RHAP: We Know Survivor - Drew Basile Talks Survivor 47

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

Rob Cesternino is joined by Survivor 45’s Drew Basile as they dive into the emotional and strategic dynamics of Survivor 47.

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Hey, everybody. What's going on? Rob Sestradino back. And I'm so excited for this one here today because about sometime during Survivor 46, we had a great chat. Same format. We talked on a Saturday.

And people, I read the comments and people loved it. And they said, you got to do more with this guy. And now here he is. And since then, he's had an incredible run on Jeopardy and back with us to talk about everything that's going on in Survivor 47. It's Drew Basile. Drew, how are you? You know, Rob, I'm doing great. And it's a pleasure to be here on, I think, I think maybe the best show for me. Yes. Right. Like when I'm on Survivor, you know, the fans are neutral when I'm on, you know, Jeopardy. They're like, I mean, you know, you're just

answering questions. It's not personalities limited, but I'm truly fetid, you know, so it's great. It's great to be here you're home but i have to say rob it's not all good i don't know if you're aware of this but the last time i came on your show it was to discuss jeopardy and the interview that we had got written up in the new york post yes i saw that i saw that yeah i know that was shocking i was like wow yes rob truly has some reach now i've cut, tell me if you feel this way. If you say something in this podcast that ends up being newsworthy, that's probably also bad, right? Oh, bad for me or bad for you?

Probably both. It really must have been insane. Probably both. Like if you say something in this interview that ends up getting picked up in the New York Post. Yeah. And then you're like, you're like one of those like Joe Rogan people. It's not going to be like, oh, my Drew Basile. Amazing takes on Rob has a podcast.

Read all about it. No. Yeah. It's going to be like danger cancellation. I mean, come to think of it, Rob, like I'm kind of a ticking time bomb for you. I can say anything. I appreciate it. And I welcome that, Drew, because I feel like that one of the things that I really respect about you is that I think that you're not afraid to say a controversial

or hot take. And I want to like really, you know, continue to bring that into the show because you could say something and I could agree with it or not. But I love hearing it from you. I appreciate that, Rob. I think I think I feel very free at this point. You know, my survivor career is you seem free year and a half. It's been a while. And I recently flew out to L.A. just for some, you know, of some business. And everybody was out there and they all knew each other and all the survivors were hanging out.

And I was like, wow, like this is this is great to see you guys. But like, I'm so disconnected. I live in England, you know, like this doesn't matter to me at all. You know, like this is just this is just playing with house money. So being so distant from the community, I can just like, you know, open fire. You felt like the other survivors all know each other and spend a lot of time together. And you're like, you know, the cousin who lives overseas doesn't really get to see the rest of the family. You know, it is a perfect metaphor, Rob. I'm like vaguely affiliated and like, you know, far.

I can come to the event, but I don't know who's there is basically how things are. Yeah. And the irony is that really your cast is considered of like maybe of any of the cast, specifically of the new era, like the closest cast. Oh, and we absolutely are being being, you know, on the show, you're privy to different information than than you are not on the show, you're privy to different information than you are not on the show. So you get to know about the dynamics of the cast and drama and gossip and things like that. Let me tell you, being on the season 45 cast was like getting off the tracks at the last moment. Because there have been so much insane stuff to happen in these high school cliques. Yes. So I'm very grateful. I love everybody in the 45.

But you feel like that you're still in the group chats. You're still like, you're, you're informed, but you're just not part of the drama. I guess. I mean, I'm only in one, one group chat. Yeah. There's probably more. There's probably more. Yeah. On Instagram. Then I'm in the 45 group chat. So I get like, you know, with the Christmas card updates and stuff, but all the, all the real gossip occurs in the dms the one-to-one dm okay so yeah all right but there's a new community forming rob i don't know if you know about this yes because michigan i think we're gonna say on survivor 47 okay but in michigan is on the rise michigan i mean you

gotta bet on michigan right now guys you to go buy property because number one, the Lions are killing it. I was just talking about this with Rob. Yeah. But number two, Michigan has become a survivor dynasty. I mean, they're like a feeder school. You know, we've got Kenzie from Michigan. Rachel. Kenzie's from Michigan.

I thought she's from North Carolina. No, no. She grew up in like freaking Gibraltar. She lives here now. What? We she lives here now. Well, no, no, no. But she grew up in like freaking Gibraltar. She grew up in Detroit. What? She lives here now. Well, no, no, no. But she grew up in Michigan.

You know, you can't take that. You can't take the Midwest. I don't care where she was. You don't get to claim Kenzie. Who else you got? I credit Kenzie's social game 95% to the Michigan charm. 95%. All right, who else?

She's a great player. Who else? But she was just actualizing the God-given state characteristics that we have. So if you want to win Survivor, you got to come to Michigan. This is the lesson. That was it? Just Kenzie grew up there? Yeah.

But like Rachel could win. You know, maybe she's a winner. Is Rachel from Michigan? Rachel is from Michigan. I didn't know that. I actually live down the street from Rachel. Well, that's one of the things I feel like that rachel could be our newest survivor winner and i feel like that look she's a good game player i don't feel like i know anything about rachel

yeah what's her job uh well she does like advertising she's advertising yeah i think yeah i have no and she works i am i think she works for like car companies and stuff i don't really know and maybe she you know maybe i'm breaking the breaking the you know the containment zone on this in this information but yeah well that's hey that's big business in detroit if you're gonna advertise car companies i'll tell you i was just in phoenix and all the cars are you know autonomous oh she's a graphic designer i just had an epiphany. Does she do graphic design for the car companies? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what she does.

Anyways, I forgot what I was going to say, but very embarrassing. I'm sorry, Rachel. All right. Well, I'd like to talk more about that. Yeah. Rachel 34 from Dexter, Michigan is a graphic designer. And I mean, I'm sure I knew that at one point, but I definitely it has not been part of her journey. She has not even given one confessional as a graphic designer. Well, honestly, good. You know, I hate when people get these like shoehorned in things about their career and they're like, oh, I'm a shoe salesman. So I got to know when the shoe fits and I don't trust like, OK, you could do a lot with a shoe salesman so i gotta know when the shoe fits and i don't trust like okay you could do a lot with as a shoe salesman yeah yeah i'm about to be the sole survivor they probably wouldn't cast the shoe salesman this day and age you know they're like you know like ai researchers only you know need not apply yeah um but yeah all right well let's uh talk about i think that shoe salesman i think that that it's

so interesting now because this past season on big brother we had a guy who worked in a video store so i think it would be like ironically interesting a shoe salesman where it would have been like 20 30 years ago like maybe the most boring job now i think that's like oh i'm a shoe salesman tell me about that yeah well i mean the video store is really loop the loop because it's like where would you even find one of those these days i mean it's like a rare like creature you would bring to like the circus you know here's the the last surviving video store employee uh and he was kind of a character too so maybe he'd really fit in oh you watch no i see on twitter okay i don't know the character all right so

drew i guess um why don't we start with um we're heading into the final four uh do you feel like that you have a good read on how the season is shaking out a good read i mean this season is over you know it's it's finished i mean you can you can slot it into the rankings that, you know, from this point, because that's what Dalton Ross does. Oh, already? I think he already does. I got to look it up. Let me see what he did.

The thing is, Rob, is that the finale is the most boring episode of Survivor. Do you like that they made it the two part finale? Not at all. And I'll bet you they don't even like it. I read in some interview that like CBS asked them at the last second to extend their show because like they didn't have airtime and like they thought the presidential debate would consume a Wednesday and it didn't. Yeah, we got left with this this half formed, you know, finale where all the juicy stuff already happened. And then next week where, you know, we're heading to the coronation.'s like you know i look at it kind of like election day right you go and you go and you vote on like shit november november 20th uh whatever you vote i think it's earlier than that i think

it's earlier than that yeah you're not in the country yeah you go and you vote in november and you get you know what's gonna happen and then you gotta wait like two more months and then and then it happens and you're supposed to be like two more months. And then it happens. And you're supposed to be excited the second time. That's kind of how I feel about this finale. Like, okay, we know who's going to win. And now we've got to wait a couple months. And then we'll get to see the awkward reunion where Sam and Teenie or Sue will try not to cry.

But, yeah, I think it's done and dusted. I think Rachel has played a really impressive game um and the edit is really pumping her up is like the big thread the master fire maker challenge beast it's just gonna be a shock if she doesn't win yeah do you feel like that you have a sense of how the final four will go down what happens on wednesday night um i'm not really sure how do we get to a Rachel win yeah I mean the question is does Rachel win immunity or does Rachel

make fire because there's no way they're going to like sit around yeah and I agree I'm 100% with you I believe that it's going to be Rachel crowned as the winner on Wednesday night but I do think that it's interesting to talk about how it works out because if Rachel wins the final four immunity do you see Rachel should she make the to talk about how it works out, because if Rachel wins the Final Four immunity,

do you see Rachel, should she, make the fire? No, don't make the fire. There's no point in making the fire. The thing about that Final Four immunity that's very paradoxical is that, and actually, I think Jake was ahead of the curve on this. I didn't really appreciate it until Jake started to do it as the last chance.

Break the challenge. Well, no, it's all – break the challenge for sure. With the fire making, you can just take the knife and threaten Jeff and then you're into the final three. It's a full-blown strategy. That would be breaking the challenge. But no, I mean it's all about theater, right? Yeah. And I think that there's kind of a mistake in the way that people are viewing

the fire making right now. Like if I were to go into 50, I would say, well, listen, winning the final four immunity is an advantage, right? And you're going to deploy this advantage, this instrument, you know, any way you want.

And so you're choosing the best person to win, choosing the best person to win is like my move. That's how I would pitch it. And I think that right now, Rachel is so obviously ahead of the game person to win, choosing the best person to win is like my move. That's how I would pitch it. And I think that right now, Rachel is so obviously ahead of the game that she can just, you know, like pit the children together, have them fight it out. And she'll be fine. You know, she can take credit. She'd be like, this was my, this was my move. I was, I was neutralizing, you know, a big threat, or I was letting two people who aren't going to win anyways,

you know, compete for this meaningless award. She's already got such a high threat level with the jury that and moreover, more importantly, there's nobody that can lose in fire making that is consequential enough to add to that threat level. That is just like, why would she participate? Well, I think it's interesting, like in the context of your season where, you know, I was trying to figure this out yesterday when we do the patron call and people call in and we take a lot of questions about this kind of stuff so you know d wins the final four challenge in your season and then she like jake was like hey let me make let me make the fire and it really played out where your buddy austin he wanted to go into the fire. Oh, yeah. He wanted to do it. And he's like, no, I'm going to take Austin to the final three.

