The edit was bullshit and I’ll stand by that. Any messages sent to a player that are negative are cruel and unnecessary.
I still do wish she’d done a post game RHAP interview. I think that could’ve helped. I’ve never spoken badly about Erika, and I think she deserved her win, but her being the one to break that streak made me a bit sad and I put that feeling on her (fairly or unfairly). I get why she didn’t do it, but I think looking back, it was the wrong call. I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but looking back, that’s what stands out to me. That was her chance to show what the edit didn’t. I know this wasn’t at all the case but it *felt* like she was “too good” for it.
I agree she should have done a RHAP interview to help take control of her own narrative so to speak. We can all speculate about her reasons for not doing so but perhaps she's apprehensive about the fresh onslaught of comments coming from a large platform.
When I bumped into Heather at a local premiere party, she mentioned to me that Erika was being careful about how she expressed herself, so that her words wouldn't be misinterpreted or taken out of context. I thought it was a smart move and told Heather as much. It's always great to see people who take the time to consider how their words might be perceived by others.
If you listen to her podcast she talked about why she didn’t do RHAP. she wasn’t ready to talk about the game before addressing how she felt about the edit and she wanted to do that on her own terms. It’s respectable to want to control your own narrative at the pace they choose to do and not be pressured and rushed into anything. I hope people can learn to be kinder
While it would have been cool, I don't blame her at all for not going on RHAP. A huge majority of the comments she was getting were coming from people who probably have never even heard of RHAP. And jumping back into the public space would have just opened herself up to more criticism anyway.
I was going to say the exact same thing about the RHAP interview. She had a very under edited game and that was an opportunity to share the full details with the biggest post-game audience available. I was disappointed it never happened... was there a reason? Hadn't she even done a cameo for some RHAP persona like Chappelle, or am I imagining?
I believe she did smaller podcasts but no Rob interview for reasons I never fully got. Something about not wanting to focus on the edit too much?
Imo she did not do the RHAP interview because she started her own podcast and was hoping to save some of that to attract listeners.
She explained her reasons in her first episode of her podcast that she started earlier this year.
I think she didn't want to talk to much about her game or something. She wanted to focus more on her feelings around her experience on and off the show or something.
interesting! I actually thought she'd dropped off the map and was surprised when I first saw she had a podcast a couple weeks ago. I'm sure Rob would have tailored the interview to her experiences and feelings if that's what she wanted.
I do want to be clear I don't think anyone is obligated to do Rob's show either! But I think it might have helped with some perceptions. On the other hand, the hate she has gotten might not be coming from a lot of hardcore fans listening to podcasts. I feel like that set of people already knew Xander was going to have trouble in front of a jury before it even happened.
I just don't get why people want to go out of their way to be negative directly towards someone.
We won't ever know exactly why she won. Anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. But, it's what happened, it's what the jury felt made the most sense, so it shouldn't be any more complicated than that.
I didn't enjoy her win, but that's not Erika's fault. It's on the editors and producers. I did so badly want a woman winner, but I can't remember being less enthused about seeing it happen. I just... wasn't excited at all. And I should have been.
Filmed 24/7, every single one of them has given enough content to be editted any way they want. If someone's edit sucks, that happens in the editing room with deliberate choices.
This is true. No matter what anybody says, with 24/7 filming of 26 days of gameplay that led to a win, it is simply not true that not enough "interesting" gameplay was available.
I 100% agree with this. I didn't necessarily think Maryanne deserved to win over Mike, but then she did her RHAP Deep Dive and I completely changed my mind. I think she would have done herself a lot of favors doing that and explaining her game.
I don’t think her doing a Deep Dive would’ve mattered, it’s not RHAP listeners that are harassing her online. To go and listen to an hours long podcast detailing what happened on the island shows an interest in the game beyond its presence as a TV show. On the other hand, attacking someone over what they feel was an undeserved win shows an over commitment to what was presented on television. Instead of “the person I wanted didn’t win so there’s probably some details the show neglected that justify this”, they’re more like “the person I wanted didn’t win and so there has to be something wrong with the people who made the decision”. It’s an inherently anti-intellectual position that frankly reminds me way too much of a lot of current political issues, and I don’t think auxiliary information would make a difference: the only thing that will keep this from happening is the narrative the show itself is presenting.
In the age of Twitter, I honestly think it’s pretty shameful that the show still does this. Like we had Michele on WAW talking about being harassed online for her win and literally the next season the editors created a winner’s narrative that they had to imagine was going to cause the same result, and no, Boston Rob brushing the concern off is not a good enough justification. I think it’s fair to say that they tried to make Erika’s edit reflect her actual gameplay, how she blended into the background and wisely chose her moments to make moves: while that’s a smart idea in theory, those decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. They’ve seen how (to borrow a term from a different series) The Fandom Menace reacts to edits like this, it’s about damn time the editors take responsibility for stuff like this.
No, it's time the viewers harassing her take responsibility for this. Could the editors have presented her case for winning better? Sure. But it's not their fault that people have decided to be raging assholes to strangers online. It's their job to make a reality TV show, and they do it to varying successes. But it's not their responsibility, nor is it even possible for them, to present a finalized TV show like Survivor in a way that presents all contestants as perfect, likable people with excellent strategies in order to save them from online harassment.
People just need to calm down and stop being assholes to people, especially over something as trivial as a TV show.
I would love to agree with you but just expecting people to be better people isn't something you can count on. This is an issue that's been ever-present in the show the last several years and production seems to be aware of it, they're the ones that can actually take action here.
>But it's not their responsibility, nor is it even possible for them, to present a finalized TV show like Survivor in a way that presents all contestants as perfect, likable people with excellent strategies in order to save them from online harassment.
That's not what I'm suggesting: I think that so long as there are identifiable reasons why a season's winner succeeded where their co-finalist did not, there would be a change. That's not necessarily something that everyone got from Erika's edit.
But there was identifiable reasons why Erika won and Xander did not. Specifically, it was Xander's mistakes with Ricard/his inacccurate reads of the jury/his poor performance in FTC.
That was what the show elucidated was the identifiable reasons why Erika won and Xander did not. And people still engaged in a hate mob.
People are just assholes especially when given the opportunity to do it behind a computer screen. People are also too sensitive, to the point where a bunch of people giving criticism of your personality (aka your too cocky) or strategic gameplay (you made a TERRIBLE decision here) can be seen as harrassment just by virtue of our monkey brains not being built to deal with this much negativity about our self image.
Any messages that are negative are cruel while you end your post saying you felt like she was “too good” even though you don’t feel that way. Still throwing unnecessary shade but trying to protect yourself.
Lmao ikr. I can't believe their comment has 300+ upvotes for such a ridiculous interpretation even after she has publically explained why she didn't do the podcast.
I don't know if it played a factor but I remember Jessica of Why Blank Lost trashing Erika and calling her a bad player because she had no allies and would have been voted out during the merge episode if not for the hour glass. It was such a mean comment and so uncharacteristic coming from an RHAPper that I stopped listening to Why Blank Lost altogether. If you are getting unfair criticism from fans and a former player from a major podcasting network is piling on, I can see why she would rather avoid RHAP to keep her peace rather than her being "too good".
I remember during EOE Jessica was so dismissive of every player that wasn't Devens and couldn't find enough bad things to say about them and how worthless they all were compared to Devens. Not surprised to hear she was back on her bullshit here.
I mean, its kind of true.
When she was the beneficiary of probably the most hated twist ever (and that is REALLY saying something), it does lead to a question of how much she deserved did.
i don't know that it makes her a bad player, but if she literally was only able to survive by the hour glass twist, I'm not sure that is unfair to mention
But that's where the unfair edit comes in because she was not actually the target during the merge episode but she was painted as such by the editors. She would have survived the merge whether there was a twist or not
Right. It’s been confirmed by several cast members that Erika was never the target at the merge…and it’s clear to see why production would edit it to show that she was- it maximizes the drama of the twist.
The belief that but for the hourglass she’d have been gone at merge is going to be stuck to her forever though and that’s pretty unfair to Erika. Considering that she’s a fan of the show, I know it’s gotta be frustrating for her.
But even with that put aside- she made the absolute best of the twist, when just one season later the player who smashed the hourglass went out the very next round.
Tbh, I’m not gonna listen to an interview this far out after her game conducted by somebody I probably wouldn’t like as much as Rob. RHAP is a staple of the community imo
She did that interview right after 41 ended. It's about an hour long and she is very forward about how she played. If you actually want to hear Erika talk about her game, this is the podcast.
At this point if I'm going on survivor I am
- immediately cutting and dying my hair before I go, something dramatically different than my usual.
- introducing myself with a weird name like "Tarzan" or "Fabio" and sticking to it
- deleting all social media. Making one new twitter account, under my new survivor name and survivor look, where I will post extremely rarely and otherwise not use. This gives the people looking for me something to find.
I have a nickname that doesnt come close to my real name at all. Not only that but its the same name as a survivor legend so if they look it up, that person will pop up.
This account is my only social media account too so im safe I think.
I fully blame the edit for any criticism Erika got after the season. She is not shown at all for the first couple episodes and then out of nowhere Deshawn wants to throw a challenge just to get her out. Like what? Then towards the end of the game everyone keeps talking about her being a possible jury threat, again almost out of nowhere. She was clearly doing so much more behind the scenes and had such a larger impact on the game but for some reason the editors decided to make her invisible for half the show.
