Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Survivor

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Volunteering to subject yourself to isolation, starvation, and desperation on a remote island under high-pressure circumstances, all in pursuit of money and fame (aka today's spiritual enlightenment)��� is that a dangerous cult we're describing or the premise of America's OG "cult-followed" reality show? Survivor is the topic of discussion on this week's episode, and Isa and Amanda are analyzing everything from the sacrifices contestants make to the behind-the-scenes production to the fanatical fandom to figure out if the show is a Live Your Life, a Watch Your Back, or a Get the Fuck Out-level cult. To support Sounds Like A Cult on Patreon, keep up with our live show dates, see Isa's live comedy, buy a copy of Amanda's book Cultish, or visit our website, click here! Thank you to our sponsors! Get 20% off your first order of $40 or more at NextEvo.com/cult  Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/CULT You can find Julie at your local CVS Target or Walmart or by visiting Juliecare.co  

Doing your research before you buy means making better informed decisions, especially when it comes to stress or sleep products like CBD. Upgrade your CBD, go to nextevo.com to get 20% off your first order of $40 or more. That's 20% off of $40 or more at nextevo.com slash cult. Spring is a time of growth and transformation and Dipsy is here to help you explore the sensual side of this season of renewal. Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash cult. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to DIPSEA stories.com slash cult. Julie is an FDA approved morning after pill that helps stop pregnancy before it starts. Every time you purchase Julie at a store or online, they donate one pill to

someone who needs it. Go to juliecare.co to learn more or find Julie at your nearest CVS target or Walmart today. That's juliecare.co to learn more. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable facts. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. I want to play a round of Stan Ban Bonk, which for any new listeners is our culty version of Fuck Mary Kill. Yes. Stan Ban Bonk, Issa, The Bachelor, The Real Housewives, and today's topic, Survivor. Okay. I'm going to bonk The Bachelor, Stan Real Housewives, and ban Survivor. I'm sorry. Today's episode,

like, it's not that I want to ban Survivor. It's that I don't want to bonk it. And ultimately, like, I stan Real Housewives more than Survivor. But, you know, it's still a good show. No shade. There was a cult for us all. We just had to make some choices. And like, these were the decisions that had to be made. I know I was interpreting it as like, to bonk a culty reality show would be to like, become a part of the intense fandom for a little while. To stan it would be maybe to have to go on it. And to ban it would be to like, cancel it from the air. Yeah, I still stand by what I said. I said what I meant and I meant what I said. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book, Cultish the Language of

Fanaticism. I'm Issa Medina, and I'm a comedian performing all over LA. Every week here on our show, we discuss a different group or guru that puts the cult in culture, from the royal family to the Real Housewives, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult. But is it really? Were you a fan of Survivor as a kid? No, I never really watched Survivor other than when I started dating this girl and she watched Survivor. Then she made me watch Survivor and then she broke up with me and now I hate Survivor. Oh, no. Oh, no. TV shows, your ex ruined. I mean, a very simple reason that we're doing this topic is because I have a lot of friends who watched the show and I have a lot of friends who like submit every single year to get on the show.

And so it's really an active cult following and people are actively involved and then like so much so that I have a friend who literally like flew out to Fiji. But I have one friend who was actually on the show, good old Jack. He went to college with me and he went on the show and he's now dating a girl that he met on the show and they're very serious. Stop right now. It's a culture. Yeah. It's a religion. I'm really confused because all of these reality shows have such a robust subculture and rituals and like incest, not literally, I mean that we know of. So I get them all confused. Yeah. It's like emotional incest because they're like calling each other siblings and then they decide to hook up with each other and it's like, yes. But we've all had a friend

who were like, he's like my brother and then you like want to make out with him. Game of Thrones style. It's true. But I had never really thought about the culture of Survivor just because I don't have a ton of friends who stand the show. And plus it's such a mainstay in our culture. Like it's been on for so many years that I never really stopped to question it or think about its following or think about what it really looks like objectively. But if you think about it, it's like a bunch of people who are volunteering to subject themselves to isolation, starvation, desperation on a remote island under these high pressure circumstances all in pursuit of what? Money, fame. I don't even know. It's hard for me to understand.