And I kind of feel like that for Rachel, that could be the move. And I hadn't been really been thinking about this yet because I had been worried for Rachel. I saw a potential scenario where, OK, she says, you know what? I'm not going to give up my necklace. Sam and Sue, you make the fire. And now here's Sam who's been talked about as a threat. He has a chance to kind of like make a last impression with the jury. You know how impression, I mean, you weren't, but you, you know how these juries are. They see somebody make a fire and it's like, Oh my God,

they made the fire. It's like, they've never seen a fire before. God. They made a fire. It's like they've never seen a fire before. Nobody's ever made a fire in 35 days or right through the rope. Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. So I know that was smart that D took Austin to the end, didn't give him that chance. And maybe that's the move for Rachel. Like I'm taking Sam to the final three instead of sitting here with the goats su and teeny i think it's absolutely the move i think um i think that rachel i mean she said it last episode that like sam is probably the biggest threat of the remainders

um the non-genevieve and rachel's um sam can probably i hear actually he's not that good at fire but where'd you hear that from your sources i i think it was an i i you know actually rob you'll be impressed by this i watched the exit interviews oh okay i think i think in one of the exit interviews uh like andy or genevieve was like oh um sam teeny and sue are bad at fire. Okay. I thought Sam wanted to beat Genevieve at fire. I have no idea. I didn't watch that exit interview. Yeah, I think Andy says he's very good at the fire. Yeah.

Andy's good at a lot of things. Sometimes Andy's not good at things he should be good at. He's got all these muscles. He's all big and strong, and he sucks at challenges. I won more challenges than Andy did. Look at me. Yeah. How are you with the fire? Could you make a fire? I didn't make a fire a day. I was pampered out there.

I mean, I had like Austin catching fish, you know, D's always fixing the shelter. I just like laid around and I always said, like, you know, I must be doing pretty good socially because I'm so lazy and nobody complains. Right. So it must be all fine. Yeah. Did you practice, though? Did you go out like in the in the woods and then practice making fires? I made I made them on my on my lawn in Philly. And I lived on like I lived in just a regular house, but the house was on frat row. So this was like quite comical. Yeah. Everyone walking by and they call the police that there's an arsonist that was not my worry but it never you know it never happened all kinds of shenanigans go on this doesn't even make you know this doesn't even make the newspaper uh in philly and and and you know within the college campus generally you had in the news recently um one of our esteemed alumni

uh you know shot this insurance guy so this is big news oh okay oh that that is a famous alumni yeah so see how do i compare to that uh you know i wouldn't want to but also you know it's not a big deal in paris so anyways moving on um the the the really um rachel has nothing to gain from participating in the fire yeah sue and teeny are like bluegills i mean they're small fish um beating sam uh turns what is like a dominant victory into a drubbing it's not really necessary she knows that rachel is so sharp in these little calculations that i think this this plan you've you've provisioned out is really sharp is really smart and i think the only way rachel ends up um i mean

don't give me credit i just remembered your season and thought about oh that's what d did yeah that is a good move you know d strategic mastermind nobody's stock has risen higher in recent you know years which i like and agree with um but yeah it just seems like a no-brainer and the real question is if she loses are people gonna put her in i mean okay especially that everyone knows she's good let's give sam the necklace okay for how does sam play this sam has to take rachel into the fire right oh it has to i mean has to put it on the line i think he would do it too um i think that sue though i doubt sue puts rachel on fire and then teeny i i really like teeny i've met teeny in real life actually she's really you know a lot of fun they're really a lot of fun so again very fun yeah totally really nice person but it

it seems to be that teeny is kind of like not aware of like how she sits in the hierarchy yeah like i like i think teeny is just kind of envisioning final tribal councils like this point at the end of the game where like she gets to see all her friends and they all tell her how much they love her. And and then she'll have a million dollars. It's been a rough road for Teenie. And, you know, it's been well documented all season long about how Teenie, you know, I actually went back. I watched the first episode again this morning as like we're heading into finale week. I thought it'd be a good thing to go back and check in on a couple of things with the edit. And, you know, Teenie comes in and like is actually

like pretty confident that Teenie's like social ability and knowledge of the show is really gonna, you know, carry the day. Yeah, no, I mean, it's kind of like an emperor with no clothes situation, you know, that like like the edit is just treating teeny like she's like, you know, like like an end game player. Like she's like some strategic mastermind for a long time. And you're waiting for like the other, you know, for it to happen. And it never happens. I mean, yeah. And we're at a point where even though the edit is super nice to teeny, I can't disguise it anymore and so it's kind of like a weird mismatch of like edit and gameplay that i feel like we actually haven't on the show seen in a long time so like so so

vivid um well there was that moment where teeny holds up like teeny's bag got burnt in the fire and teeny talked about like this this situation in the game reminds teeny about her uh identity and her struggles with that and then look at bag, my bag burnt in the fire. And this bag represents me and the fire that's been lit underneath me. Steven Fishback said, this is teeny's winner. Edit everybody get on board. Here we go.

Stuff is getting going. And since that point, drew teeny has only voted correctly for Kyle. Oh, the easiest vote of all time. You know, the easiest one to get on the run. It's been a bad every turn. Teeny is going the wrong way. Yeah.

Teeny is all turned around. But I do. I do have a lot of sympathy for Teeny because like super young, like what? Twenty two. I think twenty three, I believe. Twenty three. So I was twenty two 22 out there i was the youngest person out there in the season um and playing survivor so young is really hard like i'm sure there are a lot of these super fans who are like you know you know chomping at the bit raring to go um you

don't know who you are at 23 like you haven't really experienced anything you haven't really gone through anything you've never had to like work for your bread really. I mean, maybe you have, I mean, you haven't been a breadwinner. Yeah, exactly. You know, you know, you never had like real responsibilities. Um, so you don't know who you are and there's like all these identity questions thrown around. You're also a little immature. Like I certainly am. I still am super immature. True. I went to go play survivor. I had just turned 24 when I went to go play Survivor. I had just turned 24 when I went to go play Survivor. I lived in my parents' basement.

Well, I guess you're better than us. No, I'm empathizing that I wasn't a grown up. Nobody should have let me be on television. up yeah nobody should have let me be on television yeah and you went out to like the real jungle man like you went out to like a real like inhospitable place why fiji's not a real jungle no fiji is like one of the the softest biomes on the planet like like you know you could get lost for two weeks on your own in fiji and survive it's like no i mean, I mean, it's not. I like Fiji. I would go on vacation there, but Fiji is a cushy place. It's not like the Amazon where there's snakes. If Survivor's in a place where people actually

go on vacation, that's a good spot. Very few people only maniacs vacation in the Amazon. Yeah, I guess there are gradients to it, but if you head out on token chains, like, holy shnikes, you're screwed. The Amazon, oh my lord. Fiji, in comparison, is a little are gradients to it. But like if you had out like token chains, like, holy shnikes, you're screwed. Yeah.

You know, the Amazon. Oh, my Lord. Fiji in comparison is a little bit of a cakewalk. I think. I don't know. I've never been to the Amazon. Hopefully I never go. Yeah.

It sounds like it sounds really awful. Yeah. Overrated. I believe that, Rob. And I'm sure also it's like age 24. You were really tweaking. You were like, what am I doing? Like, why?

Why did i agree to do this i had never like gone camping before i just like i would have like sleepless nights like i'm gonna go die what am i doing oh my gosh actually get a gun survivor like was one of the worst weeks of my life because i was like holy crap like there's no out now like i gotta go i gotta go do this thing. I'm going to humiliate myself. I'm going to sunburn. I mean,

that was, that was weirdly high on the priority list sunburn, but you know, it's, it's a very scary thing to commit to in Fiji though. It's a little bit easier. It's still hard teeny. I can tell that like teeny is struggling with some of the kind of like same tailspin,

same like worries that I felt like I got into at the end of the game. So it gives me a lot of sympathy for Tini, but it cannot be denied that like, not only do they have no chance of winning the game, but I'm not really sure that they're aware of their position in the game. And so maybe it's like a situation where like, it's best that, you know,

somebody goes out at final four fire making. I'd love to talk to you a little bit about that, you know, your season and, and your Alliance that you were a part of, it's such an anomaly in the new era. Um, the re before as it was really, it's such a standout in the new era in that it was a group that was able to ride out for the most part, uh, you know, all of the, you know, uh, temptations in the post merge game. And really we have seen very few alliances in the new era of survivor. Do you think that there was something in particular that you all were thinking or doing that made that group be such a uh just a standout in this uh era of survivor where there aren't alliances uh yeah no i mean it's it's an

interesting question i think i felt like the reba 4 was kind of like the prototype to like the ideal way that survivor right now should be played um because you 4 was kind of like the prototype to like the ideal way that Survivor right now should be played. Because you have these kind of fractured three tribe formats where, you know, like the expectation is, I mean, you don't even have big voting blocks to begin with. But the expectation is you're going to leave those voting blocks. You're going to be flexible. And if you just hold together, like if you just resist the temptation as your tribe, I mean, easy win. Right. Like because, you know you're

playing these atomized groups you can just dominate just it's like it's like um in borneo when you show up to the merge and it's one one one one four you know it's like the four you just take it um but it's hard to resist the temptation as you've pointed out i think why reba was kind of so successful was um we were four of the best players on the season, talent-wise. I mean, we're probably like four of the six best players in the season. We all really liked each other, and we all kind of correctly had calculated that the way to do well in Survivor at this point is to play a loyal game.

So we had every incentive to set it up. I think if you're going on Survivor, you want – and it was interesting. One of the things I also saw in the exit interviews and stuff is that everyone wanted to work with Sue this time around. Did you catch this? People were talking about it in the pregame. They all wanted to work with Sue. Yeah.

Okay. So in the preseason, people wanted to work with Sue. But you think that was a Mama J? Yes. It's because people look at the older woman and say the older woman is a loyal ally. Everyone wants a loyal ally. Everyone recognizes that like I just need like people who are going to like truck together for a long time, even if it's not like the flashiest way to play. But the point is, if you get a lot of good players to agree to do that, then you're set. You're in minutes and spades.

So the Reba 4, obviously, I think like the most successful alliance of the new era. I don't think that's like a controversy. I don't think that's showboating. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's for the reba four and the tika three but i think that um for the tika three i think that there were other bigger groups and they were sort of like uh sort of like more forced together i feel like that they did not really have like as many options to be able to go their separate ways but yeah the before, you know, had the numbers and stuck together.