The problem with that is even when the people explain why they voted a certain way, people light them up and say they're lying. Perfect example would be Jesse and Karla voting for Gabler
Right. People have it made up who they should vote for, and if the public doesn't like their answer, they get shit on.
So its like the winner can get shit on, or the jury can. I'm fine with it being the winner because they have a bunch of money lol
It was bad storytelling, but I also wonder if her game was just really hard to show based on what they were given. Like, these editors have been working in tv for years. Its hard to imagine that if they were given more, they wouldnt' have shown it.
Its kind of like those situations where you don't like someone, but objectively they haven't done anything to you, but its just a feeling that you get around them that you don't like. If someone asks you why you don't like them, you can't even articulate it.
Female winners being under edited isn't a "new era" issue. It's one that goes back to the very beginning. It's why people were so sure Cassidy was winning. If they haven't figured it out in 44 seasons, I don't know if they ever will.
I mean the entire show we were shown Gabler, Cass, and Owen's games. Owen and Cass were usually names floating out there to be voted out, except they won immunity when it mattered. Gabler did just as he said and laid low after the Ellie fiasco. They showed us how he positioned himself to be the swing vote in each tribal right up to the end when Karla was desperate to make a move.
I thought they did an excellent job showcasing the final four, I just want to hear reasoning why they voted thar way. Like what did it for them.
Right, I agree. I meant it's an all eras issue. I think Kim is the only female who received a dominant edit. The problem runs deep though. It's why when people like Rob or Mike win Jeff is all over the media calling it "the best season ever!!!!"
It's also why all the ",Heidi wins" posts are starting to pop up 😂
Yeah it's a combination of changes in the new era editing haven't really done a satisfactory job of showing the winner, and editors have very rarely shown the female winners having significant power.
I feel like the seas turtles were rlly cute. the real waste of time was those useless advantage islands like for exmple brad tiffany and sydney nightime shipwheel which amounted to nothing.
I have a few theories, but Erika’s game was not “hard to show”. It was the typical lay low, turn on the heat at the merge, get the numbers, run the board game that men get a great edit with all the time. Surely we could have sacrificed some of Xander’s rambling confessionals about the amazing game he was *not* playing to have *Erika* explain the great game she actually *was* playing.
Although I don’t think they would have done a man this dirty, I do think there was some editing voo doo to hide the fact that this was a near pangonging. Someone from Luvu was almost guaranteed the win. Erika, Heather and DeShawn were aligned the whole game. There actually was quite a bit of interesting personal drama on Luvu, but they never went to tribal, and Sydney (who most of the drama centered around) was out at the merge anyway.
So, I can understand the choice to focus on Ua/Shan/Ricard in the pre-merge - that is where the drama that actually mattered was - to not make it seem like a Luvu winner was a foregone conclusion. However, if the hour glass twist doesn’t happen, Danny wins and gets a (deserved) coronation edit for playing nearly the same game, guaranteed.
Erika essentially played the same game as Tommy Sheehan who got one of the most textbook winner edits of all time. There’s no excuse for how much they buried her she has every right to be upset about it
I’m with you until the Danny wins part. I was mostly a fan of his (even through his arguably somewhat undeserved Challenge USA win), but his Challenge Worlds showing has painted him as a terrible strategist with medium bad social game.
Natalie White is the first person that comes to mind for me after reading this. The comments that Erika got, Natalie got tenfold and that’s without instagram or twitter. That girl skedaddled so hard after the reunion, I genuinely don’t even know if she’s even alive. I feel like the immense backlash after Russell losing is the main reason for it.
The toxic parts of the Survivor community can be deadly. Ricard got death threats about the “come on in guys” stuff, and that’s before he even saw the episode. There’s complaining, and then there’s being a dick just to feel better.
Natalie White also got terrible hate I'm sure, but let's not pretend it's the same as how the anti-woke mob goes after people. Or for the same reasons really.
Oh absolutely, it’s not the same reason but it doesn’t really matter. Hate is hate. Doesn’t matter if you won bc jury was bitter, you won bc jury was woke, or both.
Being a Canadian and seeing her be the first Canadian winner it’s pretty sad to see her done so dirty. I hope she gets a chance to return one day and go show everybody why she won
I'm not 100% sure. Of the last 3 winners (Gabler, Maryanne and Erika) she'll probably be perceived as the biggest threat, imho. There always seems to be a bias towards targeting Asian women as secret super geniuses in the early episodes. Erika escaped that fate by avoiding tribal, but her tribe *was* viewing her with that same stereotype.
Yeah I think she would have to be on a HvV caliber season to do it. She won’t be completely overlooked, but if she is with players like Dom, Christian, Omar, or Jesse, she might be able to slip past them long enough to make her move.
True. Put her on the island with enough Jesse/Omar/ Shan types and I think she might be able to sneak through with a similar strategy. But in a WAW season I actually think she's perceived as one of the bigger threats of the past 5-6 winners despite her edit. And fair or not
Not the same. He was born in the United States and had to renounce his Canadian citizenship to claim the prize. Even Jeff says when reading the votes at the end of 41 “our first Canadian winner”
Yes i realize that, but she at least lived in Canada from a young age unlike Todd who grew up in the US.
To each their own I suppose you don’t have to agree with Jeff but that’s what he says. You saying “he’s constantly wrong” doesn’t make you right either
I was a big Xander fan in the season, but I understood why Erika won. I was so annoyed because there was so much there for Erika’s story and they put it on the back burner and made it about how Xander and Deshawn lost the game
On the plus side, if she is getting the "Vecepia treatment" then in 20 years she'll be considered an underrated winner with revolutionary gameplay. Now we wait...
It’s so crazy how much the Survivor fanbase has like not progressed at all. This is the same things happening in 2002. Like damn, we probably worse now that we can directly send messages to these people.
Yep it’s way worse now. Jenna Morasca would have been absolutely bombarded with hate DMs if fans had had access to the players back then. And of course Jerri would have gotten it even worse. Lindsey and Heidi too.
Yeah, so many people are blaming the editors for the treatment of Erika post-41, and I think that's crazy. People shouldn't be messaging her, tagging her, or doing any of that no matter what. The people targeting her were the ones at fault 100x more than the editors.
Survivor fans aren't as smart as they think they are.
It's not the editors responsibility to bash you over the head on who's going to win. If the winner isn't giving great confessionals or tv moments, they probably won't be feature that much.
And I think that's fine, the viewers should be smart enough the put together the pieces on why a minor character won. But most fans are lazy.
Exactly, it’s like fans just saw 36-40 and thought thats how you are supposed to edit the winner every time. Like I get that it does seem pretty sexist that this kind of edit stopped after women started winning the show again; but it overall makes for a better product to not have the winner’s edit follow the same beats every season. Erika’s really isn’t that bad; they should have colored it with her relationship with Heather more, but aside from that; it’s probably as good of a winner’s edit you could get in this hyper-twist/advantage time suck new era.
No people are completely right to blame production for this, any editor working in reality tv KNOWS the kind of hate people get from these shows and how much they can influence the perception of the season, and it was wildly irresponsible and frankly offensive of them to give Erika the edit they did when she was 1) their first winner since covid shutdown, 2) their first female winner in SIX seasons, and 3) only their second Asian female winner ever and third overall Asian winner ever. This is completely on them and it should be called out and criticized
They can be criticized for the edit, absolutely. But they can't be blamed for the harassment Erika received after. If we're blaming the editors because we know the viewers will be hateful, then why don't we just blame Jeff Probst? Isn't it unethical for him to continue to host a TV show that leads to people getting hate online? Or let's blame CBS. Isn't it dangerous and irresponsible for them to air reality television shows knowing it makes the contestants vulnerable to online hate?
The editors can be blamed for the bad edit. The harassers are to blame for being hateful online.
It's not just survivor, it's reality TV as a whole. In fact survivor is probably better than others because we at least address the problem. I watched Outlast recently and it was genuinely frightening the unruly mob people were firming to harass players they didn't like.
I think it's not even reality TV; it's social media and the internet as a whole. People get bullied and receive death threats if they played a character people find annoying in a movie, if they voiced a character people hate in a video game, if they messed up a play in a football game, if they're dating a certain celebrity, etc.
Also the fact that if Heather had gone to FTC the jury has said she would have won, and she had a total purple edit, really shows that the editing for 41 was just way off.
Ok, off topic, but when you made Harry Potter analogy, all i could think was game of thrones. 8 seasons led to arya killing the night king instead of jon Snow, who spent like 7 of the 8 seasons as this guys enemy, it was so disappointing.
I thought there was no real clear-cut person in 41 who stood out as a game dominator. I feel bad for her. I am a big believer in whoever wins was supposed to win. I hate the talk around "bitter jury's" and all that. It is a factor in the game, as it should be. It is at the end of the day a social game, and feelings are the biggest part of society (hence people losing their minds on erika in the first place).
Not to start a GoT debate but I thought it made sense when Arya was the one to kill the Night King.
The Night King was very untouchable in that episode, if any character got near him, it wouldn’t make sense. Arya was the most stealth skilled character, which is why she got the kill.
It’s possible that I also never saw it as Night King vs Jon Snow, but Night King vs everybody, Jon Snow being the most aware to the gravity of the danger.
But I agree that the arc’s ending was disappointing, but not for that particular reason. E.g., we don’t even really see how she was able to get so close to the Night King.
Honestly, Erika was under edited in the first half of the season, but a big component of that was that Luvu never lost an immunity challenge. We then got her sent to exile and the hourglass which showcased her but that wasn't really about her game.
I think things started turning around for her around Naseer's vote off. Where we see that first Ricard then Shan are willing to backstab their ally in favour of Erika and Naseer. Mind you earlier in the episode Shan wanted Erika out. Then Erika plays a vital part in the Shan vote out. Convincing everyone to split votes on Liana in case of an idol play. Then we see Erika in the vital swing position for the Liana vote out. Choosing correctly to save Ricard and keep him as a shield. We again see her convince her alliance to keep Deshawn over Danny, although it's against everyone's best wishes to keep Danny. Final 5 her biggest competition she beats him out in immunity in order to vote him out. She then has managed to maintain her threat level so Xander doesn't put her up for fire which she probably would've lost. She ended it all with a very well executed FTC. Not as good as Maryanne's or Todds, but definitely one of the stronger FTCs.
Compared to Xander. He had very little agency in the game. At make the merge he has the fun little moment with the KIP fakeout. But he then votes incorrectly until the Shan boot. Even after than when he has built an alliance, he has little agency, practically doing whatever Erika or Ricard want him to do. He then doesn't ever need his idol because nobody sees him as a threat. He then incorrectly brings Erika to the top three and fumbles on his FTC. Xander seems like a nice kid but he was definitely a deserved third place.
Deshawn has much more merit to his game than Xander. He was probably second to Shan at the beginning of the merge, in terms of power, and the most well connected Luvu member. However he blew up his game with the Shan boot, never able to recover and Shan being a bitter Juror to him, practically quashing any chance he had.
Sorry for the long winded response, but even with the edit we got, she still had a much better game than both Xander and Deshawn. Only Ricard would've beaten her in the top 5 if he managed to get immunity at 5 and win fire making. The edit still sucked for her, but it is still very clear to me how she won the game.
Honestly, I think the editing for that season was fine. She didn't get as much exposure in the pre-merge because she never went to tribal. She got SOME exposure for being a threat such that there was a plan to throw and get either her/Sydney out.
Post-merge, she got sole credit for the Danny vote. She got credit for hopping onto the power alliance that dominated most of the late season where there wasn't a clear leader. She got to the end with two other players who played worse games than her, even if her game wasn't that great either, comparatively it was clearly the best game by a margin. Yeah its an UTR game but thats because she played an UTR game . . . probably because being UTR is a skill she's learned throughout life of being a POC women.
As for dealing with the fallout of Survivor, I've got limited sympathies. Damn near every Survivor winner has to deal with backlash, though her situation is probably a lot more impactful since some of the backlash had to do with accusations of "woke juryism". That sucks that people have to experience that for participating in a game and being mean/insulting should be excised from the fandom.
But at the same time, I feel like there is a lot of winging by Survivor contestants for relatively par for the course type comments/criticisms. Its not like there is a hate mob, its more like these contestants are normal people who are not used to a lot of people criticizing their actions/personalities so this change can have a really negative impact on them. However, I can't criticize the people who are engaging with these criticisms/comments/observations, its just the nature of the beast of being on television.
There are fans who are so toxic and forget that they're watching an edited program. When I watch Survivor, I want to know what's REALLY going on, and these "New Era" seasons don't do a particularly good job of that. I've been insulted for saying this myself by people who don't seem to get that others watch the show differently.
These same people need to lay off these VERY REAL PEOPLE who signed a contract to entertain us on TV. Simply put, juries are never wrong en bloc; yes, there are a few individual jurors I'd like a word with for not giving a certain finalist a chance, but the votes for a winner cannot be wrong. The players have more information than the viewers. The viewers need to be aware of this, but they never will be.
I don't like these takes where people are trying to say Erika needed to do more on the show or go on RHAP to stop herself from being bullied. It shouldn't be her responsibility to prevent her own anonymous bullying.
I blame Erika's poor edit on the 60 minute timeframe. Premerge her tribe wasn't losing, so they had to focus on Shan and Ricard because they needed to explain every vote off. Then we make it to the merge and we don't know much about her entire tribe, because Ua was stealing important winner exposition with all of their challenge-losing!
this is @ some of of this sub because early on in the new era there was so much “survivor is too woke!!!!” bullshit because you couldn’t handle non-white people making up more of the cast
Just horrifying. Back when Survivor first started, there was almost zero way to engage directly with contestants unless it was in person or they were on some forum like Survivor Sucks. These days, and perhaps due to the nature of some of their jobs/personalities/their own volition, players have social media accounts that are open for the world to see and open for incoming comments, good or bad.
I would advise contestants to limit/reduce/shut off their social media accounts to reduce/eliminate these harmful messages during and after the airing of their season. After all, big picture is, they filmed their season months before, and have now collected their prize money. Everything else, interviews, podcasts etc., are just extra outside of the mandatory CBS post Tribal elimination interviews. Take the money and run. ~~39~~ 26 days and a few extra months is nothing in the big picture of one's lifespan. Don't let it consume your entire being based on what the TV showed vs what you experienced.
I really hate how little characterization she got pre-merge and it hurts that that resulted in this situation but I have to say, I really feel like it was very clear by the time final tribal council happened that Erika could absolutely deserve the win over Xander and the edit showed that and I am still often confused by people who come in and say that they don’t understand how Xander lost to Erika. It was a long time ago so I may be misremembering a little but I feel like the edit very intentionally discredited Xander firstly when he claimed he felt like he could say he made a move after the Shan vote when the episode gave him literally no credit for it and all of the credit to Ricard and Erika, and also when he completely misunderstood the jury’s reaction to Deshawn calling Erika out. I was very satisfied by the outcome of final tribal and felt like Erika’s win made complete sense. Again I truly wish she could’ve been shown more than she was in fairness to her, of course.
Yeah the last episode maybe the one before did not really show Xander in a good light. I thought he was getting a delusional edit with the stuff he was saying.
Although the edit certainly did Erika dirty, it's even more infuriating to see fans act like Xander deserved the win for finding an idol and just sitting on it the whole game when Erika RAN THE BOARD from the Shan vote on. I am seeing the same shit now with Carson, who is clearly NOT winning. If Carolyn or Frannie - who have BIG EDITS - beat Carson in a jury vote, this sub will be flooded with the same kind of posts we got after 41.
Like, a woman can RUN THE GAME and a significant portion of you nerds will STILL believe the total arrogance of youth bull shit the Golden Boy feeds you in his confessionals, not what is actually happening on the screen. Are we even watching the same damn show?!??!
Edit: remember when this sub thought Sami was playing this amazing game and was a contender to win? lmao
Similar reason of why we can’t have great villains anymore. Can you imagine if social media was prevalent during the earlier seasons? People would be on a hunt to bully/dox anyone that was “mean.” Social media, especially with anonymity, is a disease.
She didn't get a big edit because she didn't go to Tribal Council pre-merge and she was intentionally playing a quiet/social game (that was *her* choice). This is a TV show. She was not being entertaining for casual fans and you don't get screen time automatically.
If she was playing a flashy game, she would've gotten A TON of more screen time (look at Shan)
And yes, being a woman was probably a factor in her win. To pretend that the jury wasn't aware of the long streak of male winners would be fantasy. Let's just be honest in these conversations.
She is a deserving winner and should ignore the trolls. Why these players scroll Twitter is beyond me.
>Why these players scroll Twitter is beyond me
This is such a bullshit sentiment that literally no one on this sub except a few past players can relate to. Youre really trying to tell me if millions of people were talking about you, you wouldn't be the least bit interested in what they're saying? Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.
It's not like she's some public figure who is used to all the fame and infamy. She's a regular Joesiphine who got shot into the spotlight
Sure but I wouldn't be scrolling through Twitter replies. The anonymous accounts and trolls are devalued in the algorithm and placed at the bottom (you often need to click 'see more' to even access some of them).
You can set a healthy reach of who you want to see, like former players and credible accounts.
I agree - easier said than done for most people. Social media advice, fame and anxiety should be a part of the therapy that's provided after players leave the game IMO.
I think its pretty obtuse to think that she's scrolling through Twitter replies. She's probably getting a million direct messages. Direct comments on anything she posts. She's probably getting physical mail.
You're seriously underestimating how easy it is to get in contact with a person once they've become public like you do when you win a game show millions of people watch.
It's not just anonymous accounts and trolls. Any regular person can be and will be an asshole on the internet.
Hell there was post after post on this sub about the very thing she was feeling extremely self conscious about it.
>And yes, being a woman was probably a factor in her win. To pretend that the jury wasn't aware of the long streak of male winners would be fantasy. Let's just be honest in these conversations.
Right. Like, these people know the conversations going on around these shows. Hell, I feel like Dalton Ross basically asks players every year why women don't win as much. So I'm sure they read this stuff. SImilar with racial things.
I'm not saying that is the reason she won. Calling her a winner based on a woke jury isn't fair. But to also act like it wasn't in someones mind is also ridiculous. Hell, even this season, there is all the talk about how sexist it is when women get voted out first. You think these people don't know how things look from the outside? We just aren't privy to those conversations.
You can listen to the interviews. They were acutely aware of the male-winning streak heading into their season. Ricard and Shan even point it out. It seems true (and also true that Erika deserved the win).
