Maddenation
Who will win American Survivor?
Today is the last day to vote for your favorite or the most deserving Survivor All Star. If you haven’t heard, they’re letting “the people” reward another cool million to one of the 18 All Stars (a la American Idol, where viewers vote in the ending rounds (I think)). Even Amber, who won her million the hard way, is eligible. They’ve got short videos from each player trying to convince you to vote for them. Apparently, you can vote as many times as you like (via the CBS website or by text messaging).
So who will win?
Rupert will win. If we based it just on the players’ popularity (as voted on the website), Rupert is insanely more popular than the others. He’s at 95%. Next closest are Rudy with 74% and Ethan with 71%. Then it drops to a couple of people in the 60s, then most folks are around 50%, and Richard, Jerri and Sue are way at the bottom with 35%, 31%, and 28%, respectively. As long as voting follows these lines, