Won't the Real Survivor Please Stand Up?

August 23, 2000

by guru mumu

A gay guy walking around naked. Virtual strangers engaging in casual sex. People scrambling to eat beetle larvae and rats. Welcome to the wonderful world of Survivor, where loyalty means nothing and money means everything. What do you expect, when you put 16 strangers on an isolated island, and tell them that the last person standing walks away with a whopping million dollars??

For months now, America has been all eyes on Survivor, speculating who's going to be booted off next, who's allying with who, and who's backstabbing who. And tonight, we find out who the new millionaire is. That's the big shebang.

But I'd like to think that Survivor did a little more for me than give me something to watch every Wednesday night, and something to talk about every Thursday morning. Actually, I know that Survivor taught me some important lessons that I'm going to carry with me through life. And since I'm a nice person and all, I'll share them with you. Here goes:

Lesson #1: Never sleep with a guy who thinks a musty old shell is a friggin' cellular phone. He'll end up dumping you once his minutes run out.
This is exactly what happened to sweet, little, unassuming, Colleen. She was so attracted to Greg's big, long conch that she decided to give it a blow and try it on for size…several times. And what happened? When Greg decided that he'd had enough of the wireless game, he dumped Colleen's ass faster than she could say "Need more talk time?"

Lesson #2: Don't walk around the beach naked. Wildlife might peck at your pecker.
Richard has a thing for letting it all hang out, much to the dismay of his clothed colleagues. I recall an incident in which prized chickens were devoured by a fellow feathered friend. Rumour has it that the predator was actually after Richard's bird.

Lesson #3: If you've got a trucker's body, don't wear a two-piece!
Susan, who's proud to be a redneck, is even prouder of her trucker's ass. This woman showed off her booty and ass so much, the audience became the Survivors of such a scary sight.

Lesson #4: Chickens never get the prize.
Sean chickened out from actually making decisions during his stay on the island by relying on his alphabetical method for voting people out. Well, he himself was forced to fly the coop after the rest of the flock voted him out. He left a trail of feathers in his wake.

Lesson #5: In a game like this, the only sure winner is the network that tricked you into being a puppet that would rake in gazillions of dollars.
Chances are, the 16 people who got selected to frolic along the paradise island are pretty proud of themselves. After all, they were selected from thousands and thousands of applicants. Here's your wakeup call: You were simply pawns in the money game that networks love to play. Basically, you get to be celebrities, people like me get to watch you make fools of yourselves in the name of money, and CBS makes an obscene amount of dough. Off of your asses. Painful but true.

People will try to justify Survivor by saying that it's an excellent expose of human nature. That it's an education on human dynamics. But folks, it's all about money. The real survivor? The TV network! The cool million that the network is giving away is mere peanuts compared to what it earned, thanks to the people who agreed to be puppets. But hey, we were entertained, weren't we?