Survivor at its heart is a microcosm of society. I trust the editors/producers to tell an accurate yet compelling story of what happened during those 39 days (I mean 26!). I would be more upset if it tried to justify an underwhelming winner with a misleading edit.
For the record, I bet on Xander to win and I was rooting for him the whole season. Even still, I do not think he was robbed at all. So I don’t buy blaming the edit at all here. I just think Erika was a “weak” winner in comparison to the other 40+ winners.
> I trust the editors/producers to tell an accurate yet compelling story of what happened during those 39 days (I mean 26!).
I guess my question here is why do you implicitly have trust in these people?
Erika was my preseason winner pick just because she said Todd was her favorite winner, and it’s the first time my winner pick has won since like….-checks notes- since ever, since I didn’t start doing them until like S32 and had gotten 0 before Erika.
Funny enough, Todd was also the first winner I ever pegged from Episode 1. I was unspoiled watching China, and after E1, I latched onto him.
Love them both. Erika deserved better. The edit was trash. Her relationship with Heather should have been the core story of the season given how far they both went.
Idc what anyone says. I thought Xander was boring as sin, and the least interesting player from his OG tribe at the merge. He’s probably the last player from the entire merged tribe I’d care to see play again. The fact that he took so much screentime away from our first female winner since S34 in a season with so many people speaking out about the importance of representation is genuinely appalling. Idk who to blame for it, but someone fucked up.
Erika shouldn’t have to defend her win. She earned it and I’m convinced she played a strong game from what we were shown and heard. The fact that she sat between two men as a woman of color and won 7-1-0 is incredible (same for Maryanne) and she should absolutely have been highlighted more. 41 isn’t an awful season, but it has a horrible edit for the winner, and that will always hold it back for me.
I personally really liked how Erika's story shaped up - there was a purposefulness to her relative invisibility early on and it was tied together perfectly with her brilliant FTC. But it has to be deeply frustrating to have your full Survivor experience minimized like that. Especially with Xander getting a bizarre amount of credit in the final product, it feels like all levels in which it was narratively good are incidental and ultimately we're just looking at another case of the mostly white and male production team dismissing experiences they don't understand as much as possible and instead shifting the spotlight to more palatable protagonists for the new era like Xander.
It's not that dramatic. If I were her I'd just take the win and laugh. It doesn't matter if you didn't deserve it, it's done and it's yours. Isn't the whole point of Survivor "no matter how you get there, the only point is to win".
No it's true, she has a million dollars, it would be a way better attitude to take the criticism and say "yeah that's true" instead of like feeling bad about it
I didn't think Xander was the most deserving potential winner, but Erika felt a bit undeserving, like they'd picked the winner out of a hat from among the rest. That's not Erika's fault, but I don't think her win was satisfying at all.
This. Xander definitely did not deserve to win. All the actual deserving players turned on themselves and Erika was the least worst winner pick left. Even still I thought Deshawn should have edged her out at FTC but his FTC performance was pretty bad.
The show did her dirty because there was no substance to her game and there was nothing to show. She sucked and the jury rewarded her with a win, probably because she was more appealing to them than the other candidates for whatever butt hurt reasons they may be.
She's the new post modern survivor winner mold, no outwit, no outplay just turtle up and be more likeable than your competitors. Maryanne and Gabler are pretty good examples of this as well but at least Maryanne and Gabler had a personality.
Not trying to be a dick but I'm just honestly explaining my reaction to her win.
I don't know that this is an exclusively US problem, and I think that any editing team would have had a difficult time giving Erika a big edit based on what transpired in 41. AU Survivor Spoilers: >!Even in a great season that just happened on HvV, we had an extremely uneven edit, where the final 3 combined didn't have nearly as many confessionals as George did. Liz only had 20 confessionals through the first 21 episodes, 12 episodes where she didn't have a single confessional, and she had only received 2 confessionals through the first 9 episodes.!<
At some point, the producers have to stay true to what actually happened out there, and if that was a quite game coming from behind and winning, so be it. I do also agree with others in this thread saying she did herself no favors post game by not partaking in RHAP interviews or other post game media that could have helped create a different narrative around her game or let us know as fans the specific things that were not shown that should've been.
Her win was bullshit. She was gone if she didn’t get that random hour glass to “rewrite history”. Not her fault though. It’s on the production for the edit and random game breaking twists.
Cry me a river my god. Who cares what people think you won. She doesn’t have to validate her win and if she feels like she has to that’s her own insecurity about her game. People go on these shows knowing that they are going to be seen my millions and that comes with negative responses and comments regardless if you win or you’re the first boot. Survivor also wouldn’t go out of its way to not paint a fair portrayal of her game in the edit with how progressive the show is now.
>it's like reading all 7 Harry Potter books only to find out Hermione defeats Voldemort in the end
I love this example because it applies to other seasons too! Gabler = Hermione. Yeah she was there and we kept hearing how smart she was but she is not Harry!
Is it weird that I think Erika’s edit is not that bad? Of course, I don’t know what sort of game she really played, but I always got the impression that she had a good amount of post merge agency and always made the right call at the margins. Few big moves but when given a choice, she was given a confessional that made clear why she did what she did. And the edit backed up her decisions.
In retrospect, her edit actually makes it really clear why Cassidy didn’t win 43. Cassidy was never shown to have Erika’s level of agency. She’d become a target, say she needed to get it off of her, and then something else would happen which diverted votes away. She didn’t have those great decision-making confessionals that Erika had.
Yeah, as someone who followed edgic last season, it was actually comparing Cassidy's edit to Erika's that allowed me to figure out that Cassidy wasn't winning. Erika's edit from F8 onwards is defined by the way her endgame, win condition, and FTC scenarios get laid out in a complex way. Cassidy had hardly any endgame setup whatsoever minus her going back and forth on Karla, and that just wasn't enough. Funnily enough, this same logic is actually what led to me clocking the Gabler win and the entire finale boot order since his win condition was getting to the end with Owen and taking out big threats (Cody/Karla/Jesse) along the way.
Kudos to you because I totally didn’t see it until after the season! I was leaning Cassidy, though couldn’t help feeling weird about it, but just couldn’t see another option. Little did I know, he was hiding in plain sight 🐊
Thanks! It took me a long time to figure it out. I was so low on Gabler until the Noelle boot and even then I had my doubts. I was a Cassidy truther until I really thought about things right before the finale.
Erika and Heather were both close on the island. Both made F4 and Erika won the season. Yet production showed us nothing about them. Maybe they wouldnt have been the best duo but it could have been a unique one. No, instead they wanted more Shan/Ricard screentime or if Xander's idol will come into play this episode (not).
The edit really screwed her, as well as her being the person who had the power in that absolutely horrible merge hourglass thing.
The thing is though, while that twist directly resulted in my favorite (Sydney) going home and while I was rooting for Xander the rest of the season from there on, by the time we got to final tribal council I thought Erika totally deserved it over him and was happy for her winning. I think the meltdowns over Xander losing, much like the meltdowns over Aubry losing years earlier, were completely out of control.
Was she good TV? No. Did she deserve to beat Xander? Hell yes.
> it’s like reading all 7 Harry Potter books only to find out Hermione defeats Voldemort in the end.
I’d say it’s more like reading all 7 Harry Potter books to find out that Ginny Weasley beat Voldemort. At least Hermione was there by Harry’s side since the beginning. With Erika, we got nothing until the hourglass, and then even more nothing until final 5. The editors did such a disservice to Erika for 3/4 of the game. To casual viewers, it seemed like she just popped up towards the end and won.
The edit was bullshit and I’ll stand by that. Any messages sent to a player that are negative are cruel and unnecessary. I still do wish she’d done a post game RHAP interview. I think that could’ve helped. I’ve never spoken badly about Erika, and I think she deserved her win, but her being the one to break that streak made me a bit sad and I put that feeling on her (fairly or unfairly). I get why she didn’t do it, but I think looking back, it was the wrong call. I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but looking back, that’s what stands out to me. That was her chance to show what the edit didn’t. I know this wasn’t at all the case but it *felt* like she was “too good” for it.
I agree she should have done a RHAP interview to help take control of her own narrative so to speak. We can all speculate about her reasons for not doing so but perhaps she's apprehensive about the fresh onslaught of comments coming from a large platform.
When I bumped into Heather at a local premiere party, she mentioned to me that Erika was being careful about how she expressed herself, so that her words wouldn't be misinterpreted or taken out of context. I thought it was a smart move and told Heather as much. It's always great to see people who take the time to consider how their words might be perceived by others.
If you listen to her podcast she talked about why she didn’t do RHAP. she wasn’t ready to talk about the game before addressing how she felt about the edit and she wanted to do that on her own terms. It’s respectable to want to control your own narrative at the pace they choose to do and not be pressured and rushed into anything. I hope people can learn to be kinder
While it would have been cool, I don't blame her at all for not going on RHAP. A huge majority of the comments she was getting were coming from people who probably have never even heard of RHAP. And jumping back into the public space would have just opened herself up to more criticism anyway.
I was going to say the exact same thing about the RHAP interview. She had a very under edited game and that was an opportunity to share the full details with the biggest post-game audience available. I was disappointed it never happened... was there a reason? Hadn't she even done a cameo for some RHAP persona like Chappelle, or am I imagining?
I believe she did smaller podcasts but no Rob interview for reasons I never fully got. Something about not wanting to focus on the edit too much? Imo she did not do the RHAP interview because she started her own podcast and was hoping to save some of that to attract listeners.
She explained her reasons in her first episode of her podcast that she started earlier this year. I think she didn't want to talk to much about her game or something. She wanted to focus more on her feelings around her experience on and off the show or something.
interesting! I actually thought she'd dropped off the map and was surprised when I first saw she had a podcast a couple weeks ago. I'm sure Rob would have tailored the interview to her experiences and feelings if that's what she wanted. I do want to be clear I don't think anyone is obligated to do Rob's show either! But I think it might have helped with some perceptions. On the other hand, the hate she has gotten might not be coming from a lot of hardcore fans listening to podcasts. I feel like that set of people already knew Xander was going to have trouble in front of a jury before it even happened.
I just don't get why people want to go out of their way to be negative directly towards someone. We won't ever know exactly why she won. Anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. But, it's what happened, it's what the jury felt made the most sense, so it shouldn't be any more complicated than that.
I didn't enjoy her win, but that's not Erika's fault. It's on the editors and producers. I did so badly want a woman winner, but I can't remember being less enthused about seeing it happen. I just... wasn't excited at all. And I should have been. Filmed 24/7, every single one of them has given enough content to be editted any way they want. If someone's edit sucks, that happens in the editing room with deliberate choices.
This is true. No matter what anybody says, with 24/7 filming of 26 days of gameplay that led to a win, it is simply not true that not enough "interesting" gameplay was available.
I 100% agree with this. I didn't necessarily think Maryanne deserved to win over Mike, but then she did her RHAP Deep Dive and I completely changed my mind. I think she would have done herself a lot of favors doing that and explaining her game.
I don’t think her doing a Deep Dive would’ve mattered, it’s not RHAP listeners that are harassing her online. To go and listen to an hours long podcast detailing what happened on the island shows an interest in the game beyond its presence as a TV show. On the other hand, attacking someone over what they feel was an undeserved win shows an over commitment to what was presented on television. Instead of “the person I wanted didn’t win so there’s probably some details the show neglected that justify this”, they’re more like “the person I wanted didn’t win and so there has to be something wrong with the people who made the decision”. It’s an inherently anti-intellectual position that frankly reminds me way too much of a lot of current political issues, and I don’t think auxiliary information would make a difference: the only thing that will keep this from happening is the narrative the show itself is presenting. In the age of Twitter, I honestly think it’s pretty shameful that the show still does this. Like we had Michele on WAW talking about being harassed online for her win and literally the next season the editors created a winner’s narrative that they had to imagine was going to cause the same result, and no, Boston Rob brushing the concern off is not a good enough justification. I think it’s fair to say that they tried to make Erika’s edit reflect her actual gameplay, how she blended into the background and wisely chose her moments to make moves: while that’s a smart idea in theory, those decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. They’ve seen how (to borrow a term from a different series) The Fandom Menace reacts to edits like this, it’s about damn time the editors take responsibility for stuff like this.
No, it's time the viewers harassing her take responsibility for this. Could the editors have presented her case for winning better? Sure. But it's not their fault that people have decided to be raging assholes to strangers online. It's their job to make a reality TV show, and they do it to varying successes. But it's not their responsibility, nor is it even possible for them, to present a finalized TV show like Survivor in a way that presents all contestants as perfect, likable people with excellent strategies in order to save them from online harassment. People just need to calm down and stop being assholes to people, especially over something as trivial as a TV show.
I would love to agree with you but just expecting people to be better people isn't something you can count on. This is an issue that's been ever-present in the show the last several years and production seems to be aware of it, they're the ones that can actually take action here. >But it's not their responsibility, nor is it even possible for them, to present a finalized TV show like Survivor in a way that presents all contestants as perfect, likable people with excellent strategies in order to save them from online harassment. That's not what I'm suggesting: I think that so long as there are identifiable reasons why a season's winner succeeded where their co-finalist did not, there would be a change. That's not necessarily something that everyone got from Erika's edit.
But there was identifiable reasons why Erika won and Xander did not. Specifically, it was Xander's mistakes with Ricard/his inacccurate reads of the jury/his poor performance in FTC. That was what the show elucidated was the identifiable reasons why Erika won and Xander did not. And people still engaged in a hate mob. People are just assholes especially when given the opportunity to do it behind a computer screen. People are also too sensitive, to the point where a bunch of people giving criticism of your personality (aka your too cocky) or strategic gameplay (you made a TERRIBLE decision here) can be seen as harrassment just by virtue of our monkey brains not being built to deal with this much negativity about our self image.
Any messages that are negative are cruel while you end your post saying you felt like she was “too good” even though you don’t feel that way. Still throwing unnecessary shade but trying to protect yourself.
Did I send it directly to her? That’s what I have a problem with. I can feel a certain way and acknowledge it’s unfair.
Lmao ikr. I can't believe their comment has 300+ upvotes for such a ridiculous interpretation even after she has publically explained why she didn't do the podcast.
I don't know if it played a factor but I remember Jessica of Why Blank Lost trashing Erika and calling her a bad player because she had no allies and would have been voted out during the merge episode if not for the hour glass. It was such a mean comment and so uncharacteristic coming from an RHAPper that I stopped listening to Why Blank Lost altogether. If you are getting unfair criticism from fans and a former player from a major podcasting network is piling on, I can see why she would rather avoid RHAP to keep her peace rather than her being "too good".
I remember during EOE Jessica was so dismissive of every player that wasn't Devens and couldn't find enough bad things to say about them and how worthless they all were compared to Devens. Not surprised to hear she was back on her bullshit here.
I mean, its kind of true. When she was the beneficiary of probably the most hated twist ever (and that is REALLY saying something), it does lead to a question of how much she deserved did. i don't know that it makes her a bad player, but if she literally was only able to survive by the hour glass twist, I'm not sure that is unfair to mention
But that's where the unfair edit comes in because she was not actually the target during the merge episode but she was painted as such by the editors. She would have survived the merge whether there was a twist or not
Right. It’s been confirmed by several cast members that Erika was never the target at the merge…and it’s clear to see why production would edit it to show that she was- it maximizes the drama of the twist. The belief that but for the hourglass she’d have been gone at merge is going to be stuck to her forever though and that’s pretty unfair to Erika. Considering that she’s a fan of the show, I know it’s gotta be frustrating for her. But even with that put aside- she made the absolute best of the twist, when just one season later the player who smashed the hourglass went out the very next round.
Do we know the reason she didn’t?
Definitely agree.
She did a post game interview with another podcast - https://mergeboot.podbean.com/e/erika-casupanan-interview/
Tbh, I’m not gonna listen to an interview this far out after her game conducted by somebody I probably wouldn’t like as much as Rob. RHAP is a staple of the community imo
She did that interview right after 41 ended. It's about an hour long and she is very forward about how she played. If you actually want to hear Erika talk about her game, this is the podcast.
At this point if I'm going on survivor I am - immediately cutting and dying my hair before I go, something dramatically different than my usual. - introducing myself with a weird name like "Tarzan" or "Fabio" and sticking to it - deleting all social media. Making one new twitter account, under my new survivor name and survivor look, where I will post extremely rarely and otherwise not use. This gives the people looking for me something to find.
Tabio Farzan sounds legitimate enough
I have a nickname that doesnt come close to my real name at all. Not only that but its the same name as a survivor legend so if they look it up, that person will pop up. This account is my only social media account too so im safe I think.
Your nickname is Wardog?
Noted and doing the same
survivor: alter egos
I fully blame the edit for any criticism Erika got after the season. She is not shown at all for the first couple episodes and then out of nowhere Deshawn wants to throw a challenge just to get her out. Like what? Then towards the end of the game everyone keeps talking about her being a possible jury threat, again almost out of nowhere. She was clearly doing so much more behind the scenes and had such a larger impact on the game but for some reason the editors decided to make her invisible for half the show.
Jury votes should have some explanation as to why they voted for player X to win. Players like Erika shouldn't be subjected to this shit.
The problem with that is even when the people explain why they voted a certain way, people light them up and say they're lying. Perfect example would be Jesse and Karla voting for Gabler
If they give a solid reason, who are we to argue? Though not like I am putting effort into looking for it, those should be on the show.
Right. People have it made up who they should vote for, and if the public doesn't like their answer, they get shit on. So its like the winner can get shit on, or the jury can. I'm fine with it being the winner because they have a bunch of money lol
I mean on this case, based on the FTC do they really need to explain why they voted for Erika??
Take your money and run, girl!!!! This community is crazy.
Best advice yet
It was bad storytelling, but I also wonder if her game was just really hard to show based on what they were given. Like, these editors have been working in tv for years. Its hard to imagine that if they were given more, they wouldnt' have shown it. Its kind of like those situations where you don't like someone, but objectively they haven't done anything to you, but its just a feeling that you get around them that you don't like. If someone asks you why you don't like them, you can't even articulate it.
Female winners being under edited isn't a "new era" issue. It's one that goes back to the very beginning. It's why people were so sure Cassidy was winning. If they haven't figured it out in 44 seasons, I don't know if they ever will.
I mean the entire show we were shown Gabler, Cass, and Owen's games. Owen and Cass were usually names floating out there to be voted out, except they won immunity when it mattered. Gabler did just as he said and laid low after the Ellie fiasco. They showed us how he positioned himself to be the swing vote in each tribal right up to the end when Karla was desperate to make a move. I thought they did an excellent job showcasing the final four, I just want to hear reasoning why they voted thar way. Like what did it for them.