But the thing is it didn't even start off with the pursuit of money and fame. That's what makes it so innately culty is that when the show first started, it was just for money. But then when the show continued on, it's more so for the glory now because the reality of it is you're not like popping off on social media because of it and you're not becoming super rich. But you are suffering traumatic events willingly and with pleasure, stopping to take a moment to analyze the cult of survivor. I have just had a lot of thoughts. I really actually think it's this kind of brilliant commentary on surveillance, on desperation, on obviously survival in this very visceral, tribalistic way where people who live in the 21st century are connecting to

activities and survival strategies that like we haven't had to do as a species, at least not in the US for literally tens and tens of thousands of years. It's like this catharsis where you get to connect to what our ancestors had to do in order to survive because I think we feel like in our everyday lives, it's hard to survive, but we're not like connecting with the earth in that pursuit. And this is a way to live vicariously through people who are doing that. Yeah, it's like live vicariously. And also when you're watching the show, you know those are normal people. You know those are people who applied online. So in the back of your head, you're like, maybe I could do that one day. Maybe I could be a part of it. And so, I mean,

for those who are listening to this episode, to this podcast for the first time, who have not to listen to the show before, survivor is the topic of discussion. But it's not that it's not a cult, like it sounds like a cult. But in this week's episode, we're going to analyze and figure out if the fanatical fandom is a live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out level cult, the fanatical fandom, the behind the scenes production, all the self sacrifice that the contestants have to make. I mean, there are so many sides to this modern day quote unquote cult that really make it a subject of interesting discussion. Which one is it going to be? We'll tell you at the end of the episode. But if you're on the island, definitely watch your back,

because people are stabbing each other in the back. That's for sure. The violence. Not literally, Amanda. Just like, when they pick teams and they do alliances and all that stuff, then they're like, actually, fuck you. I was voting for this other person. No, it really does explicitly encourage extremely manipulative, exploitative cult, literish behavior in order to make the show work in order to make survival work. Like, isn't that what a cult is? It's just our attempt to seek the type of tribe that human beings once lived in that we've completely lost touch with. And I think that's why survivor is so appealing to people, because it's just like the modern day uncanny representation of that. And you're also getting like filmed for it.

So it's like, you can later narcissistically like watch back all of your tactics. And if you win, you get a million dollars. That's some money. I know, isn't that strange? It's like 200,000 years ago, people had to build fires and kill wildlife. And there was no photographic evidence of it. It was not televised. And now you're like, this episode is sponsored by Boo Boo Bee Bee. I'm going to survive in the forest to poo poo in my panties because I'm wearing blank underwear. This episode is sponsored by Calamine Lotion. I remember like, I was trying to think, I have caught episodes of survivor here and there. I'm not a part of the stand them. But I remember like, it's peak in the early to mid 2000s was during a time when I was an adolescent, I was like,

in my middle school years. And I remember feeling quite triggered by the show, because it's a show that glorifies starvation. And maybe this is too deep. And maybe this is like a bit much. But I remember having like severe body image issues and finding it disturbing to watch people glorifying these folks on the television who were starving themselves without needing to like, I was disturbed by that. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the times in the show, when they win a challenge, they get food. And it's like, food is a basic need. Like, they're winning food to survive. And that's just wild to me. But I think it says a lot that you and I don't regularly watch survivor. And a lot of people that I know don't regularly watch survivor, yet it's on its 44th season.

So there are a lot of people out there who are still obviously very much watching survivor if this show is going on for forever. Hello culties, we are interrupting our regularly scheduled programming for a very special announcement to our London listeners. So don't check out, we are going to be doing a live show Friday, May 26 at 7 p.m. literal London time, babes. I mean, listen to how much fun we had at our last live show. Stay Coltie. But not too Coltie. Are you sure you want to miss that? No, you don't. We have a really fun show and topic prepared for you that will be released only for our live show audience, not our general audience. So you will have to come in person. You know, we like to keep our live show topic limited, exclusive to just

the live show so you can come and hang out with us and watch us do our thing in person, knowing that absolutely no one outside of this cult will know the super secret things we're going to discuss. This will be fully live with us in person and unedited. So see how the cake gets made. You mean how the sausage is made? Oh, very English of you to make this about sausage. Yes, how the cookie crumbles. Get tickets to our live London show on May 26 at 7 p.m. at the link in our bio on Instagram or at soundslikeacult.com. They're going fast. So come and join us in person before it's too late. Let's get into some of the history of the show so we can put this cult into context. Yeah, it has been around for a really long time. The survivor we've been watching on

CBS, the American version has been around since May of 2000. And the show we've been watching is formatted based on the 1997 Swedish television series Expedition Robinson, which is now just called Robinson. And it's still on air today. So okay, these shows have been cult followed all over the world. I'm actually not surprised at all that the show has its roots in Sweden, because Sweden is one of these countries that has a lot of really reliable institutional support like universal health care. And so it's like fun for Swedes to pretend that they could possibly die at the hands of the elements, because they know that in real life, they're going to be perfectly fine because the government and the health care system are always ultimately going to take care

of them. And that's what I think is so sort of culty and uncanny about survivor. It is that it's people who don't actually need to worry about their survival anymore, pretending to, because we are dead inside, ultimately. Yeah, I also think it's really funny you mention that, because it's like, they are ultimately on a TV show. So even in American Survivor, they are also kind of still pretending because I think in like a worst case scenario, like someone from the production will step in and like there can be a helicopter on the island in a second and like you can get flown to like a hospital. But once you come back to America, then you're kind of like back in the wild. And it's like, maybe you don't have health care. Maybe you don't have access

to medication. That is so funny. It's like people are going on Survivor now because it's a better life than just living in America. So this is like a very intense show. There are two seasons produced every year. Now it's in its 44th season. And the first 11 seasons of Survivor were rated among the top 10 most watched shows. And it's commonly considered the leader of American reality TV. The host of Survivor, Jeff Probst, has won four Emmys in the category of Outstanding Host for Reality or Reality Competition Program. Okay, put those up on your wall. That is a celebrated show. It's also worth noting that at its very peak, Survivor pulled in over 20 million viewers every single week. And now it kind of hovers around 7 to 8 million of the core fan base. So for those

who have been on a remote island and somehow have missed what Survivor is about, this is how it's structured. 16 to 20 contestants are sequestered in a far off exotic location to compete for a cash prize. They are initially divided into two teams or tribes as they are called and expected to build shelter, find food, survive in the ancestral sense with a minimum number of tools. The teams periodically compete against each other in challenges involving physical endurance, problem solving ability and resourcefulness. And the tribe that wins a reward challenge is awarded luxury items, which we alluded to before, such as the luxuries of food, equipment, and phone calls. Oh god, it's so kinky to me. Honestly, Survivor feels like a fetish. It's like my life is too

cushy and modern in America. I need to reconnect with the earth, which is I think a lot of what motivates people to join traditional cults, right? Yeah, it is a very first world thing to do to like put yourself on a remote island without access to like food or water for shits and gigs. Yeah. So then about halfway through the season, the tribes merge into a smaller unit and then the challenges become individual. So it's every man for themselves. And the famous part of Survivor is that the tribe attends a tribal council after each challenge, where each contestant is then anonymously voted off the island by a jury and the jury's vote is sealed. And during a live finale, the final winner is finally revealed and they receive a grand prize total of one million dollars,

Dr. Evilfinger, pinky to the mouth. It's been a million dollars since the show started, but I feel like with inflation, people should be getting two million dollars now. Give them more money. They're out there suffering, but there also are other seasons of Survivor that is like the reunion. And for the reunions, it is said that they are offered like $35,000 to participate because they have already like won a Survivor show and then come back and it's like all the best of the best. It's like RuPaul's Drag Race, all stars, but full survivors. Yeah. I mean, once you're a Survivor, you're a Survivor for life. So despite this show being one of the longest aired shows on television, there have only been a total of 662 participants. Oh my God, that sounds like a lot.

Over 44 years? No, no, no, it's been 20 years. They have two seasons a year. Oh, right. Okay. But still, 20 years? That's a long time. 44 years. 44 years. But listen, think about all of the fucking cults that exist in the world today. Peloton, SoulCycle, those cults have like thousands of thousands of members. Survivor only has 662. But if you think about it, those are in a sense the cult leaders. How is it structured? Who's in the cult who's leading it? That's part of what we're here to talk about. Let's talk about it. And I don't think they're the leaders. I think they are definitely the members. They start as fans, they watch the show, but they're the ones selected to participate in the show. The leaders are very clearly like the producers, in my opinion.

Yeah, although in the space of the show, the contestants have to embody cult leader energy in order to form alliances and win. And then potentially they get a spin-off career or can use the show as leverage to elevate themselves, right? Yeah, for sure. But I'm saying like, as the word participant, because not all of the participants go on to be leaders. Like, out of the millions of people that watch the show, only 662 people have participated. And most of them get kicked off very quickly. We don't know their names. We don't know who they are. We don't know what they're up to these days. Very few of those 662 go on to have actual power. Right, right, right. Yeah, only 103 of those participants have competed in multiple seasons.

And that is actually a very interesting point, because I think unlike The Bachelor and The Real Housewives, general viewers watching feel like they have more hope of actually getting on the show. Because they'll take kind of anybody from any walk of life in theory, unlike the very, very specific mold that someone going on The Bachelor or on The Real Housewives might have to fit. So there is this false hope of like, that could be me. Yeah, and I actually think the false hope is bigger, like you said, also because they intentionally take people from all walks of life. Like they want to diversify the cast with people who are super fit and people who like maybe have just been a big fan for their whole life and aren't fit. I don't know. But it still is like

intentionally diverse where like The Bachelor is, as we know, not very diverse in various ways, to say the least. So in theory, that is positive. But then the flip side of it is that there are these like really blurred lines between fan slash viewer and contestant, and that can get really parasocial and freaky and culty in its own way. I gotta admit to you, I didn't really understand the full effects of CBD until I tried the Next Evo Naturals stress gummies, my god. They put me in a state in the best way. They're so good, both in terms of taste and effect. I've been having a hard couple of weeks and I have been popping the sleep gummies like there's no tomorrow because when you're sleeping on these gummies, it doesn't feel like there's a tomorrow.

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DipsyStories.com slash cult. All right, my dad listens to this podcast. So sorry, dad, but I used to pop the morning after pill like fucking tic-tacs. I remember feeling a certain degree of shame and also there are side effects and thinking it would be so nice if there were a morning after pill that felt a little more welcoming. And that's why I'm glad that Julie exists. Yeah, I mean, Julie is the next generation of emergency contraception pills. It is one of learning and acceptance and there's no stigma or shame around it, especially because it's so easily accessible. They just launched at CVS. You can also find Julie at Target and Walmart stores across the US. It's legal in all 50 states. You do not need an ID prescription or

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participants, and then there's the production. So we found this Esquire article called 45 Rules You Didn't Know Survivor Contestants Have to Follow by Charlotte Chilton and Janiah Wecker and we want to talk through some of the ways that going on the show survivor is culty beyond imagination. So the first rule on this 45 Rules You Didn't Know Survivor Contestants Have to Follow list is all cast members must attend classes led by a seasoned producer to prepare for the game before shooting starts. They learn things like jungle safety, basic shelter building, and how to make a fire. When I read this rule, I was like, that's not that culty. Like they're just teaching them the things, no? Well, I mean, sure, they're not like setting them out into the jungle

without knowing how to tie a knot. But I don't know, when I look at that rule, I'm like, it is a classic cult compound promise to like teach the members how to work with the earth. You don't need your phone. You don't need a computer. You don't need your cubicle. You just need a hoe and a rake and a seed. Oh, my gosh. I actually like never thought about it that way. You're like, they're tricking them. That's what they're doing. 1000. They're convincing you that they're doing you a favor when really they're setting you off in the wilderness to make them a bunch of money, them being a gigantic television network. Yeah. And that actually makes sense to me. I was like, Oh, that's like nice. They're like teaching them basic skills. Obviously, they have to

teach them basic skills. They're about to go in the jungle and starve them to death. Literally. Yeah. No, I think that is such a culty promise. It's like, and guess what? We're even going to give you one drop of water. Can you believe it? Thank you, Sire. Thank you, Oh, leader. It's like, that's not a favor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, that's like, that's the law. It's a human right. Relax. Okay. This is a funny rule because it's not culty in a survivor way. It just talks about the cult of America. Everyone must abide by local and US laws. They hate that. That is funny because it is in Fiji, right? So they are on like a very remote non-American island, but I feel like maybe they do that so that no one commits murder. Yeah, that would make sense. I think murder is

illegal everywhere, but I feel like they do it so that they know like, oh, you're going to be tried under US law. This is going to sound like a dumb statement, but isn't war fucked up? It's like, you can just kill someone and it's fine. In fact, it's rewarded. Fucking war. I don't get it. Yeah, the cult of the military, which we should actually cover at some point because they get indoctrinated in high school. Dude. Anywho, let's move on to some other rules that are maybe like a little more on the nose culty. So you have to follow the crew's direction, but you can't talk to the crew. So you have to pretend that they're not there and you can't ask them for help. But if the crew tells you to do something like they always do, like they're always producers in the

background kind of like guiding you and like producing you to be more dramatic, you have to follow that direction. It's like a mandate from your clergy. It's like, thou shalt construct a loincloth from the fissile leaf. Yeah, or they're like, thou shalt talk shit about Barbara behind her back. More like that. Yeah, just the like unquestioned nature of it. And you're so spun up in a tizzy because your reality TV star, you're hungry, you're thirsty. They may have taught you how to build a fire, but you have no tools for how to communicate with your producer who has so much fucking power over you. One that I think is really creepy. Okay, we're being so dramatic on this episode, but that's very culty is that like the votes must be written down and then spoken

out loud. It's ritual. It's ritualistic. And people love that shit. I mean, that's what makes it fun is the ritual aspect of it. It's like pretending to be in an ancient tribe. I can see how that is fun. Yeah, and it also like, it's not that weird because it's funny, like we're making fun of these people for going on an island and playing pretend when in real life, we are all playing pretend, like we are literally like pretending that marketing is important so that we can market products that we ourselves make that are like unnecessary for the economy. We're all just playing pretend. We are all embodying a role in the reality TV show of our own creation. I thought you were going to say we're pretending to have a natural conversation,

but we're actually making a podcast. That's so that's true. That's the one that's the one that's true and accurate for the listeners at home. The cult of podcasting. We are having, I mean, I saw this tweet once that was like, it's so funny that to go to sleep, you have to pretend to go to sleep and then you just fall asleep. Oh my God. That's podcasting. Like we're pretending to have a conversation, but then we do ultimately have a conversation. Oh my God. I wish that worked with orgasming. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, let's move through some of these kind of boom, boom, boom, bang, bang, bang. First of all, the contract that everyone signs specifies that contestants will have no expectation of privacy. They're like, privacy, who needs it? That's most reality TV in

general, but yeah, that's bad. Next rule. The challenges are mandatory and refusing to participate can lead to elimination. I would not last one single day. Neither you nor I can go two hours without a fucking snack or like checking Instagram. I would dissolve as soon as I got on that island. I tried to delete Instagram again this weekend. But that's why I think like the challenges being mandatory leans into the culty rituals of like community building within survivor because not everyone participates in all challenges, but then you have to like get on people's good side to be like, hey, you participate in this challenge and I'll sit this one out, but you can't just choose to sit it out. You have to like get on board with the politics game of getting everyone

to be like, sure, you should sit this one up 100%. And that connects to one of the cultiest aspects of this show's premise to me, which is that it really does incentivize contestants to embody cult leader energy in order to win. There have been cults of personality that have developed around certain contestants in the past. There was this one guy named coach diehards of survival. Remember this dude, according to a website called inside survivor.com, Benjamin coach Wade brought religious overtones to his game in 2009. He went full on monk when he was voted onto exile island, which is a whole nother dimension of the game. And he ended up going on the show three different times and allegedly ruled like a kind of mafia boss. There were all kinds of with us or against us.

Everyone is a family until it's time to vote us versus them stabbing in the back type of energy. And he was rewarded by the producers and by the fans for that behavior. That's wild to me because I feel like someone like him will probably be like, Oh, that was just me on the show. That was just me like strategizing. But people who are manipulative like that are manipulative like that in every aspect of their life. Like I bet you he's probably in a manipulative romantic relationship. Allegedly. Allegedly. Sorry. That's why I think it's even cold to hear that people can go on the show and then date people that they met on the show. I'm like, you're actively choosing to date someone who is low key manipulative. I think it really does provide

a national stage for like the ugliest, most manipulative parts of ourselves. And I hate that we reward that, but I also completely see why people love to watch it because it almost gives you permission to be your ugliest self. Yeah, it also teaches you how to manipulate and how to negotiate. I have a friend who lives in New York and she said that watching survive her taught her how to negotiate her rent. She started leaving packages of cookies by the door of her neighbor because she knew that her neighbor's dad owned the building. And for a month, she just left like baked goods and notes being like, Hey, I just had some extra baked goods. And then she like slowly manipulated the girl to like talk to her dad to like not raise their rent

