Survivor Fans Are Arguing About The Best Recent Winner, And I Just Do Not See The Game The Same Way

I’ve been talking a ton about Survivor 50 lately for obvious reasons. I’m sure I’ll have a few more posts over the next week or two about rumors or some wild fantasies about what I want to see, but I had to take a break from all that to weigh in on another argument going on. Fans are talking about who the best recent winner is, and in the least surprising development ever, most are not even considering Kenzie Petty. I get it, but also, I’m sick of it and need to say a few things about the social part of Survivor.

There’s nothing better than a fun move. That’s been a thing since the first season when Richard Hatch and company took advantage of Sean’s stupid alphabet strategy to wrestle away control of the game and become the majority. Of course we all love players who can manipulate the numbers to eliminate threats and pull off memorable blindsides, but that’s only a part of the game. There’s also the whole not getting voted out yourself thing, and the social component is a way bigger part of that than fans give it credit for.

One of the downsides to Survivor casting more and more superfans is castaways and viewers have become even more obsessed with building a resume. They want to see castaways concoct and execute something really splashy because apparently that’s the only way to prove you’re a worthy winner. I just don’t see it that way though. Another completely viable path to winning, in my opinion, is to cruise to the end because everyone likes you and likes playing with you. Kenzie got a grand total of one vote cast against her the entire season, which Ben has repeatedly said in exit interviews was a complete accident.

You can play Survivor like Boston Rob or Tony and win in grand and dominating fashion by overtly being in control and imposing your will on everyone else, but there’s also a long history of people winning Survivor by playing a game closer to Kenzie’s too. Why did Sandra win Survivor twice? Because she made it to the end, and her fellow players liked her more than the other choices. You could make a case that others like Michele, Fabio and countless more won the same way.

But for some reason playing a great social game is seen as less than by a majority of fans. Just look at the responses to this post asking people to rank Kyle, Rachel, Kenzie and Dee. There are hundreds of replies without a consensus best winner pick, but if you look at enough of them, you’ll notice a recurring theme that Kenzie is put last a whole lot more often than the others. I think that’s nonsense.

There are three parts to playing Survivor. There’s the strategy part. There’s the social part. There’s the physical part. Most fans would rank the three in order or importance as strategy, social and physical. I disagree. Survivor is filled with brilliant strategic minds who either couldn’t get to Final Tribal or got to Final Tribal and didn’t get votes because people didn’t like them. Fans will say the jury was bitter, but at the end of the day, people like giving money to people they like, not people they don’t. At the end of the day, Kenzie won because her biggest ally advocated for her at Tribal and Charlie's biggest ally voted against him. That's not an accident. That's part of the social game.

I’m not saying Kenzie is the greatest player in the history of Survivor. Instead, what I am saying is that if you put her on a hundred seasons, she’d go really far on most of them because people like her. That’s a skill every bit as valuable as strategizing complicated moves, whether the fanbase is willing to admit it or not.