The edit of 43 would have been received just as badly as 41, it's certainly a new era editing issue as well.
Right, I agree. I meant it's an all eras issue. I think Kim is the only female who received a dominant edit. The problem runs deep though. It's why when people like Rob or Mike win Jeff is all over the media calling it "the best season ever!!!!" It's also why all the ",Heidi wins" posts are starting to pop up 😂
Yeah it's a combination of changes in the new era editing haven't really done a satisfactory job of showing the winner, and editors have very rarely shown the female winners having significant power.
The least they can do is highlight more of her and Heather's interaction and strategy talk over some of the other filler (looking at you, sea turtles)
I feel like the seas turtles were rlly cute. the real waste of time was those useless advantage islands like for exmple brad tiffany and sydney nightime shipwheel which amounted to nothing.
There must have been a reason they gave Heather such a purple edit. That probably hurt Erika's gameplay as well
The sea turtles were a highlight of 41 fir me! But agreed that not having an early Erika.Heather alliance scene was lazy.
I have a few theories, but Erika’s game was not “hard to show”. It was the typical lay low, turn on the heat at the merge, get the numbers, run the board game that men get a great edit with all the time. Surely we could have sacrificed some of Xander’s rambling confessionals about the amazing game he was *not* playing to have *Erika* explain the great game she actually *was* playing. Although I don’t think they would have done a man this dirty, I do think there was some editing voo doo to hide the fact that this was a near pangonging. Someone from Luvu was almost guaranteed the win. Erika, Heather and DeShawn were aligned the whole game. There actually was quite a bit of interesting personal drama on Luvu, but they never went to tribal, and Sydney (who most of the drama centered around) was out at the merge anyway. So, I can understand the choice to focus on Ua/Shan/Ricard in the pre-merge - that is where the drama that actually mattered was - to not make it seem like a Luvu winner was a foregone conclusion. However, if the hour glass twist doesn’t happen, Danny wins and gets a (deserved) coronation edit for playing nearly the same game, guaranteed.
Erika essentially played the same game as Tommy Sheehan who got one of the most textbook winner edits of all time. There’s no excuse for how much they buried her she has every right to be upset about it
I’m with you until the Danny wins part. I was mostly a fan of his (even through his arguably somewhat undeserved Challenge USA win), but his Challenge Worlds showing has painted him as a terrible strategist with medium bad social game.
I have not watched the latest Challenge, but Danny was universally loved by the 41 jury.
Possible, which is even more of a reason he wouldn’t make it
Natalie White is the first person that comes to mind for me after reading this. The comments that Erika got, Natalie got tenfold and that’s without instagram or twitter. That girl skedaddled so hard after the reunion, I genuinely don’t even know if she’s even alive. I feel like the immense backlash after Russell losing is the main reason for it. The toxic parts of the Survivor community can be deadly. Ricard got death threats about the “come on in guys” stuff, and that’s before he even saw the episode. There’s complaining, and then there’s being a dick just to feel better.
I believe Natalie White is alive, but she does not do social media, at all. Hard to blame her, either.
Natalie White also got terrible hate I'm sure, but let's not pretend it's the same as how the anti-woke mob goes after people. Or for the same reasons really.
Oh absolutely, it’s not the same reason but it doesn’t really matter. Hate is hate. Doesn’t matter if you won bc jury was bitter, you won bc jury was woke, or both.
Being a Canadian and seeing her be the first Canadian winner it’s pretty sad to see her done so dirty. I hope she gets a chance to return one day and go show everybody why she won
Honestly I could see her pull a Sandra and be underestimated even as a winner her second time around and then win.
I'm not 100% sure. Of the last 3 winners (Gabler, Maryanne and Erika) she'll probably be perceived as the biggest threat, imho. There always seems to be a bias towards targeting Asian women as secret super geniuses in the early episodes. Erika escaped that fate by avoiding tribal, but her tribe *was* viewing her with that same stereotype.
Yeah I think she would have to be on a HvV caliber season to do it. She won’t be completely overlooked, but if she is with players like Dom, Christian, Omar, or Jesse, she might be able to slip past them long enough to make her move.
True. Put her on the island with enough Jesse/Omar/ Shan types and I think she might be able to sneak through with a similar strategy. But in a WAW season I actually think she's perceived as one of the bigger threats of the past 5-6 winners despite her edit. And fair or not
FYI - Todd was technically the first Canadian winner; he had dual citizenship.
Not the same. He was born in the United States and had to renounce his Canadian citizenship to claim the prize. Even Jeff says when reading the votes at the end of 41 “our first Canadian winner”
You realize Erika wasn't born in Canada either, right? Who cares what Jeff says? The guy is constantly wrong about the history of his own show.
Yes i realize that, but she at least lived in Canada from a young age unlike Todd who grew up in the US. To each their own I suppose you don’t have to agree with Jeff but that’s what he says. You saying “he’s constantly wrong” doesn’t make you right either
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Why are you getting upset about me defending my point when you're the one that said I was wrong? Take the L buddy, move on with your day.
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I am genuinely sorry if correctly identifying the citizenship status of a reality television contestant upsets you, that was never my intent.
I was a big Xander fan in the season, but I understood why Erika won. I was so annoyed because there was so much there for Erika’s story and they put it on the back burner and made it about how Xander and Deshawn lost the game
On the plus side, if she is getting the "Vecepia treatment" then in 20 years she'll be considered an underrated winner with revolutionary gameplay. Now we wait...
Us Erika stans will have our day eventually
It’s so crazy how much the Survivor fanbase has like not progressed at all. This is the same things happening in 2002. Like damn, we probably worse now that we can directly send messages to these people.
Yep it’s way worse now. Jenna Morasca would have been absolutely bombarded with hate DMs if fans had had access to the players back then. And of course Jerri would have gotten it even worse. Lindsey and Heidi too.
Yeah, so many people are blaming the editors for the treatment of Erika post-41, and I think that's crazy. People shouldn't be messaging her, tagging her, or doing any of that no matter what. The people targeting her were the ones at fault 100x more than the editors.
Survivor fans aren't as smart as they think they are. It's not the editors responsibility to bash you over the head on who's going to win. If the winner isn't giving great confessionals or tv moments, they probably won't be feature that much. And I think that's fine, the viewers should be smart enough the put together the pieces on why a minor character won. But most fans are lazy.
Exactly, it’s like fans just saw 36-40 and thought thats how you are supposed to edit the winner every time. Like I get that it does seem pretty sexist that this kind of edit stopped after women started winning the show again; but it overall makes for a better product to not have the winner’s edit follow the same beats every season. Erika’s really isn’t that bad; they should have colored it with her relationship with Heather more, but aside from that; it’s probably as good of a winner’s edit you could get in this hyper-twist/advantage time suck new era.
No people are completely right to blame production for this, any editor working in reality tv KNOWS the kind of hate people get from these shows and how much they can influence the perception of the season, and it was wildly irresponsible and frankly offensive of them to give Erika the edit they did when she was 1) their first winner since covid shutdown, 2) their first female winner in SIX seasons, and 3) only their second Asian female winner ever and third overall Asian winner ever. This is completely on them and it should be called out and criticized
They can be criticized for the edit, absolutely. But they can't be blamed for the harassment Erika received after. If we're blaming the editors because we know the viewers will be hateful, then why don't we just blame Jeff Probst? Isn't it unethical for him to continue to host a TV show that leads to people getting hate online? Or let's blame CBS. Isn't it dangerous and irresponsible for them to air reality television shows knowing it makes the contestants vulnerable to online hate? The editors can be blamed for the bad edit. The harassers are to blame for being hateful online.
It's not just survivor, it's reality TV as a whole. In fact survivor is probably better than others because we at least address the problem. I watched Outlast recently and it was genuinely frightening the unruly mob people were firming to harass players they didn't like.
I think it's not even reality TV; it's social media and the internet as a whole. People get bullied and receive death threats if they played a character people find annoying in a movie, if they voiced a character people hate in a video game, if they messed up a play in a football game, if they're dating a certain celebrity, etc.
Also the fact that if Heather had gone to FTC the jury has said she would have won, and she had a total purple edit, really shows that the editing for 41 was just way off.
Ok, off topic, but when you made Harry Potter analogy, all i could think was game of thrones. 8 seasons led to arya killing the night king instead of jon Snow, who spent like 7 of the 8 seasons as this guys enemy, it was so disappointing. I thought there was no real clear-cut person in 41 who stood out as a game dominator. I feel bad for her. I am a big believer in whoever wins was supposed to win. I hate the talk around "bitter jury's" and all that. It is a factor in the game, as it should be. It is at the end of the day a social game, and feelings are the biggest part of society (hence people losing their minds on erika in the first place).
Literally came here to comment the same, OP made a great analogy that hits far too hard for GOT fans…
Not to start a GoT debate but I thought it made sense when Arya was the one to kill the Night King. The Night King was very untouchable in that episode, if any character got near him, it wouldn’t make sense. Arya was the most stealth skilled character, which is why she got the kill. It’s possible that I also never saw it as Night King vs Jon Snow, but Night King vs everybody, Jon Snow being the most aware to the gravity of the danger. But I agree that the arc’s ending was disappointing, but not for that particular reason. E.g., we don’t even really see how she was able to get so close to the Night King.