It's kind of like the invisible hand. You ever, you know, you ever hear about this, Rob, like in economics, like Adam Smith, yeah, economics. And it's like, if everyone just acts in their self-interest, you know, things kind of like work out, right? And what we have here, economically speaking, are irrational actors. You know, people who have not recognized what's in their self-interest, people who are obsessed this season, especially, you know, so fixated on the narrative, you know, the narrative of I'm playing survivor. And what do I want my legacy to be? And, you know, what are the audience at home going to be thinking that they're behaving irrationally in a gameplay setting. And if you're a rational actor, you recognize that the way to go is to build a steady, you know,

coalition of people you can beat. So if you're the best player, you need to work together with the other people who are the best and just ride it out to the end game and then start playing at the end game. Drew, do you think that the announcement of a Survivor 50 with returnees

and the sort of allure of coming back to Survivor changed the way when you say that people were making irrational decisions in this season? Do you think that people were maybe motivated by things other than just how to win this particular season of Survivor? Well, I don't remember if 50 was announced before they went to tape. Yes, it was. Oh, it was. Okay. Definitely. I mean, even if it hadn't been announced, of course they're like, they're self-involved with 50. The thing about survivor that is really incommunicable to like people who haven't done the experience is that it is this insane, you know, rush of adrenaline and real, like every day

you're fighting for your life. Every day you're like scrambling. Every day is high octane. And when you come back to real life, real life doesn't feel real, right? There is like a four to six month period, I'll say, where like you're just kind of floating on air. And it's, you know, this wasn't just my experience. Like it feels very inconsequential in comparison to this like visceral, you know, adrenaline experience that you've just had. But when that fades away, a lot of people are desperate for the next fix. You know, it's like a drug. Like I'm desperate to feel that way

again. I'm desperate to not just like, you know, feel this like profound meaningfulness of every day, but also like I'm desperate for the attention. I want to be on TV. I want, I want Instagram followers, right? Like most people's lives are fairly inconsequential, mine included. And to have this chance of, you know, for six months to feel like your life isn't consequential or a year because you've taped and now you're waiting to air knowing like secretly you're a, you know, you're a time bomb of social media likes. I mean, it's addictive. And so people immediately, as soon as they go out of the game, as soon as they leave

are looking for that next fix And that's why they behave so ridiculously on social media That's why we get, you know, a lot of people, like obviously you and Fishback are immune at this point You're like, you know, in the pantheon But like a lot of people, that's why we get like these little takes And, you know, everyone messages the people currently on Like, oh, you're so cool Because it's all just like trying to get into the slipstream

It's all just trying to get back out there Did you get a lot of messages when you were so cool. Um, because it's all, it's all just like trying to get into the slipstream. It's all just trying to get back out there. Did you get a lot of messages when you were on 45? You know, it's, I don't think I was ever one of the cool kids. So my messages were fairly, fairly limited, but some people got a lot of messages. Um, I was just like a nerd, like, Oh, we've seen enough of these guys. I almost never have sent messages to any of the players that are from. And I think a lot of times I think that the players think that I don't like them. Cause I really, I try not to engage at all with the players. Cause I'm so worried about being spoiled or knowing anything. I try to leave the players alone that are on the, so I don't, don't even know what to say to somebody who is like on the show. what to say to somebody who is like on, on the show. What do you say? I have this problem all my life. Like, it's like, I'm on LinkedIn. Like I want to, I want a job at this company.

What do I say? Like, hello, please hire me. You know, I'm like, you know, reaching out to the survivors, like, hello, if we ever play again, it would be really cool. I think you're cool. Like, no, I don't know. I don't have the subtlety, but a lot of people do. And I think that Reese, like the people who play more recently are invested, Rob. So, I mean, you know, for you, it's been like, it's been a couple of decades. You know, if you're still like, if you're still, if you're still at the cutting edge of that. It's been like pretty much like a, like a Drew Basile lifetime since I played.

Yeah, yeah, literally. I mean, I wasn't even, I was barely around. I was like, I was in a cradle at that point, Rob. I was unintelligible. So it's been a while. I mean, no offense. You're a young guy. I don't take any offense. I think it's great. I, you know, I really enjoy getting to talk to like this new generation of, you know, people that grew up with Survivor. And I hope you know this, you're, you're one of my favorites to talk to, but there's a bunch of people, uh, young people

from the new era that really just, uh, like are so quick thinking about the show and have all sorts of interesting ideas about, uh, the show and where it is. So, uh, no, uh, disrespect at all. it is. So no disrespect at all. No. Well, I appreciate it, Rob. I do. You're my favorite to talk to, too, of all the of all the podcasters and such. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of imitators, but, you know, you're the original and I admire that. But let's let's talk 50. Right. Because it's that everyone's mine. Everyone's playing for return. I've said this before. I've said come on, you know, podcast your podcast and said that the jury is a really flawed format because there's a separate game that goes on in the jury. And I won't reiterate that because people get really mad at it. You know, it affects

the validity of their favorite winners. But jurors are making decisions based on wins. But can I ask you, but I can ask you to just, can you give us the quick version? Oh yeah, for sure. Okay, the basic premise. And everyone, every time I say this, I get all these, like, mean, you know, things. So I refined it in my mind. I've distilled it. But there's the game going on out there on the island. Yeah.

But there is a separate game that goes on at home. Or, like, on the journey. They're playing not just to, you know, get their way and have their favorite people win, but to have a winner that reflects well in them to appear, you know, well on the jury, either by having big reactions or, or, you know, speaking the most, um, or making a positive press. And if you go watch rewatch the 43 jury, you'll see this in spades. Like everyone is showboating, everyone's performing. Um, the real thing about the jury though, is that like, imagine a legal jury. That's kind of the model for survivor, explicitly the model, you know, back in the day,

it was like, this is, they're going to like hear the case and they're going to decide who's the winner. What if the legal jury has like, you know, their stock dividends are like dependent on who wins, you know, they're, they're, they're invested. I mean, like they're, they're putting their finger in the scale, you know, it's, it's not going to be impartial decision-making. It's going to be decision-making that's reflective of their own self-interest on how, you know, they'll look. And also it'll be decision-making reflected on the kind of weird psychodynamics of Ponderosa because Ponderosa is a weird place. I mean, everyone is like, everyone is grieving. It's like a funeral in certain ways, but then also it's like,

everyone is immediately playing to, you know, play again and to kind of like solidify their narrative that they were the best among the jury. And that means denigrating other people. And so basically, the results of the first game on the island are entirely disconnected from the more important results of the second game, which not only do you not get to see on television, but is then determining the winner. So the jury has some real problems that I've tried to express in brief. These problems really are amplified when 50 is on the cards, because then it's not just like, oh, well, who's going to win the season and make me look good. But like, who's going to

set up my narrative for 50? Who do I want to kind of like, you know, play 50 with, do I, you know, who, who might the producers want to win? They'll never tell you, but who might they want to win so that I can, you know, be good and vote for them to get on 50. Uh, and there's a lot of, can I go back to, uh, when you say that, um, okay. So it's like, uh, if there are stockholders that are on the case for the drew, what do you mean by that in terms of like, um, you know, at 43, I feel like it's like the controversial jury opinion. Like, are you saying you saying like uh that the people in the jury feel like that that's the best winner of the season in their mind and so that's what they want to do okay i had this thought with austin that when i was up there voting on the jury if austin won

i would be an idiot right if austin won i would become editing wise uh a liability like a like a guy who would say anything socially austin would be the strategic mastermind my edit would be diminutive right i would i would be like i would be like the sidekick the sancho paz um which actually i guess sancho paz is smarter than don quixote but i would i would be the sidekick completely but if austin lost i would probably get a pretty good edit i would probably get like a great edit and it might seem like say again yeah yeah it might seem like once i left then things fell apart but you voted for him i did because i was like austin's my friend because you're a game should be played that's not like you know i'll take the bullet whatever

yeah i thought austin played a good game too. But I considered that pressure on me. And I thought, oh my God, every other person is to a greater or lesser degree making these kinds of calculations. And a lot of them don't have this like, you know, kind of like anti-competitive, you know, desire to be loyal to their friends and, you know, to support the people they played with.

A lot of people are just going to be like, oh, well, you know, let's do it. Let's, let's, let's do what's best for me. I don't care about the game. Yeah. Can you map this to 46? Cause that was probably one of the more recent controversial jury opinions. I would really hate to like psychoanalyze, you know, people on that jury. Cause I, I really like a lot of that cast. But I think like, let's take a, let's take an uncontroversial one. Let's take Tiffany and Kenzie, right? Tiffany

gets back to the jury. She finds out that Kenzie had betrayed her, betrayed, planned to betray her, you know, long before Tiffany had ever thought about betraying Kenzie. So her ally, her friend beat her out. Tiffany's got a couple options. Tiffany can be mad. Tiffany can vote for Charlie or Ben. She can be neutral. Or she can recognize that, gee, if Kenzie wins, it makes me look a lot better. Because then I was fooled by the best of the best. I was working with the winner. I was working with the person who dominated our season. If

Charlie wins, then I was fooled by a runner up. You know, I was fooled by this nobody, you know, who was inconsequential. So there there was kind of an editing incentive for Tiffany to go one way. But how do you know that Tiffany didn't have the same thought process that you have of like, hey, but you know what? This is my friend who's there and I got to do the right thing. And that might be how other people are thinking. But I'm actually going to vote the way that you're supposed to vote. She probably did.

The point is not like this was a corrupted result. The point is that there is this alternative game that goes on in the jury that puts into question in my mind any winners of survivor okay do you have a fix what would you do different you know what what what they used to do sequester the jury or don't don't they never sequestered the jury you're telling me at the beginning of the game i got this from tyson so that maybe what did he say he said that you know when he first played they had like you know this buzzer and they would they would hit the buzzer whenever anybody started talking game and they'd be like you cannot talk about game you cannot

discuss the game i've never heard that before i'm not saying that tyson is wrong about that and maybe that in survivor token genes they had they were like particularly strict for whatever reason they were like uh you know because there's been a lot of over 20 some odd years, there's been a lot of different people that like run the Ponderosa ship. You know, it's not necessarily like it's been, you know, one specific way. So there's probably like some Ponderosas that are more loosey goosey and some that are more strict. Well, maybe, maybe Tyson, it wasn't a vision for the past. It was a vision of the ideal future. Ah, so Tyson was seeing like 60.

Yeah, maybe he was. He's kind of a clairvoyant guy. You know, he's had some good reads out there. I think that you need to sequester the jury, kind of like in a law court. When the people leave the courtroom, they're not allowed to talk to each other and they're certainly not allowed to talk about the case so you can talk to each other at

ponderosa i mean that it would be pretty pretty atomized if you couldn't yeah but like they can't have this like this this meta-analysis going on in my opinion yeah that's the way to i get that i think in a perfect world i think that that's how you would do it. You know, I heard Jeff talk about this on the on fire podcast, and I thought this made some sense of that. Jeff said that it would be cruel to not let the players talk to each other after they get out of the game, that that's part of the healing process of that. They're back and reintegrated with the players that they were in the game with. How would you feel about that? You know, I came out of the game a survivor and I didn't talk to anyone I played with for three to four months. Yeah. You know, I self-consciously-

But you're atypical. No, I am, for sure. But one of the things they'll always tell you is that like, oh, like you're like co, you know, you're co-bonded with these people. I forget the word, but like, you are like imbricated with them and they're the only people that are gonna understand your experience and you're gonna fly out to see them every weekend and like you guys are like gonna talk to each other every day on the phone and i was like oh that sounds really weird like that

sounds really unhealthy you know and it's like it is going back to ponderosa and having like a a week-long celebration of why you lost the game and like hyper diagnosing it with these other people about to leave. And you're going to have to chase around the country. Is that the healthy way to process survivor? I don't know. I mean, there's certainly no you know, there's no empirical data on the on other approaches. So I'm not I'm not convinced necessarily about this this Jeff's argument. But even still, I mean, I hate to say it, we've got a television show to produce. Like, you guys can talk about the game and break it down,

but no talking about the winner, no talking about who should win, no talking about, no advocacy, as little as possible is my sense. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that they should, you know, that as much as possible, I know people are going to sneak away,

but, you know, I don't know how much, you know, actual like game talk is going if it's like constant or if it's like here or there. But, yeah, I think that they should probably, you know, try to cut that back if they can. And it's like people are like, oh, it couldn't be done. Like, what are you talking about? You spend a week at Ponderosa not speaking to each other at all beforehand. It could easily it could easily be done. It's already proof of concept. But anyways, that's that's that's my gripe about the jury.

And I forget I forget how we got onto this. Yeah. So is the only way to then navigate that is to make sure you go to the end with the goatiest goats that you can. Honestly, probably. Or the alternative is to go with a really tight group that has played an insular game together, right? Because then, you know, the people, the people in the jury don't really have a stake in the decision. Like they just got, they just got dominated. It's got whipped, you know? So you're going to the end with, with, um, with a tight group that they, you know, that, that, that kind of factors don't go into play with.

That's something that I was counting on out there, Rob. I mean, I was respect kind of the opposite of a lot of these, these, these nerds, I was respected, but I wasn't liked. Like I, I was respected enough on a game. What's up. You can win with that. What's up. You can win with that. No, absolutely. Absolutely. But I knew that it meant that like, you know, like I, I really had some distance from these people's like narrative storylines and like, it didn't really, you know, it didn't really affect them if I had one.

And that could be like a, you know, a plus or it could be a con. But yeah, I had, I had something with the jury that is kind of escaping me uh the people have been saying recently that it's just not true and it's um what do you what do you think rob what do you think about this idea of like the last minute reveal you know that like you could and it came into play here i mean andy got nervous about and he spilled the beans and then he got cut which i don't think is what really happened but we can talk about it um what do you think of the this last minute reveal is this effective is this is this a is this a pipe dream the what do you mean the last minute reveal like the idea that you could play this covert undercover game that you know but nobody's at the final tribal council that Andy is going to then, you know, unmask at the final tribal council.

I mean, look, you've been a juror in the new era. I think it is not enough time in that final tribal council to be able to explain things. And I think that also that if it does not line up with people's perceptions of like, wait, Andy, what are you talking about? Like, that's that's not what happened. That's not how I experience things. And even if, you know, Andy's version of events might be true, or at least true from Andy's perspective as far as his confessionals back that up, like, there might not be enough time.

And I kind of think that you have to be able to like breadcrumb these jurors a little bit, but maybe Andy did too much. Oh yeah. I mean, maybe he did too much for sure. And maybe it would have been effective, but like, from my perspective, the thing about like the final trial counsel is that you offer every person like a little bit of wiggle room, right? Like, Oh, maybe I'm misinterestimating you in this way. Like maybe you weren't just athletic or maybe, you know, maybe you did have a social game to back up your strategy.

Like I'm willing to, I'm willing to explore certain areas that I've already like, you know, I've stereotyped your game and there are certain areas where I'm willing to give you a little bit of gift. But those areas are contingent

on what I already understand about you. If you want to go into final tribal council and really explode the stereotype, you know, every way, I mean, like I was different than you thought. The only way you can do that is if they feel they,

they don't know anything about you. Kind of like a Christie on what? Survivor Australia. Andy referenced her in the exit interview too, but misguidedly because for her, they had no stereotype. They were like, who is this enigma? And so then she could, you know, she could say anything. She seems pretty excited and believable. What do you mean? She just like had a lot of energy about I did this and I did this and I did this.

Oh, yeah, exactly. Let her come. The thing for Andy is that everybody knows him already. He's already got the stereotype, right? He can't. Everyone has seen this, this, you know, day one on the beach or day on day three. You can't come into Final Tribal like that and just rewrite history and rewrite what people know about you.

You have to start that earlier. And that's why, you know, people like Jake, I think Jake's got a lot of props, you know, for really realizing the theater of the new era on a way that nobody else did. Yeah. Theater kid. I mean, it was part of his moves. He was like, we can't tell D because it needs to be theatrical. Like, wow. That's kind of like a game changing realization, you know,

for somebody to actually say like the presentation is everything, but that's why fire making has become so like important because it's this last chance to reset your stereotype, you know, to, to change, change your image a little bit. Even if the move is totally inconsequential. You know, to change your image a little bit, even if the move is totally inconsequential. You said about Andy that you're not sure that him revealing too much to Rachel was what ultimately happened to him. Yeah, I am not sure. What do you think is an alternative theory?

So the last last night's episode, a really good episode. I really like this season. I think it's the best season of the new era but better than your own season i do i think it's better than my own season i think my season is the second best because i think that 46 despite big flashy moves never came together uh narratively like it never really cohered to anything yeah um but i think this season is probably better than my season. Will you be kicked out of the 45 group chat for publicly saying that 47 is a better season? Well, I don't, I, you know, I, I probably will. Or is there a new group chat started today? That's called 45 minus drew.

Maybe I'm trying to play for like, you know, 15. I'm like trying to get into the 47 group chat. I'm like, bring me in. It's the honorary 19th, the alternate. Who knows? There's layers to my machinations. It's pretty good. But probably I just think it's a slightly better season.

But one of the things this season has done really well, and it was on prime display during this episode, is these amazing emotional conversations that are so expressive right like editing is on point i mean watching survivor 47 editing wise is a tour de force i mean you're watching like an oscar winner because you have the back-to-back of sam and rachel having this really honest you know or at least on sam's part like face-to-face about like this was a misconnection it's never gonna work like i'm. And Rachel's crying, but she's faking it. And then in contrast, so expressive, but she's faking it.

And then in contrast, you have this interaction with teeny and Genevieve, which was really like chef's kiss. I mean, like Genevieve is so shocked that she just admits it openly. And like, I'm a sitting duck and teeny's like face of shame looking down. I mean, it was so, it was so poignant. And then there was kind of like a re-acknowledgement of these relationships and final trouble, you know, whose relationship was never acknowledged Andy's and he's ostensibly sitting

there on the beach. He's, he's one of the boys, but he never speaks. You know, he's just, you just, you know, assume he's there somewhere behind the camera when Andy, you know, talks to tribal council about his relationship with Rachel, whereas it's taken seriously with Sam. It's taken, you know, with Genevieve and Teenie is taken seriously. And he's kind of gets, gets laughs from the jury and like, they show the laughs from the jury. So you're kind of meant to like wander a little bit, you know, what I see this Andy Rachel interaction boiling down to

is kind of resentment. I see Andy being very confident about, you know, the kind of game he's played and he's taken out Rachel and he's like, it's okay. You're super, you're the most important person to me. And that's, that's annoying. Rachel, I mean, Rachel thinks she can beat both Sam and Andy. She's probably a lot more annoyed by Andy's approach than she is by Sam's. But then additionally, Andy tells Rachel, oh, you're the most important person out here to me. OK, that's exactly who I want as a juror rather than Sam, who doesn't even really like me. If Andy's the most important person to me and he's a goat, I can beat anyways. Yeah. Screw him. Out you go. You know. So how strategic was it?

I don't know. There's a there's a real attempt right now in the edit and probably maybe because it's true to like pump Andy out. Andy is a strategic beast. Andy needs to get taken out because he's a real attempt right now in the edit-in, probably maybe because it's true, to like pump Andy out. Andy is a strategic beast. Andy needs to get taken out because he's a strategic threat. But Rachel's reasons for taking out Andy are very vague. They're like, ooh, maybe he's somebody. Whereas Sam is like, this, this, this, and he'll be bad for this, this, this. Andy's like, I don't know.

So I think that's probably what happened. Yeah, that's super interesting. So I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what you're saying, that Rachel taking out Andy is a little bit more like Tony taking out Trish of like, okay, this is going to be somebody who is going to be a vote for me on the jury. Somebody that has seen my game,

that can understand my game and probably won't like, as a super fan of the game, isn't going to vote for teeny or Sue. Well, that's the first part of it. And the second part is that I think that Andy kind of went about it a little clunkily. Yeah.

It seemed like it seemed like Rachel was annoyed by his approach. I think so too. I think a little bit. Yeah. You know, relationship with her. We're not taking it seriously by her and by the jury. So it seems like maybe there would have been some friction there.

