the lynch mobs of social media upon them. 

To be clear, United was 100% wrong in what they did, but at this point, people are digging to find each and every possible nail in the coffin in the way of every bad experience anyone's ever had because it's guaranteed to make news right now. 

Varner being a very new employee just adds weight to the wrong side of the risk/reward scale. They don't know how valuable he was going to be and the potential firestorm he might bring to them could be very costly. 

[JudyObscure]

For any of you who are darkly fascinated with Jeff's situation, I recommend,  "So You've Been Publicly Shamed," Here.  I picked it up at the library because the title made me laugh, and I have heard the author talking about different things on NPR.  I'll bet he's wishing this incident had happened before he put the book together because it's just the sort of "one sentence ruined my life," situation he covers.  It's terrifying how fast the media can take you down these days.

[peachmangosteen]

5 hours ago, EVS said:

I think it must be hard for Zeke and Varner because this is something that happened almost a year ago and it must be hard to relive it all now ...

I didn't even think about that but yea that does make it ever harder on both of them I imagine. Not only did they have to deal with it when it initially happened they had to worry about how it would be received for a year and now they have to relieve the whole thing over again. Just this is so sad and I think at this point I'm on the side of the people who think they should have/wish they would have edited this whole thing out of the show.

@cooksdelight if you are able to talk to Varner any time soon I hope you'll let him know there are people who don't think he should be burned at the stake and that sympathize with him. I'm sure he's heard it and maybe you've already told him, but still I just want him to know he's got support out here on the internet.

[LadyChatts]

They'll have to get through the reunion, but I hope Probst doesn't push this further than it needs to go.  Just let Varner and Zeke have the floor, then move on.  Hopefully after this season is over, both can move on from it.  And I really hope they send a message to the audience not to boo.

[Sassenach]

52 minutes ago, LadyChatts said:

They'll have to get through the reunion, but I hope Probst doesn't push this further than it needs to go.  Just let Varner and Zeke have the floor, then move on.  Hopefully after this season is over, both can move on from it.  And I really hope they send a message to the audience not to boo.

Have you ever seen Probst leave anything alone?  He'll feel the need to moralize, just in case we didn't figure it out on our own.

[Wings]

1 hour ago, LadyChatts said:

They'll have to get through the reunion, but I hope Probst doesn't push this further than it needs to go.  Just let Varner and Zeke have the floor, then move on.  Hopefully after this season is over, both can move on from it.  And I really hope they send a message to the audience not to boo.

I trust he will handle it with grace.  He did well at TC and that was off the cuff, he was as shocked as we all were.  

[SVNBob]

6 hours ago, wings707 said:

I trust [Probst] will handle it with grace.  He did well at TC and that was off the cuff, he was as shocked as we all were.  

Then again, he's also had a year since that moment to prepare for this reunion.  He's going to interject something.  Likely a rehash from his perspective of the discussions with Zeke and GLAAD on if/how to air it, and something about his own reaction.

[laurakaye]

14 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

They'll have to get through the reunion, but I hope Probst doesn't push this further than it needs to go.  Just let Varner and Zeke have the floor, then move on.  Hopefully after this season is over, both can move on from it.  And I really hope they send a message to the audience not to boo.

All of this, but especially the bolded line.

As for Probst, he does love to interject his opinions at the reunion - especially his famous "people on the street" chatter.  I think everyone's aware of what the people on the street are saying about Varner, and I hope Probst sidesteps the worst of it while still allowing Zeke and Varner to have their time to speak, uninterrupted by Probst or the audience, and move on.

It's going to be interesting.

[Lamb18]

A lot of good and interesting posts here on Jeff. I feel like Jeff was really, really desperate not to be voted out and everything he said and did was out of mad desperation, so that his normal sense of boundaries between what was acceptable for game play and what was vicious were eroded. He had the desperation of a drowning man pushing a child out of a lifeboat into the cold ocean, then climbing in.  The thing is, this is only a game, not a life and death situation, which makes what Jeff did so strange (to me). It's like saying about another contestant (on a different level of seriousness, of course) "So and so wet their bed when they were five" or "so and so shoplifted a candy bar when twelve and DIDN'T TELL US" and expect that to make a difference in how the tribe would vote. (I know my analogies aren't that good but the point is about revealing something personal about the contestant that doesn't matter as far as playing the game goes.) And poor Zeke thought Jeff was his friend, so there's the element of betrayal, too, which added to the injury. If Jeff had been Zeke's Survivor enemy who'd been gunning for him all along, it still would have been a cruel thing to do, but there wouldn't be the betrayal involved. So for Zeke, sitting there round-eyed and in shock, there's two things: "Oh crap, now everyone knows and I didn't want being TB to be known to the world and be part of the show" and "I thought Jeff was my friend. How could he do this to me?"