and it worked. Dude, okay. I just had a thought, which is that it is like a classic reality TV slogan for people say they're not here to make friends. They're just here to win. And I think that sentiment is like really, really anti human. And that's what I think makes modern day cults in a way so much more insidious than the classic 70s style cult is that in the 70s, and I'm not glamorizing the time, I'm just pointing out a difference, people joined cults explicitly to make friends. I'm leaving my life behind. My old life sucks. I want to make new like minded friends that I can like build a little hut and learn to garden with. And this new style of 21st century reality TV social media cult is like, I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to become a cult

leader while I'm also a cult follower and follow my fucking self. It's just like such a culture of narcissism, you know what I mean? It's a culture of narcissism. And I think that's why oftentimes on survivor, a lot of people who go in with that mentality, which everyone has baseline, everyone has the mentality of level of narcissism, but the actual smart people know that they need community to get to the top. And so they pretend to care about the community. And that pushes them forward. And you see that on the bachelor as well, I think with the girls who are like all become best friends, like all make it to like the top five. Yes, so true until the very end when they're perfectly willing to throw each other under the bus. Oh, that's so disturbing. It's so disturbing.

Yeah. Okay, so I also kind of want to touch a little more on how the lines between the show and the fandom have started to get so blurry. So there is, of course, a thriving survivor culture on Reddit, survivor fan culture. There is this one survivor Reddit org that was launched in 2016, which is an online game of survivor hosted on Reddit and Discord. So you're not really on a deserted island, obviously, you're just on the deserted island of your own fucking mind and the internet, literally, like it's the most disembodied way to pretend you're living in the woods. You're not really playing for money, but you do meet people from all over the world and like pretend to compete against them. And challenges are all virtual and they range from

designing a tribe flag to trivia and quizzes. And there are confessionals as well, which are optional, but encouraged. So the fandom is way more participatory in the actual acts of survivor. I do have friends who have all got together and like played survivor kind of like as a scavenger hunt at like their local park, like a green flag fans of survivor. I can't see people who are fans of The Bachelor trying to recreate the show in real life, you know what I mean? This actually would be kind of a fun party that I would go to if I were single. Someone throwing like a Bachelor themed what like speed dating event. It's just not done. Not to have like a perfect example for all of these, but no kidding. No, really. There's a comedian that had a show. So it was kind of like

an improv show and it was like everyone on stage and it was like the non binary bachelor at the Elysian and they did like the whole contestant thing, but it was like a show. So it was like a bit as a performance for sure. Exactly. And it always is at the end of the day, a fucking performance. So there has been some online discourse about these blurry lines between the fandom and the contestants, according to a fan cited story called It's Not About the Million, How Superfans Changed Survivor by Jake Pitree. By season 38 of the show, it began intentionally involving fans as contestants. His piece said, survivor now seems specifically structured around fans fighting their way into the show's ongoing storied narrative. The million dollars would be nice,

but to be part of the survivor legacy, it impacts the performance of these contestants clearly discussing not only their image with hyper awareness of how they will be perceived as they know what fans will be thinking after all they've grown up with survivor and social media too, but also the types of survivor mythology. Am I playing like a Boston Rob or like a Parvati, which are two other cult followed contestants from the past. I mean, we touched a little bit on this earlier, but I think that's why the show as it goes on longer and longer, it gets cultier, but because it's not very clearly about the money. It's now for the glory. It's now to be a part of something bigger. And like you just said, the show knows that. And so the show is leaning into that

and picking people who are fans because they know they're going to be even more committed. And I don't know not to alleged, but what does that mean that they're willing to do for the show? Then, you know, if you're picking people who grew up with it or our fans of the show, like, what are the challenges going to get like, what are they going to do for TV to make it crazier and more insane and intense? Totally. This article is also talking about how fans who end up becoming players on the show are, quote, obsessives, lifelong fans that have often tied survivor into their own narratives, talking about the importance of the show to their sense of self or their development as people in the world. So they're people who wouldn't know who they were without survivor.