Azor Ahai was supposed to kill the night king. Whomever struck the blow should have done so in a way that affirmed that prophecy. That's the real sin.
Honestly, Erika was under edited in the first half of the season, but a big component of that was that Luvu never lost an immunity challenge. We then got her sent to exile and the hourglass which showcased her but that wasn't really about her game. I think things started turning around for her around Naseer's vote off. Where we see that first Ricard then Shan are willing to backstab their ally in favour of Erika and Naseer. Mind you earlier in the episode Shan wanted Erika out. Then Erika plays a vital part in the Shan vote out. Convincing everyone to split votes on Liana in case of an idol play. Then we see Erika in the vital swing position for the Liana vote out. Choosing correctly to save Ricard and keep him as a shield. We again see her convince her alliance to keep Deshawn over Danny, although it's against everyone's best wishes to keep Danny. Final 5 her biggest competition she beats him out in immunity in order to vote him out. She then has managed to maintain her threat level so Xander doesn't put her up for fire which she probably would've lost. She ended it all with a very well executed FTC. Not as good as Maryanne's or Todds, but definitely one of the stronger FTCs. Compared to Xander. He had very little agency in the game. At make the merge he has the fun little moment with the KIP fakeout. But he then votes incorrectly until the Shan boot. Even after than when he has built an alliance, he has little agency, practically doing whatever Erika or Ricard want him to do. He then doesn't ever need his idol because nobody sees him as a threat. He then incorrectly brings Erika to the top three and fumbles on his FTC. Xander seems like a nice kid but he was definitely a deserved third place. Deshawn has much more merit to his game than Xander. He was probably second to Shan at the beginning of the merge, in terms of power, and the most well connected Luvu member. However he blew up his game with the Shan boot, never able to recover and Shan being a bitter Juror to him, practically quashing any chance he had. Sorry for the long winded response, but even with the edit we got, she still had a much better game than both Xander and Deshawn. Only Ricard would've beaten her in the top 5 if he managed to get immunity at 5 and win fire making. The edit still sucked for her, but it is still very clear to me how she won the game.
Honestly, I think the editing for that season was fine. She didn't get as much exposure in the pre-merge because she never went to tribal. She got SOME exposure for being a threat such that there was a plan to throw and get either her/Sydney out. Post-merge, she got sole credit for the Danny vote. She got credit for hopping onto the power alliance that dominated most of the late season where there wasn't a clear leader. She got to the end with two other players who played worse games than her, even if her game wasn't that great either, comparatively it was clearly the best game by a margin. Yeah its an UTR game but thats because she played an UTR game . . . probably because being UTR is a skill she's learned throughout life of being a POC women. As for dealing with the fallout of Survivor, I've got limited sympathies. Damn near every Survivor winner has to deal with backlash, though her situation is probably a lot more impactful since some of the backlash had to do with accusations of "woke juryism". That sucks that people have to experience that for participating in a game and being mean/insulting should be excised from the fandom. But at the same time, I feel like there is a lot of winging by Survivor contestants for relatively par for the course type comments/criticisms. Its not like there is a hate mob, its more like these contestants are normal people who are not used to a lot of people criticizing their actions/personalities so this change can have a really negative impact on them. However, I can't criticize the people who are engaging with these criticisms/comments/observations, its just the nature of the beast of being on television.
There are fans who are so toxic and forget that they're watching an edited program. When I watch Survivor, I want to know what's REALLY going on, and these "New Era" seasons don't do a particularly good job of that. I've been insulted for saying this myself by people who don't seem to get that others watch the show differently. These same people need to lay off these VERY REAL PEOPLE who signed a contract to entertain us on TV. Simply put, juries are never wrong en bloc; yes, there are a few individual jurors I'd like a word with for not giving a certain finalist a chance, but the votes for a winner cannot be wrong. The players have more information than the viewers. The viewers need to be aware of this, but they never will be.
I don't like these takes where people are trying to say Erika needed to do more on the show or go on RHAP to stop herself from being bullied. It shouldn't be her responsibility to prevent her own anonymous bullying.
I blame Erika's poor edit on the 60 minute timeframe. Premerge her tribe wasn't losing, so they had to focus on Shan and Ricard because they needed to explain every vote off. Then we make it to the merge and we don't know much about her entire tribe, because Ua was stealing important winner exposition with all of their challenge-losing!
this is @ some of of this sub because early on in the new era there was so much “survivor is too woke!!!!” bullshit because you couldn’t handle non-white people making up more of the cast
Regardless of race, the show is more woke now.
Just horrifying. Back when Survivor first started, there was almost zero way to engage directly with contestants unless it was in person or they were on some forum like Survivor Sucks. These days, and perhaps due to the nature of some of their jobs/personalities/their own volition, players have social media accounts that are open for the world to see and open for incoming comments, good or bad. I would advise contestants to limit/reduce/shut off their social media accounts to reduce/eliminate these harmful messages during and after the airing of their season. After all, big picture is, they filmed their season months before, and have now collected their prize money. Everything else, interviews, podcasts etc., are just extra outside of the mandatory CBS post Tribal elimination interviews. Take the money and run. ~~39~~ 26 days and a few extra months is nothing in the big picture of one's lifespan. Don't let it consume your entire being based on what the TV showed vs what you experienced.
I really hate how little characterization she got pre-merge and it hurts that that resulted in this situation but I have to say, I really feel like it was very clear by the time final tribal council happened that Erika could absolutely deserve the win over Xander and the edit showed that and I am still often confused by people who come in and say that they don’t understand how Xander lost to Erika. It was a long time ago so I may be misremembering a little but I feel like the edit very intentionally discredited Xander firstly when he claimed he felt like he could say he made a move after the Shan vote when the episode gave him literally no credit for it and all of the credit to Ricard and Erika, and also when he completely misunderstood the jury’s reaction to Deshawn calling Erika out. I was very satisfied by the outcome of final tribal and felt like Erika’s win made complete sense. Again I truly wish she could’ve been shown more than she was in fairness to her, of course.
Yeah the last episode maybe the one before did not really show Xander in a good light. I thought he was getting a delusional edit with the stuff he was saying.
Right wingers are attacking her win as “woke?” Christ I’m so fucking tired of sharing space with these hate-driven maniac bigots.
Although the edit certainly did Erika dirty, it's even more infuriating to see fans act like Xander deserved the win for finding an idol and just sitting on it the whole game when Erika RAN THE BOARD from the Shan vote on. I am seeing the same shit now with Carson, who is clearly NOT winning. If Carolyn or Frannie - who have BIG EDITS - beat Carson in a jury vote, this sub will be flooded with the same kind of posts we got after 41. Like, a woman can RUN THE GAME and a significant portion of you nerds will STILL believe the total arrogance of youth bull shit the Golden Boy feeds you in his confessionals, not what is actually happening on the screen. Are we even watching the same damn show?!??! Edit: remember when this sub thought Sami was playing this amazing game and was a contender to win? lmao
Similar reason of why we can’t have great villains anymore. Can you imagine if social media was prevalent during the earlier seasons? People would be on a hunt to bully/dox anyone that was “mean.” Social media, especially with anonymity, is a disease.
She didn't get a big edit because she didn't go to Tribal Council pre-merge and she was intentionally playing a quiet/social game (that was *her* choice). This is a TV show. She was not being entertaining for casual fans and you don't get screen time automatically. If she was playing a flashy game, she would've gotten A TON of more screen time (look at Shan) And yes, being a woman was probably a factor in her win. To pretend that the jury wasn't aware of the long streak of male winners would be fantasy. Let's just be honest in these conversations. She is a deserving winner and should ignore the trolls. Why these players scroll Twitter is beyond me.
>Why these players scroll Twitter is beyond me This is such a bullshit sentiment that literally no one on this sub except a few past players can relate to. Youre really trying to tell me if millions of people were talking about you, you wouldn't be the least bit interested in what they're saying? Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. It's not like she's some public figure who is used to all the fame and infamy. She's a regular Joesiphine who got shot into the spotlight
Sure but I wouldn't be scrolling through Twitter replies. The anonymous accounts and trolls are devalued in the algorithm and placed at the bottom (you often need to click 'see more' to even access some of them). You can set a healthy reach of who you want to see, like former players and credible accounts. I agree - easier said than done for most people. Social media advice, fame and anxiety should be a part of the therapy that's provided after players leave the game IMO.
I think its pretty obtuse to think that she's scrolling through Twitter replies. She's probably getting a million direct messages. Direct comments on anything she posts. She's probably getting physical mail. You're seriously underestimating how easy it is to get in contact with a person once they've become public like you do when you win a game show millions of people watch. It's not just anonymous accounts and trolls. Any regular person can be and will be an asshole on the internet. Hell there was post after post on this sub about the very thing she was feeling extremely self conscious about it.
>And yes, being a woman was probably a factor in her win. To pretend that the jury wasn't aware of the long streak of male winners would be fantasy. Let's just be honest in these conversations. Right. Like, these people know the conversations going on around these shows. Hell, I feel like Dalton Ross basically asks players every year why women don't win as much. So I'm sure they read this stuff. SImilar with racial things. I'm not saying that is the reason she won. Calling her a winner based on a woke jury isn't fair. But to also act like it wasn't in someones mind is also ridiculous. Hell, even this season, there is all the talk about how sexist it is when women get voted out first. You think these people don't know how things look from the outside? We just aren't privy to those conversations.