Edited April 18, 2017 by Lamb18

[Wings]

7 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Then again, he's also had a year since that moment to prepare for this reunion.  He's going to interject something.  Likely a rehash from his perspective of the discussions with Zeke and GLAAD on if/how to air it, and something about his own reaction.

I have a hunch he will say very little and leave the floor to Jeff and Zeke to say what they feel necessary or relevant.  I don't see him interjecting much at all.    

[ByaNose]

19 minutes ago, wings707 said:

I have a hunch he will say very little and leave the floor to Jeff and Zeke to say what they feel necessary or relevant.  I don't see him interjecting much at all.    

and, hopefully, the winner won't get overshadowed by all of this. I'm thinking the 2nd half hour will be about Varner & Zeke.

[Wings]

7 minutes ago, ByaNose said:

and, hopefully, the winner won't get overshadowed by all of this. I'm thinking the 2nd half hour will be about Varner & Zeke.

They won't take up an entire half hour.  No one wants that to happen including CBS.  

[peachmangosteen]

I'll be shocked if it doesn't take up a decent amount of time. Probably more than anything else, including the winner. Personally I'd like to see them just ignore it, but there's no way that's happening. Hopefully Zeke being transgender won't continue to be a big part of the show and then maybe they won't spend as much time on this incident at the reunion.

[ByaNose]

3 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

I'll be shocked if it doesn't take up a decent amount of time. Probably more than anything else, including the winner. Personally I'd like to see them just ignore it, but there's no way that's happening. Hopefully Zeke being transgender won't continue to be a big part of the show and then maybe they won't spend as much time on this incident at the reunion.

I guess if Zeke makes the Final 3 it might become a bigger story again. It will be interesting. I think he's good for the next 2 votes coming on Wednesday. So, he would be in the Top 10, right? It's still a long way to go though.

[LadyChatts]

Actually, I'm thinking they'll probably have it all planned, with a designated time set aside to discuss it.  I'm sure they'll talk to Varner and Zeke about how to approach it.  It would look super awkward if Probst kept pushing after five minutes when it's clear they didn't have anything else to say on the matter. 

[peachmangosteen]

1 hour ago, LadyChatts said:

It would look super awkward if Probst kept pushing after five minutes when it's clear they didn't have anything else to say on the matter. 

The reunion is almost always super awkward because Probst will push too much or interpret people or not let people talk, etc. I don't expect this to be any different!

Edited April 18, 2017 by peachmangosteen

[Wings]

I think the reunions are too short and Jeff spends too much time in the audience with people we don't care about and barely talks to the cast beyond the final 3.   Not sure how it is going down this season though.  

[ByaNose]

It's a good thing that Zeke isn't being voted out next (from what I can tell). Because they sit in order of boot. Now, that would be awkward.

[ProfCrash]

I don't wish harm on Jeff. I do wish he had left his interview response to be "I should not have done it. No matter what was happening, no matter what was said, no matter how badly I wanted to stay in the game, I should not have outed Zeke." That is it. Rinse and repeat. Everything else is an attempt to make it seem like what he did was some how justifiable, not OK, but justifiable.

I have no problem with him losing his job over the incident. People are losing their jobs for viral tweets that are racist, homophobic or threatening. People should understand that their public actions and words can impact their jobs even if what they said or did occurred someplace other then work. Jeff knew that his job could be affected by his actions on the show. What he did was wrong and wrong on a very public stage. His new company did not want to deal with the fall out from his actions. Actions taken long before he was hired by them.

[cooksdelight]

Jeff got some other Survivor contestants together for a very good cause. Give Kids the World fundraiser in SC.

 

Click on the photo, which will take you to FB, then click on the right arrows to see more photos.

[spiderpig]

Damage control, but it's fine with me if it supports a worthy cause.

[ProfCrash]

As I understand it, Jeff has a history of participating in charity events so it is more a continued pattern of behavior. The best thing Jeff can do right now is move on with his life and hope that the ramifications from his actions are limited.