Isn't that nuts? That makes me think that like, what if the things that they choose to do in their life, like their hobbies or their job or their relationship, is it a chicken or the egg? Like, were they doing the things a certain way because they wanted to paint a narrative themselves when they applied to the show? That is like another level of commitment. And I do think some people do that without question. We were talking about how survivor has gotten more and more extreme, aka culty over the years. And we should probably talk about some of the times when it's literally put people's life and limb at risk. Yeah, some of the cults we've been covering lately do be having worst case scenarios, which is kind of juicy and fun. We are bad at talking about

violence and harm. But here's some violence and harm. Yeah, there are too many crazy medical situations on survivor to pick just one. I mean, one of the more memorable medical evacuations include a survivor, the Australian Outback. I will say the Australian version is really fun. Really? Because of accents, but also the personalities. It's truly the Outback. I mean, that is some harsh territory out there. This is what happened. He was tending to the tribe's fire. He inhaled some smoke and he fainted into the fire, resulting in some severe burns that caused him to be medically evacuated. We hate to see it. That's gross, but also that's like such an anticlimactic to be evacuated. He literally just inhaled a little bit of fire and then fainted into the fire.

Like he wasn't attacked by a shark while he was hunting for food. He didn't like fall off a cliff. Like he fucking fainted into a fire. It wasn't epic, but death is often anticlimactic. It really is. He didn't die though. Also, it seems like fainting is more common than we think in survivor Samoa. Russell Swan fainted during a challenge and was pulled from the game to do extremely low blood pressure. I mean, they're not eating. They don't have a single Twizla in their midst. Fainting could be like the biggest reason most people get pulled. Fainting and heat stroke. So one of the most high stakes and stressful medical evacuation in all of survivor's history was a guy named Caleb Reynolds from Survivor Corong. After a super strenuous physical challenge

under the hot sun, he collapsed from heat stroke and the medical team tried to lower his body temperature, but he was too overheated and had to be scooped away from the game. It's just dangerous. It's so wild to me. It's truly like ends justify the means. It's like, it's all for the win. It's all for the glory. It's all for the legacy. And legacy is an even cultier motivation than money in my view. Yeah, I completely agree. I also think something you see a lot in cults is like people always say like, if I could do it again, I would. So I bet if you ask these people that like fainted and were evacuated, they still probably would have done it and they probably would have tried to stay, right? I mean, I can't speak for them, but I will. I think they would.

What were the survivors of that one thing where they like all killed themselves, say that they would do it again? I talked about Heaven's Gate and Jonestown survivors who really, yeah, they were doing some justification of their experiences. They said they learned a lot. I don't know. It's wild because those are the most fucked up cults of all time. Yeah. And it's like, you know, where else you can learn things at home? Yeah. Yeah. How about we all just quarantine again for a little while? Everybody needs a time out. I feel like after like the last time out we had, which was the pandemic and the big quarantine, we now need one like every two years. Yeah. Maybe we can just preempt it. We don't need a big worldwide sick. We just need to be like the

French and shut down in August. Thank you. God damn it. Yes. Issa, out of the three cult categories, do you think that survivor is a live your life, a watch your back, or get the fuck out? I think if we've ever covered an episode that is a smack dab, watch your back, this is it. It's like the watch your back of watch your backs. Yeah. It's just practical advice to go on the show or to watch it. Yeah, exactly. Because as you're watching it, you can be like getting really excited and being like, I want to go on the show. And it's like, okay, but like keep an eye out, watch your back, make sure that you're not like doing things in your life just to get on the show. Yeah, we've said this before, but once you make something that has nothing to do with you,

your entire personality, it's a time to examine whether or not you might be in a cult. And I think it is a classic watch your back. The cult has spoken, bitch. The cult has spoken. Y'all, send this episode to your biggest survivor fan, please, and ask them if they're happy with how this season ended, y'all. Yeah, and maybe they can let us know if we missed anything or if they want to call in. We can always do a part two as you know. So send this to your biggest survivor or fan. And this is our last episode before we take a titty, titty, titty, titty, titty, titty, break, a titty, itty, titty, bitty committee break. But that is our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult in three weeks, three weeks, you can handle it. But until

then, stay culty, but not too culty. Sounds like a cult was created, hosted and produced by Issa Medina and Amanda Montell. Our theme music is by Casey Colt. This episode was edited and mixed by Jordan, more of the pod cabin. To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at sounds like a cult pod. I'm on Instagram at Amanda underscore Montell and feel free to check out my books, cultish, the language of fanaticism and word slut, a feminist guide to taking back the English language. And I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, ISAA, M-D-I-N-A-A, where you can find tickets to my live standup comedy shows or tell me where to perform. We also have a Patreon and we would appreciate your support there at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. And if you'd like our show, feel

free to give us a rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And if you don't like our show, rate other podcasts the way you'd rate us.