But I think that's probably why Andy got taken out. It'd be interesting to hear Rachel's side eventually when she gets to sit down for these long conversations. So it's a new year. You know what that means, setting big goals. Maybe you promised yourself you're going to hit the gym every day. Or maybe you said you're going to learn to make fire with a flint for once, or the classic save more money. But let's be honest, New Year's resolutions tend to fizzle out by February. Wouldn't it be great if at least one of those goals could be automatic? That's where Acorns comes in. Today's episode is sponsored by

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Investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash robpod. Drew, a lot of discussion on the internets of this, uh, past couple of days over Rachel. And, it is varied from anywhere from Dama. Bate has called her,

uh, the best player of all time. Oh, I saw that. Yes. Uh, I think your friends in real life though. I think he's just,

they are, they are, they are, they're, they're in like some, I think they started playing, uh, online poker together during the pandemic and so uh that i he there's a fondness there uh others have sort of been poo-pooing rachel and where she's at what's been

your sober assessment of rachel as a player this season and potential winner what do i think of rachel no holds bar What do you like? What do you got to watch out for if she's on 50? Rachel is kind of a weird player. And I think Rachel and Genevieve are both like, you know, the Titans of the season. And they're both they're both weird for different reasons. But Rachel is like a master of the little moves, right? Like she makes all these like small little opportune calculations that are just so perfect, that are so like, you know, neat and tidy, like going and slipping down on the beach to listen to the conversation. Great heads up game awareness, you know, the ability to do that. So smart.

And then on the really big level, Rachel's great. I mean, finding all the advantages, deploying them correctly. She's a master of these little things and she's highly competent in these big things. I mean, certainly we had a season of failure. So the big things are not easy to do. And yet somehow the sum of the parts is a little bit less than it should be on paper, right? If you're a master at the little things and the big things, you should just be the goat. You should run the game. And yet Rachel is constantly being left out of votes. There are constantly cross wires in the social game. There are like little strategic things that don't work out her way. And I'm kind of baffling because it's like, how do you have someone this good who, you know,

is like on 50% of the votes? And so I just feel like there's some kind of like disconnect with applying all of these things that she's really, really good at to the game. I mean, like, why, why is that? You know, like if, if she's truly like as good socially as it seems to me, like, why is she falling through the cracks? I think it could be kind of like a Caleb situation on my season where somebody is just so, it's so like transparent, transparently, you know, possessing these qualities and possesses them in maybe in a way that's not reassuring. That's very forthright, that it's kind of really easy to target that. Um, and so like, if we see all these great things about Rachel and Rachel really is these, this great, cause I think she is, um, everyone else

sees it too. And so these little subtle moves are not like subtle at all. In fact, actually, they're kind of like rubbing in your face and like, Oh, I'm a professional. I'm a specialist. Yeah. Uh, that's a really interesting way to have put it. I'm glad you brought Caleb into this because, uh, you started talking about Genevieve and Rachel. I think that Caleb, the, the Caleb idea applies more in terms of Genevieve, uh, and not just as they're both Canadians, but I feel like that, uh, they seem both of them, Caleb and Genevieve, like such a polished package of like, oh, they have it all. And I think that there's a little bit more of a,

and for some different reasons, I think that Caleb's charm is very noticeable to anybody that encounters encounters him uh i think genevieve has that a little bit but also then has you know uh bouts of lacks of confidence but then also like is very capable in all sorts of way so i think that genevieve and caleb is a little bit of a better one-to-one but for rachel that i almost feel like that she is not quite a Caleb in that. I don't think that Rachel is somebody who pops like I don't I doubt that there were a lot of people. And if you go back to the preseason who were really paying attention to Rachel as being a

person to watch out for. But I love what you said about Rachel being the master of the little moves. And I wonder if that like the little moves that she has made, like ended up being noticeable enough to people where people were sort of like, OK, watch out for her. I think that something that I'd love to talk to Rachel about this was when she tried to steal the rice and got busted. That I wonder if that was a thing that really put her out there in a lot of people's minds of like, Ooh, that was, that was sneaky. That was a good idea. Look what she can do. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it wasn't, and you know, there are a lot of like little, you know, interactions and challenges like that, that people are funny. I don't know how serious they're taken, but I'm sure that, that like, at least, you know, put her on the radar, um, winning that, that rock thing to, you know, get the advantage compared to, um, the other two. I'm sure that that like at least, you know, put her on the radar winning that that rock thing to, you know, get the advantage compared to the other two.

I'm sure that that is kind of like heightening the profile. And she got clocked by the Genevieve's of the world who were like, OK, that's that's the kind of person that we're watching out for. I think the Caroline also was, you know, another shark on this season who sort of like clocked. OK, that Rachel is somebody to watch out for. But I feel like that Rachel was sort of like a like an antithesis of a of a Caleb type in that she seems so, you know, plain and somebody who is not the biggest personality and that it felt like that that was great camouflage for her. I think that she had been very concerned about her threat level throughout the game. It just so happened that, you know, she ended up having to do so many things that, you know, then her threat level just has kept escalating. And I've been very impressed with the way she's been having to tap dance through this post merge to get to this position.

Well, there is a way in which playing from the bottom is easier than playing from the top. For sure. Because when you're playing for the bottom, you've got like two options and it's really clear what they are. And you can you can just, you know, go head first for them. Whereas playing for the top is a little bit vaguer. I mean, there's an infinity of options. It's really hard to know what to do. And when I say Rachel's kind of like Caleb, I don't mean that they have the same personality.

You have the same drive to be liked by them that you do for Caleb. You really want Caleb to like you. It seems like Genevieve probably is the same way with Teenie. What I mean is that not being able to control people's perception of you, not being able to hold cards close to of you and not being able to like hold cards close to your chest about what you're good at is it is a detriment to your game is a flaw in your game uh and when rachel walks into the merge being extremely relatively unassuming right she's not like this big like outspoken character even in confessional she's very low-key but when

genevieve caroline sam all immediately clocked that about you and you're like, you know, under the radar. You're not you're not under the radar. I mean, it's it's a flaw. Drew, another thing about Rachel and, you know, I saw this a little bit in the pre-merge that she was on a lot of those puzzles in the first half of the season in the pre-merge. And I think it was also noticed by people how good Rachel is at doing the puzzles. So I think that that might've also been something that was on people's minds where people who are out there looking for,

all right, who are the threats? I think that that was something else that put Rachel out there on their radar. That's really astute. I think that apps, I didn't notice that, but that,

that absolutely played a play, um, played a role. Um, and yeah, I think it's been very impressive for her. And, you know, going back to what you said about playing from the bottom,

like there's two types of people that are on the bottom. There are the people that are on the bottom who are everybody is trying to get out. And there are the people that are at the bottom that nobody is trying to get out. And Rachel, I think, has had like this incredibly hard degree of difficulty to what she's been having to have to do because she's been on the bottom at times and everybody is targeting her. Yeah, totally.

I mean, Rachel is between a rock and a hard place every day since week three. So major credit has to go to her for playing that like mike um my holloway holloway mike holloway style game really hard i certainly couldn't do it um and then like you know as you'll talk to her i think a lot of like physical training went into that um and maybe she mentioned this pre-game that like she you know had been hitting the gym prepping for literally a year so it's it's very well deserved yeah um now can i ask you so go just go back to rachel and i feel stupid for not bringing this up earlier that she was an

alternate on your season right was she at ponderosa with you guys no i i think tyh was the or tiana was the alternate oh i think she was an alternate for 46. Okay. So I don't know anything about that. I know that she was an alternate with somebody who was on 48 that has kind of been like, you know, implicitly released or whatever on Twitter. Yeah. So I didn't know anything for Rachel. Obviously, you do have kind of a bond with your alternate, though,

because they're like, you know, they also ran. They were there. So like Tiana, you know, I know a lot of people like were rooting for her for my season. But there's an advantage to being the alternate. There's a big advantage. I mean, it's time to like, it's time to start targeting the alternates because they know

how to prep for Ponderosa. They have connections with people who have already played, so they can kind of get the inside scoop. I mean, I don't know if Tiana did. Well, I bet Rachel and Tiana, neither of them had said that they were alternates. It's a good point. It's a good point.

I don't know. Yeah, I guess there's no way to suss it out. And Austin, he was an alternate, but he had not been to Fiji previously. He was an alternate who got, the rare alternate who gets through. Yeah, that's true. He was an alternate who got the rare alternate who gets through. Yeah. That's true. He got pulled up. I don't know how you target the alternates.

I guess it would be impossible short of a break. Maybe like on the first day of Ponderosa, like, hey, do you know where the water fountain is? And it's like, how did they know? Yeah. They know. They're not lost. They know their way around here. Yeah. Suspicious yeah suspicious wow it adds a new

layer to it um but i would also target anybody who's really close with like former players you know something like kelly came and she's like oh i know parvati um if if rachel bruce knew kane kane yeah for about 44 oh like if you know Kane, like if you're Bruce? Yeah. He name dropped all the survivors he knew. Yeah, I don't know why they clowned on him for that. Like, of course he knows, you know, what are you talking about? But yeah, it's a huge advantage.

That's what Emily was saying. Oh, and she was right at the time i was like ah wasn't you know once you're out here for a few days he was out here for like eight hours he doesn't know anything not true playing survivor again is a huge advantage you know what to look for in so many different styles you know how production works um i mean it's a big play and even the alternate gets some of that information so i wonder how effective it was you know for rachel at least at the beginning to kind of like orient herself i want to ask you about the tuku alliance and it seemed like there was a point in this season where it looked like to us all right here we go

tuku steamroll here it comes they just watched survivor 45 this is the new read before and tuku And Tuku, Gabe, Sue, Caroline, Kyle, they're about to run the table. It didn't happen. Did they blow it? They totally blew it. It was embarrassing, too, because they were basically the read before. I mean, you had at eight, you had four people in your alliance, and then you had one person who had no choice but to work with you. Right. Emily, the near slash genevieve so they had

it they had it and they screwed it up for i think really interesting reasons uh total blow i mean but look at where the like the final four and they're not around anymore and they haven't around only six yeah yeah well so as soon as hanging on there she's just been forgotten she's lingering around the island you know pacing back and forth, you know, out of date. And I think I think it speaks to kind of the like viscosity or like the inertia, the staying power of what I'll call like the public. When like Genevieve's idol was to use that as a test case, if Genevieve were to go to Rachel and say say i have this idol or sue i have this idol nobody would believe her right but when teeny comes from genevieve to say genevieve has an idol it's true right facts take on like this additional authority or like vibes take on this additional authority

when conveyed like second or third hand because they become part of the public they become part of the rumors yeah and really good survivor players kind of slowly, like Genevieve, with Tini, kind of slowly and tacitly control the rumors and the discourse. It's a very subtle way to affect your moves that really does work. The point is, though, is that this public doesn't actually matter. People play the game based on these public vibes, but they are inconsequential, right? And so when you're like Gabe, when you're, when you're Caroline, when you're, when you're Kyle, you just have to look together and say, well, wait a second, we just go on the public. You know, we don't need to pay attention to the public. We don't need to pay attention to the fact that everyone's targeting us. We have the