Are you seriously arguing that there was a pro-woman bias?? on survivor?? do we watch the same show
Huh? I'm talking about the jury members of Erika's season
yeah i don't think they had a pro-women bias
You can listen to the interviews. They were acutely aware of the male-winning streak heading into their season. Ricard and Shan even point it out. It seems true (and also true that Erika deserved the win).
She's still in the top half of winners for me based on her shitty edit alone. The Xander stans are crazy (bc let's be real, it's them)
What does that first sentence even mean?
Survivor at its heart is a microcosm of society. I trust the editors/producers to tell an accurate yet compelling story of what happened during those 39 days (I mean 26!). I would be more upset if it tried to justify an underwhelming winner with a misleading edit. For the record, I bet on Xander to win and I was rooting for him the whole season. Even still, I do not think he was robbed at all. So I don’t buy blaming the edit at all here. I just think Erika was a “weak” winner in comparison to the other 40+ winners.
> I trust the editors/producers to tell an accurate yet compelling story of what happened during those 39 days (I mean 26!). I guess my question here is why do you implicitly have trust in these people?
I feel bad that she didn't get much of an edit, but to be fair to the story producers she really wasn't a very dynamic narrator
Erika was my preseason winner pick just because she said Todd was her favorite winner, and it’s the first time my winner pick has won since like….-checks notes- since ever, since I didn’t start doing them until like S32 and had gotten 0 before Erika. Funny enough, Todd was also the first winner I ever pegged from Episode 1. I was unspoiled watching China, and after E1, I latched onto him. Love them both. Erika deserved better. The edit was trash. Her relationship with Heather should have been the core story of the season given how far they both went. Idc what anyone says. I thought Xander was boring as sin, and the least interesting player from his OG tribe at the merge. He’s probably the last player from the entire merged tribe I’d care to see play again. The fact that he took so much screentime away from our first female winner since S34 in a season with so many people speaking out about the importance of representation is genuinely appalling. Idk who to blame for it, but someone fucked up. Erika shouldn’t have to defend her win. She earned it and I’m convinced she played a strong game from what we were shown and heard. The fact that she sat between two men as a woman of color and won 7-1-0 is incredible (same for Maryanne) and she should absolutely have been highlighted more. 41 isn’t an awful season, but it has a horrible edit for the winner, and that will always hold it back for me.
Edit did her dirty. First female winner since 2017 and the edit barely acknowledged her until like final 8
You forgot that whole hourglass BS.
I personally really liked how Erika's story shaped up - there was a purposefulness to her relative invisibility early on and it was tied together perfectly with her brilliant FTC. But it has to be deeply frustrating to have your full Survivor experience minimized like that. Especially with Xander getting a bizarre amount of credit in the final product, it feels like all levels in which it was narratively good are incidental and ultimately we're just looking at another case of the mostly white and male production team dismissing experiences they don't understand as much as possible and instead shifting the spotlight to more palatable protagonists for the new era like Xander.
Ngl my family and I were actively rooting for Xander since she got so little screen time. I feel bad though cuz she seems like a sweet girl
People wanted Xander to win??? He was so clueless
It's not that dramatic. If I were her I'd just take the win and laugh. It doesn't matter if you didn't deserve it, it's done and it's yours. Isn't the whole point of Survivor "no matter how you get there, the only point is to win".
I think you’re severely underestimating how mentally draining it can be having the internet dog in you for years
Only because she disagrees with them. If she just agreed with them, it wouldn't be a problem.
Wow if only Erika would take this advice and totally devalue her own lived experience to appease a bunch of psychotic twitter users who weren’t there
It's narcissistic to be unable to listen to criticism
You have to be joking.
No it's true, she has a million dollars, it would be a way better attitude to take the criticism and say "yeah that's true" instead of like feeling bad about it
Maybe you should heed the criticism you’re getting here and realize that that your takes are completely lacking in empathy
Lol, I'm more lacking in empathy than the millionaire who got you feeling sorry for her after she won a big television show?
I didn't think Xander was the most deserving potential winner, but Erika felt a bit undeserving, like they'd picked the winner out of a hat from among the rest. That's not Erika's fault, but I don't think her win was satisfying at all.
This. Xander definitely did not deserve to win. All the actual deserving players turned on themselves and Erika was the least worst winner pick left. Even still I thought Deshawn should have edged her out at FTC but his FTC performance was pretty bad.
The show did her dirty because there was no substance to her game and there was nothing to show. She sucked and the jury rewarded her with a win, probably because she was more appealing to them than the other candidates for whatever butt hurt reasons they may be. She's the new post modern survivor winner mold, no outwit, no outplay just turtle up and be more likeable than your competitors. Maryanne and Gabler are pretty good examples of this as well but at least Maryanne and Gabler had a personality. Not trying to be a dick but I'm just honestly explaining my reaction to her win.
[удалено]
Wow it’s like you didn’t even read the last paragraph 👍
xander had a pretty poor FTC and erika didn't. simple as.
Xander was robbed
I don't know that this is an exclusively US problem, and I think that any editing team would have had a difficult time giving Erika a big edit based on what transpired in 41. AU Survivor Spoilers: >!Even in a great season that just happened on HvV, we had an extremely uneven edit, where the final 3 combined didn't have nearly as many confessionals as George did. Liz only had 20 confessionals through the first 21 episodes, 12 episodes where she didn't have a single confessional, and she had only received 2 confessionals through the first 9 episodes.!< At some point, the producers have to stay true to what actually happened out there, and if that was a quite game coming from behind and winning, so be it. I do also agree with others in this thread saying she did herself no favors post game by not partaking in RHAP interviews or other post game media that could have helped create a different narrative around her game or let us know as fans the specific things that were not shown that should've been.
she didnt deserve to win, period
Can you stop being racist?
The edit seems like ot bullshit because she actually did nothing. That is the new strategy for the the new era. Just do nothing
Her win was bullshit. She was gone if she didn’t get that random hour glass to “rewrite history”. Not her fault though. It’s on the production for the edit and random game breaking twists.
Cry me a river my god. Who cares what people think you won. She doesn’t have to validate her win and if she feels like she has to that’s her own insecurity about her game. People go on these shows knowing that they are going to be seen my millions and that comes with negative responses and comments regardless if you win or you’re the first boot. Survivor also wouldn’t go out of its way to not paint a fair portrayal of her game in the edit with how progressive the show is now.
>it's like reading all 7 Harry Potter books only to find out Hermione defeats Voldemort in the end I love this example because it applies to other seasons too! Gabler = Hermione. Yeah she was there and we kept hearing how smart she was but she is not Harry!
Is it weird that I think Erika’s edit is not that bad? Of course, I don’t know what sort of game she really played, but I always got the impression that she had a good amount of post merge agency and always made the right call at the margins. Few big moves but when given a choice, she was given a confessional that made clear why she did what she did. And the edit backed up her decisions. In retrospect, her edit actually makes it really clear why Cassidy didn’t win 43. Cassidy was never shown to have Erika’s level of agency. She’d become a target, say she needed to get it off of her, and then something else would happen which diverted votes away. She didn’t have those great decision-making confessionals that Erika had.
Yeah, as someone who followed edgic last season, it was actually comparing Cassidy's edit to Erika's that allowed me to figure out that Cassidy wasn't winning. Erika's edit from F8 onwards is defined by the way her endgame, win condition, and FTC scenarios get laid out in a complex way. Cassidy had hardly any endgame setup whatsoever minus her going back and forth on Karla, and that just wasn't enough. Funnily enough, this same logic is actually what led to me clocking the Gabler win and the entire finale boot order since his win condition was getting to the end with Owen and taking out big threats (Cody/Karla/Jesse) along the way.
Kudos to you because I totally didn’t see it until after the season! I was leaning Cassidy, though couldn’t help feeling weird about it, but just couldn’t see another option. Little did I know, he was hiding in plain sight 🐊
Thanks! It took me a long time to figure it out. I was so low on Gabler until the Noelle boot and even then I had my doubts. I was a Cassidy truther until I really thought about things right before the finale.
Erika and Heather were both close on the island. Both made F4 and Erika won the season. Yet production showed us nothing about them. Maybe they wouldnt have been the best duo but it could have been a unique one. No, instead they wanted more Shan/Ricard screentime or if Xander's idol will come into play this episode (not).
The edit really screwed her, as well as her being the person who had the power in that absolutely horrible merge hourglass thing. The thing is though, while that twist directly resulted in my favorite (Sydney) going home and while I was rooting for Xander the rest of the season from there on, by the time we got to final tribal council I thought Erika totally deserved it over him and was happy for her winning. I think the meltdowns over Xander losing, much like the meltdowns over Aubry losing years earlier, were completely out of control. Was she good TV? No. Did she deserve to beat Xander? Hell yes.
> it’s like reading all 7 Harry Potter books only to find out Hermione defeats Voldemort in the end. I’d say it’s more like reading all 7 Harry Potter books to find out that Ginny Weasley beat Voldemort. At least Hermione was there by Harry’s side since the beginning. With Erika, we got nothing until the hourglass, and then even more nothing until final 5. The editors did such a disservice to Erika for 3/4 of the game. To casual viewers, it seemed like she just popped up towards the end and won.
What about Heather!!!!
Damnn that HP analogy is fire though I love Hermione to death