He is done on Survivor, a show that he loves. He lost his job. He has dealt with a  pretty hard core back lash. Zeck appears to be doing well. I would say that things worked out as well as they can for both men. Now let them move on with their life. We all know that it will be addressed at the reunion although I kind of hope Zeck asks that they leave it be.

[cooksdelight]

http://www.greensboro.com/blogs/gotriad_extra/greensboro-s-jeff-varner-survives-survivor-with-new-job-outlook/article_80c11fa3-82a5-5322-937f-eefecc10ffdb.html

[enoughcats]

From cooksdelight's link, something edited out

Quote

In an earlier interview, he described the context of his question to Smith about being transgender.

“When I was talking about the deception of the secret alliance and trying to sway everybody else, there was a moment where Zeke looked at me — this was edited out of the show — and he said ‘There is no deception, I’m not deceiving anybody,’ ” Varner said. “And when he said that, my question just came out of my mouth to him.”

“It came across a little harsher, and it made my situation much more difficult than it would have been, had they been able to show the entire tribal council, because it was much longer than they aired,” Varner said.

Interesting edit.  (Anybody remember the 'voluntary' head shaving on an early season of Top Chef?)

[cooksdelight]

Puts that entire tribal council in a different light.

[peachmangosteen]

I feel like that sorta makes it worse. I feel like that makes it like he was truly equating being trans to being deceptive, which is so gross. But also it probably would've made it come off less calculated if they'd shown that part.

Edited May 16, 2017 by peachmangosteen

[LadyChatts]

There was a bonus clip with Zeke-I can't remember if it was posted here-where he said that Varner betrayed him by taking what he was saying about wanting to work with him back to Andrea and Sarah, and he had to do damage control.  I'll see if I can find the clip, but this led up to the TC where Varner outed him.  So it could be he meant to go with one angle, and something totally different just popped out.  Under pressure, about to go out a pre-juror for the third time, screwed by in game circumstances beyond his control (even if the previous two times were sort of his fault for getting ousted).  I'm not saying he was in anyway right, but I can believe he meant to go that way, and he was going to say Zeke was being deceptive due to changing alliances, then the part about him being trans came out.

Edited May 16, 2017 by LadyChatts

[piequinn35]

^this one:

[ProfCrash]

15 hours ago, enoughcats said:

“When I was talking about the deception of the secret alliance and trying to sway everybody else, there was a moment where Zeke looked at me — this was edited out of the show — and he said ‘There is no deception, I’m not deceiving anybody,’ ” Varner said. “And when he said that, my question just came out of my mouth to him.”

He said that in several exit interviews. It is not really new information. It is why folks were sure that this was not a slip of the tongue or something that spilled. Jeff had been thinking about it, discussing Zeke's deception in his talking heads and was smirking that he was going to reveal that deception. I don't buy that Jeff's question just came out of his mouth, I think that Jeff thought he could use that info against Zeke. I think that Jeff was looking for the best moment to share that information and thought that Zeke's response, which was edited out, was the best time.

I will buy that Jeff's common sense was set aside because of the crappy conditions, poor sleep and poor food and all the stress make people do stupid things. A desire to win and make good TV makes people do stupid thing. Jeff did something very stupid. I don't think that he would ever do that in a normal day. I do think that Jeff regretted what he did almost as soon as he said what he said. I think there was a small moment where he hoped his gamble would work and then he quickly realized how messed up it was. I suspect he would have been beating himself up had Zeke been voted out because he would have realized what he did pretty quickly.

I don't think Jeff is evil. I think he made an awful choice and put Zeke in the hot seat.

[ProfCrash]

And now I really dislike Jeff and think that he is a total slime ball. Tossing out the name of his company and then shilling his book? Really? You want to use your crap decision to enrich yourself? OK.

Zeke and Jeff handled everything with class while Jeff was busily smirking and trying to find a way to make a buck off his shitty behavior.

[threebluestars]

I think Jeff has/had underlying issues with transpeople, and that's at the root of why he said what he did. I don't think he's acknowledged that, and that's why I find him so off-putting. If he had come out and said he had to take a look at himself and figure out why he did that and address the fact he may have issues against transpeople he wasn't consciously aware of, then I think I could be more forgiving toward him.

But it seems all he wants is for people to laud him for admitting to his "mistake" and not look at why he made it in the first place. I think owning the underlying issues would have been sincere, but I don't think Varner thinks he has underlying issues, and it seems evident when you watch him spin his experience.