numbers to make it such that it doesn't matter, but they didn't, they kind of cave to it. And it was really interesting because if they had just ignored what the vibes were, you know, like the kind of current of the game, they would have cruised through to probably at least the final six before Gabe got sniped by Carolyn. So it was unfortunate. And it kind of speaks to the fact there are a lot of different levels to play the game of Survivor. There's the narrative level, which people get caught in because it's TV and you're going to see yourself. And, you know, it's supposed to be this journey of self-discovery. it's TV and you're going to see yourself and it's supposed to be this journey of self-discovery. There's the public level, which is like, that's how the jury is deciding. That's how I need to pay attention to. But then there are the brute factual realities of the game and realities of the numbers. And if this was a tribe of chimpanzees, what would the higher power

structure be? And that's the level that you really need to pay attention to for like kind of the the micro moves of the merge and they ignored it that's my assessment wow i've never heard the chimpanzee level of survivor oh yeah you got to get on this rob you got to get on this this the see i would read all about the chimpanzee level of survivor i feel like that was like the old era but you think it's alive in the new era oh it's not an new era? Oh, it's not an issue of like, you know, it's not an issue of like, are we going to go back to like the primitive, you know, the thing, are we going to be cavemen? It's, it's like a, it's a biological thing. You know, we are mammals. We, you know, anthropologically we exist on, you know, like Simeon power structures. And the thing

about eight power structures is that they're constantly contested. They're contestants by violence. They're contested by shows of force. But once they form, they're extremely durable. You know, everyone has an intuitive sense of what the power structure is, and they're forced to either respect it or overthrow it. What I'm arguing here is there's kind of like a mismatch between this like this very human sense of, oh, here's what the social group is saying and like, here's how we need to interact. And the kind of more fundamental recognition that like we have numbers, we have strength, we have power, that nothing else matters. Yeah. People might think that this sounds a little off the wall, what you're saying. But I feel like that, you know, I think that this speaks to the true nature of Survivor. And I think that why it's been such an enduring concept where over 24 years that people really resonate with this format because that there is like this big part

of this that's like innate in us, like not just being voted out of the tribe, but also this idea of, you know, like seeking power in like, okay, keeping allies around and, you know, sticking with my voting structure and trying to overthrow something that isn't working for us or somebody who thinks they're in power and we're going to overthrow them with our votes put together. Like that's fun. You know, really how we got to this point in the first place. Totally. And I'll even take it a step farther, Rob. It sounds like it sounds like maybe I'm I'm I'm I'm sounding like a loony. So you tell me if I am and I can I can rescue myself. But there's been a lot of anthropological research about this idea of the scapegoat, right? And these people,

these, these, these thinkers, they argue, and it's taken very seriously, um, that societies form through scapegoating somebody who was outside the society. And that when you make that boundary, when you make that line between us and them, then it allows for us to really obtain cohesion. And so the origin of society is the scapegoating of somebody who's outside of society. Um, and like, that's messy. That's really ugly. I hope that isn't true. But I will tell you, when I watch Survivor, a lot of times tight alliances form because they find somebody to put outside the alliance and to like, you know, to demonize. you recognize you know you recognize a scapegoat when you see one and that that's kind of a way to like to build groups the trouble with tuku is that the scapegoat was inside the group um so like in kyle kyle yeah yeah kyle's the scapegoat that causes you to form your thing kyle and tk well you've brought him along so it really weakens the integrity of your group um and the other problem is that then you know the audience

ends up becoming very like sympathetic to the person oh yeah everyone voting and then you end up having a very unfavorable edit in terms of like the television show that people are watching at home so you feel like you're like okay i like uh look i'm i'm crushing it i'm killing this thing uh and then ultimately people like we hate you well Well, is that is that like unless you win? Is that true, though? Because like let's let's go back in the day like like one world. What was it in Christina? Yeah.

Total scapegoat was was bullied the whole season, you know, even on season 40, even on the dynamic on season 40. Unlike Edge of Extinction, there was major scapegoating. Yeah. Right. Typically, the edit just doesn't, you know, hide this fact, hides this fact. That's how games are played now recently um the survivor editors i think have really made an effort to be very fair you know they want to portray people as they were things how they happened they don't want to do like the franken cuts or whatever um i certainly felt like season 45 was very accurate in its portrayals um with the exception of bruce but even bruce there that

was a scapegoat so they're giving a lot of more. Bruce, you think, should have been shown more positively? Say again? You think that Bruce should have been shown and depicted more positively? I think that Bruce's initial tribe really hated him. And I think that a lot of us who met him at the merge had no issue with Bruce. We thought he was a really nice guy. But they kind of just stuck to that initial narrative.

And so I felt badly for him. But other than that, very accurate editing season. So the edit likes to kind of aid these underdogs, likes to kind of show like, oh, you know, Jake and Carolyn and Ben, they're really good people and they should be in it, even if they're not, you know? Artini. But it's not factual. And back in the day, you would have not, you know, Artini. But it's not it's not factual.

And like back in the day, you know, you would have just dunked on them. Yeah. Anyways, to stay with Tuku for a minute. OK, it was kind of a hard situation where for whatever reason, Kyle, who was at the bottom of Tuku, felt like, OK, this is my turn. I need to take out Gabe. At the same time, Caroline also seemed to jump ship. I think what we don't know is, did Caroline read where the numbers were going and then jump on board with

that? Or did Caroline simultaneously make the same move that Kyle was making to go after Gabe? that Kyle was making to go after Gabe? Oh, I think for sure the latter. Like, I think it was a combined group that everyone except for Sue realized, like, oh, we have to turn on each other. We have to acknowledge the fact that everyone's looking at us. But they didn't.

And so it was unfortunate. I think that if three of the four people had held firm, like if you'd just gotten Kyle and Gabe together and be like, we don't need them, that would have happened. That would have been very attainable. It was already on board.

Is Carolyn going to jump ship after that? Is Genevieve going to jump ship when they're the group of three doesn't like her, doesn't want to work with her, doesn't trust her? No. Yeah. So it was a real miscalculation. And I think a lot of people, Kyle gabe caroline succumb to the pressure simultaneously i will say that i thought that caroline was set up pretty well and in a good spot to win following that and if it was not for the uh duplicity of operation italy that i feel like that caroline or rachel winning immunity there i think that that Caroline comes out of that pretty good.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's always fun in the season when you have two players who are the same, so you can just kind of mark them, and you can track how they do differently and say, wow, the advantages really made a difference on this one. And Caroline and Rachel are such similar players. I mean, they're such similar players.

They play the exact same kind of way. They have the same demeanor. And Caroline fell short. So, you know, like the, she was in a great position to win. I mean, she had a lot of momentum. She had a lot of the soft skills to get there. Coalition building, maybe even to a degree that Rachel didn't have. But Rachel just was clutching challenges and clutch.

She clutched on the big stuff. Wins immunity, finds advantages, and that supersedes. Are there any other players that you thought were particularly interesting this season? Yeah, I think there are three interesting players this season. There are some players who are interesting as test cases, like, gee, don't freaking do that. But Genevieve, Rachel, and Andy, interesting players, each bringing something a little bit new to the table, each with some flaws. I think outside of that, that group, it's worth touching on like Gabe, because Gabe was like, you know, gave Gabe kind of failed. Right. Gabe kind of reminded me of Tevin in a way that they're like, it's such a big game and such like a you know perfuming sense of self-confidence yeah um come to absolutely nothing i gave gabe the my i started

after the season my inaugural tevin davis award for the best episode of the season was episode one yeah gabe was the winner of that he had a good episode one. I don't even remember. Yeah, he was all over the place looking for the idol. Oh, yeah. And he recovered. Yeah.

It was like, oh, this guy. And he was talking about Russell Hance. And it was like, okay, he put together this alliance. Like, here we go. Yeah, I don't know. Gabe really, like, and then the second episode was the TK boot. So it really seemed like that Gabe is, like, maybe the star of the season. Well, there's something to be said for endurance, which is that a lot of people can do that at the beginning, but can't do that for, like, 23 days.

And Russell was amazing because he could. You know, Russell could go, you know, that was just who Russell was. He could sleepwalk and do it. But people begin to burn out. You know, Sam's confessionals get a little bit less witty after week one. Gabe is a little bit less aggressive just because he loses steam after the pre-merge. But Gabe was like, I don't know. He just was so obsessed with his vision of how he was going to play and how he was going to treat people and where they fit in that he wasn't

flexible enough to make it through. So it's worth commenting on him. Um, Andy, really interesting player. What do you think of Andy Robb? I mean, I've known Andy for a long time. Andy was a person who had called into the patron shows for years and years. So I have an affinity for Andy for sure. I think he was such an interesting player because that he is like a super analytical person but in a way that's and I think that you are uh as well like uh incredibly analytical but also that Andy I think is like very in touch with his emotions and his feelings in a way that I think that typically the really analytical players are not and And so I think that Andy, what is so fascinating about him is that he's like very feeling, but also at the same time, like a real like thinker about the game. Yes, completely agree. I mean, you've you've hit the nail on the head there with

a big part of what I was going to say, but I think a lot of people in the fandom or in the comments, whatever, misunderstand who Andy is as a player. Andy is first and foremost an emotional player, right? He's not actually that analytic. I mean, he is analytical for sure, but the analysis is like superstructure. The analysis is something we put on the end to justify our decisions. Really an emotional player. He's playing for recognition. He's playing for recognition. He's playing for redemption.

He's playing because survivor is like the conclusion to his narrative of his, of his twenties and thirties. And it's gonna, it's gonna capstone who he is and who he's become. And the fact that, you know, he's put himself into a successful position and survivor is going to prove all that.

And then when that, you know, that proof is so jeopardized, like it was at the beginning of the game, you really get put into like a survivor flight or flight mentality, not just because like, I want to win the game, but like, oh my God, my entire self-perception is riding on doing well on survivor. I think Andy really put that level of stock into the experience. And so it's interesting that players like subtly clock this and they tell Andy like, oh, the jury isn't going to respect

you. You're not going to be able to get votes. You're not going to be able to have played this kind of game. And it's like the driving motivation for him to make moves or to treat social relations at every turn, even though maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe logically he doesn't need to explain to Rachel why she should vote for him. Maybe he doesn't need to do all this stuff. I just find that really fascinating, that insecurity really fascinating. And it's why I think that survivors, some of the casting mission might be a little not what I would go for in the sense that they're looking for complete people. You know who you are. You're living your life.

You're totally autonomous. But what you really need are people who are deeply emotionally complex, like q like andy um who are not going to behave rationally we're going to behave emotionally and create these fascinating game states i've been thinking about chess recently a little bit rob because it's the world chess championships that just ended yeah um cash one but if you get like two like supercomputers to play chess the games are very boring because the supercomputers will just make the optimal move every time it It doesn't matter when, when the machines make a mistake, like when you have them make the wrong move, then the games become these amazing, fascinating complications. And so like, if we just have like a second chance type thing where it's like, everyone is making

the optimal move and just like cruises on, you know, it's, it's relatively uninteresting, but if you have people like Andy, you have people like q who are making emotional decision making when they don't realize it when they're not self-aware to it then it becomes like really beautiful and i think that's why the fans in a big way have responded so positively to um you know to andy yeah that's really well put how do you screen for that oh i mean they they have like all oh Oh, yeah. What are you looking for? Like whether to find that they have all these psychological tests and that they can go through and it comes through in like the interviews, especially like I think I'm kind of that same that same archetype. I also went out in six to Q and Andy, but like, you know, I'm I'm I'm a complicated guy. Yeah. And some people are very some people are very smooth. A lot of people play Survivor like, you know, pretty, pretty single-minded, pretty, pretty, pretty simple and not in a bad way, but it's just like psychologically. Um, I had a great, I think that casting is under a little bit of strain here. Um, I've noticed recently that like the, a lot of the men are, are kind

of like nerdy, you know, they're kind of dorks. They're like the so-called losers, myself included. And I'm wondering like why this is Rob. And I think a big part of it is, is that a lot of like the like jockey men, like a lot of the like stronger dudes, you know, like have, have political opinions. The show doesn't want to platform. And I think that that kind of screens out a lot of these, like, you know, these macho men are like, you know, the truck drivers that people are always asking for. Um, and I think that the solution to this is not to just, you know, cast like the HR types. Um, but like to find people who like really don't fit into molds, who break archetypes, who are very, you know, complex and nuanced and many facets, maybe people who like don't even know who they are, don't have that confirmed sense of identity, but like have a lot of different jockeying things that will act out. Yeah. And it's kind of a departure

from some of the program currently. Right. I definitely think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense in terms of the people that, you know, you're looking for. But, you know, I do hope that, you know, we get to a point where, you know, you're looking for. But, you know, I do hope that, you know, we get to a point where, you know, everybody's like political view

does not become like the defining characteristic of people. And maybe the show is, you know, as that becomes maybe less of a thing that's sort of like front and center for people, then maybe that is less of a, you know a dividing line in terms of like who we're looking at for casting. Oh, yeah. I mean, like completely agree, you know, wholesale. And I guess we'll just have to, you know, as commentators, we'll just have to see. We'll have to see what happens. I mean, that's a little above our pay grade, but but I think it's a factor in the in

the casting, at least. All right. Well, one more person to ask you about. Okay. Um, Rome was, uh, an interesting personality to be a part of this season. Uh, what did you think of Rome?

Well, I'll tell you, Rome is like the gift that keeps on giving Rob. I just learned this recently. I don't know. Did you know this, that Rome faked his death? I did hear this.

Yeah, I did. I didn't go too much into it uh but i have heard about this yeah i i just heard about he was like a rap battler and he he faked his death so he didn't have to go to this rap competition um very interesting you're kind of a rap battler in a way you know what in like having r-h-a-p yeah rap i don't know how you how you pronounce you say it like that i mean i say r-h-a-p typically r-h-a-P? Yeah. Rap? I don't know. How do you pronounce it? You say it like that? I say R-H-A-P, typically. R-H-A-P or rap?

Listen, anybody who wants to talk about it, we're happy to have them mention it. Oh, the rap battle? The Rome? No, R-H-A-P. Please mention it anywhere. If you could wear a t-shirt next time you go on Jeopardy, that would be huge. Oh, yeah. I will plug it.

All my promo interviews. I think it I will plug it all my, all my promo interviews. I think it's a great opportunity for though, um, for you, Rob, to kind of do something a little bit new and, and some of the investigative reporting wing of your, of your podcast, you know, like of your own crime documentary. I think we need to send a reporter up there to like, you know, wherever Rome is from to New York. And we need to get to the bottom of, is he dead? I think he's alive. Yeah, I think he's alive, too. But I mean, there are conflicting reports. It's important that we investigate.

Fall down a well. Yeah. Yeah. So Rome was a funny guy. I think, you know, prime example of like some psychological complexity. Gee, I mean, he was pretty annoying, though. I wouldn't have wanted to be out there with him. Yeah, I think that that was a lot. But you you know what I think it's so fascinating that Genevieve loved him yes that was kind of I I think that Rome is very like entertaining I think that Rome is somebody that is kind of like funny to to talk to and to watch perform and I wouldn't be shocked for Genevieve who uh was a pretty cool cucumber and like didn't really want to put herself out there that much emotionally. Yeah. If Rome was like a great

sidekick. And a great shield. And a great shield. I'm sure that was a part of it. Rome again kind of like Q in the sense that they have like overriding concerns that condition the way they're going to play the game. So for Q it was control.

Q always had to be in control or the feel that he was in control of the moves and when this was no longer possible q began to make moves against his allies for the sole reason of having control because if he couldn't control moves against the opposition then at least he can control his own like you know combustion in the game and eventually he burned out at that like i'm gonna quit because that was his last way to have control it's like i can still control who goes home if I go home. In the same type of way, Rome had to be the center of attention, like just had to have everything about him, had to be the focus, had to be the one up. And, you know, as as, you know, it became less advantageous to be the center of attention. Right. Because people don't want to work with you.

People like Jeff aren't going to be magnetized to you. And also as it became a lot more people to compete with, he just got spread too thin. And everyone was like, you know, nobody had a sense of who he was. And, you know, he got burned. At that same travel council that Rome sat in Jeff's chair, that there was also a moment where

you would not have sat in Jeff's chair? Oh, the disrespect. The disrespect is unbelievable. Why did Jeff let that happen, man? I mean, I think he knew he was going home. I think he thought that like, oh, like, watch this. Like, he'll be so overconfidence will be dripping off of him and then he'll be voted out.

I know, but they kind of played it like it was cutesy. I was like, I was like the audacity of this guy to like go sit in Jeff's chair, which by the way, it doesn't even look very comfortable. You know, it's like, yeah,

you're going to walk all the way over on television to like go sit on the same chair. I mean, Jeff should get a pillow. I think it's only fair. I think he's 46. I think when he was like eating the popcorn, I think he did get a pillow because he was trying to be comfortable

watching the fireworks at that tribal council. But at that tribal council where Rome sat in Jeff's chair, watching the fireworks at that tribal council, but at that tribal council with Rome sat in Jeff's chair, then there was also a moment where Andy and teeny and Caroline had gotten a three-way shared advantage. And I think you even commented about this on Twitter and they gave it back to, they said, okay,

we're here to play. We're here to burn the three-way shared advantage together. Yeah. What was your thought on that you know it was really interesting um i think that a great comparison would be uh season 27 blood versus water because then you go to these i don't remember what it was called redemption duels yep duels of redemption with something like that. Maybe not. I think it was a Redemption Island duel. Yeah. Redemption Island. That's what it's called. So you go to these and there are publicly clues publicly given out and everyone burned the clues. Yeah. And what was really interesting is that after that survivors stopped doing the public clues, they stopped putting the clues

in the rewards a little bit. You know, they started just hiding them because they recognized that like these overly public advantages, they recognized at the time were discouraging actually advantage-based gameplay. And that you needed to force conditions where people had to keep things silent. Like today, Jeff was annoyed, or well, I guess this week, Jeff was annoyed that everyone told Rachel the plan. And of course he's annoyed because number one, it's strategically, it's a little flaccid but number two it makes for bad tv right good tv is the blind side it's the hashtag blinds that used to appear on the bottom of the screens because you know it was good tv and they wanted you to tell everyone everyone who wasn't watching um so where did you get that jeff was annoyed in the when at tribal council oh you just based on

his his reaction he's like and teeny i'm sure even you told you know you told rachel she was going home did you all tell rachel she was going home you know he was he's frustrated he knows rachel has the idol like i think yeah like i felt like that is he just like is he himself acting at tribal council sometimes he might be a little bit, for sure. But he definitely gets annoyed about this free sharing of information. Well, that's why there's the... Shot in the dark?

Yeah. Shot in the dark. That's what I meant. But then also, and they did something really subtle this season, but that last journey that Rachel went on with the table, they made it ridiculous. Like, it was fun for viewers, but it was insane. And the reason why they made it insane was because if you go back to the camp and you tell that true story nobody's going to believe it

it's a fake story they created a journey that was so ridiculous that it was impossible to be believed because they're tired of people telling everybody everything um so burning the three-way advantage the advantage has been solved it will never not be used like that again which also means it's never coming back um i mean it's the optimal way to play and what instead is going to happen is there's going to be more advantages that are like totally secret and that are totally like you know you can't share yeah brandon donlin i saw a clip on like his instagram i think or somebody else's instagram that I thought was like such a profound and incredible idea. I was like, dear God, this is, this is a really interesting idea. Um, he was suggested there was a verbal only idol that the idol is saying a phrase akin to how you did it at 41. And that you can say the phrase at tribal council to Jeff and you can get the idol. But the thing

about it is that like, nobody can verify and you can't tell anybody. But the thing about it is that like nobody can verify and you can't tell anybody else the phrase. So it's like this big, what if, and I was like, that's an amazing, do you get a physical idol after that? Or Jeff says the immunity idol phrase has been said at tribal council.

And now this person is safe. No, the phrase is the idol. Okay. Saying the phrase is the idol is the advantage. It's not like you say it and then at tribal and then like you would get one later on your back yeah um i think that i think that was a really good idea honestly um and that that things like this the shared idol can never

happen again like what should the phrase be i don't know i mean the thing is you're gonna say it like when you're going to immunity so So it needs to be something bad-ass, you know, it needs to be like, like I, I can't even hypothesize. I mean, you're at tribal council.

It has to be something that it's like, Hey, everybody vote for me tonight. I'm begging you. Maybe, maybe you have to say that. And then you have to be like, Oh,

actually I didn't mean it i don't know what came yeah that is something i might say if i was wanting to go home but i would never actually mean that yeah you know you you what what do you you have like the b&b right kind of like you can have them brainstorm they can come up with mike and leon we'll come up with they're funnier than i am. They'll get you something good. Okay. But the point is, is that like this advantage is ill thought out for a period of Survivor where like advantage gameplay is discouraged and it won't be back.

That's my assessment. Okay. Drew, what else is going on in your world when you're not watching Survivor? Yeah, well, I haven't been following Survivor as closely. I don't know if I mentioned this. Just because it's like, you know, I'm in grad school. I'm at Oxford, stuff like that. You know, Tournament of Champions will be on the cards sooner or later for Jeopardy.

Wow, a champion. A champion. Can you believe it? I know. At least I won something. But, yeah, that's very exciting. The level of competition will be very high, so we'll see how that goes.

It is nice talking about... What if at some point you go back for Jeopardy! Yeah. Ken Jennings says, Drew, you know so much about Jeopardy! Come here. Take my place on the stage. Come sit at my podium and explain this to the crowd.

I'd probably do it. I'd probably do it. Okay. There's a difference between Jeopardy and Survivor. You know, I like, I like Jeopardy. You know, Survivor Tribal Council is a holy place. Make no mistake. The Alex Trebek Theater is not a holy place. It's a good place. It's a holy place. Make no mistake. The Alex Trebek Theater is not a holy place?

It's a good place. It's a good place. I like it a lot. I like it a lot. I'm happy to be there. I'm happy to win lots of money there for sure. That's helped with my enjoyment. But, you know, going to the podium when it's not going to be on TV,

it's a little different than sitting in the chair. You don't even have to say it. Do you know the exact dollar amount that you won on jeopardy yeah pretty good pretty good oh well i mean a great day's at work i'll tell you i made more and i mean jeopardy if you're winning you make on average 40 000 bucks an hour wow i mean what was the last time you had a job that paid you 40 000 bucks an hour never never i made more on a day in jeopardopardy than I did on Survivor. I had to go live out there in the middle of nowhere for 23 days.

So it's a good gig. But there's something about the adventure of Survivor that really is irreplaceable. So, you know, I'm a loyalist. Okay. Always at heart. Other than that, though, not as hot as going on. I got to get a job. I'm about finished with grad school, which is sad.

What job will you have when you get through graduate school? I don't know, Rob. I have no idea. Um, I, I, I'm, I might just for a year, like try and do like the writing stuff. Yeah. Um, working publishing, something like that, just for a couple of years. Will you probably be a professor? work in publishing, something like that, just for a couple of years. Will you probably be a professor?

Well, I would like to be a professor, but I think that kind of academia is on the way out. I think that due to developments in AI and due to changes in the economy, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to go to school. And it means that a lot of these schools won't exist in a couple of decades. And so being a professor is going to go a lot of these schools won't exist in a couple of decades. And so like being a professor is, is going to go great timing to be graduating from Oxford. I know. I, well,

I mean, you know, hopefully you can do something else with it, but I just, I just think academia is not, is not a safe bet in the long run. And, but,

but you know, when has life ever been, but what is, but what is, yeah. So it may be, maybe fun to go out there and try something crazy. So I think I'll probably take a year to do the writing stuff.

If that defaults, I'll go get another degree, either a PhD or law school or an MBA. I don't know. So we'll see. Okay. Well, Drew, anything else that you're watching? I know you're busy. Anything else I'm watching?

What are the types of things that entertain you watching a lot of chess recently you know the world chess championship very exciting is it on twitch or is it on tv yeah well it's on twitch but you can go and i'll do like some of the recap videos i like this dude named gotham chess you know who's very popular on youtube he's got like five million subscribers who's the best survivor chess player is it you it could be me i mean the thing is is that there's a guy on production who plays a lot of chess yes um at ponderosa you know who this is no oh okay um billy billy's his name plays a lot of chess um and we played and i was like how do i stack i beat him and i was like how do i stack he was really good and he's like, you're better than James.

You're really good. You're as good as Spencer. You're about as good as Spencer, I'd say. Wow. And so I was, you know, I was tied with like, with, with, you know, the best he played. So that's pretty good. Spencer was at Ponderosa for like one day. Yeah.

I don't know. That's a very good point. They must've played in that one day and also spencer was you know a little malnourished so i'm sure he's better than me if we were to square up face to face yeah um other than that though i uh i started watching barry recently it's funny okay um and other than that not not much not much going on barry of all the shows my girlfriend wanted to watch it i was like okay we'll watch barry uh so we're plugging along with that it's okay now your girlfriend not to ask too much personal information

you that uh how how is this working with like uh is is she in oxford with you is she home no yeah we're long distance we've been long distance now for uh like a year and a half so it's a long time the thing about oxford Oxford is that it's trimesters and the breaks between trimesters are the length of the trimester. Yeah. So every, every like eight weeks of school, you get six weeks off. So during my six weeks off, I go back to America as we see each other in that capacity. But yeah, it's been a while.

I'm looking forward to getting back to America. Hopefully I'll be headed to the East Coast. She's based in Philly. So ideally New York or Philly. And we will be in person again. Been together for a long time, like four and a half years now, Rob. And I think actually I'm headed back to America tomorrow. I had to check my date, which is a bad sign, but tomorrow to go see her. Okay. Yeah, that's incredible. I didn't know it was such a long relationship. I know it really, I think it helped me in survivor casting because they were like looking at me and they're like okay you know another one i was like oh i've got a girlfriend

for a long time yeah like wow how about that they didn't see that coming yeah maybe he can't socialize yeah um so appreciate appreciate you uh mg and uh and yeah oh wow shout out will she watch this well she sometimes she does watch the stuff I'm in and she's very involved. Like she ran my social media during the show's airing. I just let her do it all. So now that she's done doing it, like, you know, my social media has been pretty dead.

I've been losing followers. I gotta get back on it. I gotta rehire her. What will you do to get the followers back? I don't know. I'll start an OnlyFans. You know, uh, if I hit 30,000 followers on Instagram, I'll start an only fan. Is that your number one platform?

Only fans. No, Instagram. Yeah. Instagram is where I do the best. I've never been good at Twitter, Rob. You know, you're a writer, you're a writer. I know, but Twitter, you gotta be so snappy and you gotta like you know have these like these these what do you do on instagram you're posting

pictures and stuff post pictures and the other thing is i'm not i'm not that good looking either so like my instagram is like my instagram is a little slow rolling sometimes what about blue people would love you on blue sky blue sky drew sky Somebody else just told me that. I got to get on Blue Sky. Rob, it seems boring to me, you know? Like, was there any content worth looking at on Blue Sky? So I think that Blue Sky, in my analysis of it, that I think that Blue Sky is probably better for building community and to, you know, talking to people. I think it's a safer space on blue sky from some of the things that people are getting away from on Twitter. But I do think that Twitter is still like the ocean. If you are trying to meet or attract new people, I think that there's still

more new folks around on Twitter. Going to Twitter is like going to the Agora. It's like going to the market, you know, it's going to be a little messy. There's going to be some guts in the street, but like, by God, you're going to see the world. You'll see the world. Going to blue sky is like going to a country club. It's like, oh, here are my fellow, you know, white collar, uh, you know, people 80 to $120,000 a year. And we all have the same politics and we all discuss like, you know, Oprah's book of the week, book of the month.

Like that's boring. I want to, I want to, you know, I want to see the world. I want to go to the, go to the marketplace of ideas. Twitter.

Is that how they should rebrand it? Yeah. And, and let me tell you, it's gotten laissez faire over there. There's no regulation. A lot of regulation. Yes.

No, it's interesting. Yes i'm not gonna go to blue sky i'm gonna i'm gonna ride out the ship right out you're gonna go down with the ship yes well drew uh it's so fun for me when we get together so thank you for making this time to uh talk with me and i really i i told you before we came on, but I said to Sam Moore for weeks, he said, where is Drew Basile? Well, I really appreciate it. I give him a list of names and I say, these are the people that I need to talk to. And he says, all right, all right.

It's kind of like Field of Dreams. Like if you call, I will come. You know, if you guys have me, I'm honored to be here. I hope it's entertaining enough. I was thoroughly entertained and that's all the Drew. Where can people follow you on that Instagram? Not an only fans on Instagram. I don't know my username. It's if you put Drew Beseel, it's the one that's verified, you know, just go click that one. I'm verified now, Rob. It's very exciting. I was, do you think you gave anything that the New York Post will pick up?

I did have that thought, but hopefully not. I don't know. That you're considering an OnlyFans? Could that be it? Oh, yeah, that definitely could be picked up. Well, that's true, though. That's true. This is part of my promo tour. Would Jeopardy frown upon that if you started an OnlyFans?

Oh, yes. I would never be invited back. But could you brand yourself as the smartest started in OnlyFans? Oh, yes. I would never be invited back. But could you brand yourself as like the smartest guy on OnlyFans? The smartest? That, you know, I might actually be the smartest guy on OnlyFans. That is not out of the, you know, that could be. Well, you're not on there yet. That's true. But if I were to get on there, which I'm not, but, you know, just to clarify for the viewers,

that might actually be feasible. I don't think I'm the smartest person to ever play Survivor, though, Rob though rob i mean how can i compete with people like you and fishback and cochran and spencer and and you know kellen and sophie and i don't know i think you have a good case to make i think so um that could you also have the most degrees on only fans oh i i mean i'm about i have too many degrees like i've got like my undergrad i I, you know, did two one-year masters because I had scholarship funding. So I was like, okay, I'll do it in my second. This is my second year. I mean, like, what, why the hell do you have two masters? That's, that's stupid. Like if you could put two masters on your resume, they're kind of like, huh, I got to like knock one off. I got to choose my masters. That's, that's a little bizarre. That's a little bizarre. I've got two masters. It writes itself, okay?

There's a lot that you could do with that. You're the creative writer. Oh, yeah. Maybe I'll flex it in Survivor 60 casting auditions. I'll be like, oh, I've got four masters. You've got already the photos of flexing. Yeah, true. I just got to get some degrees in them the photos of flexing. Yeah, sure. I just get to get some degrees in them.

Yeah. All right. Well, Drew Basile, thank you so much for being here with us. We still got one more Survivor podcast to go this week. Club Condo, Mike Bloom is going to join Chappelle and I to talk about everything from this week of Survivor heading into the finale. Check out everything else from this week, including, I went almost three hours on the patron Q&A this week, so if you're interested in that sort of thing or want

to be on one of the calls asking your survivor questions, you can do that at robbizwebsite.com slash patron. Love to read your comments here on YouTube. Take care, everybody. Have a good one. Bye. Bye-bye. One man can already know So we say Go, go, Rob Sestanino You are the best that we know Just grab your bike and we go wild We live by a simple credo

If Rob has a podcast, we have a hero Rob Sestanino Time to fly. Whoa. More things they think. This is your time.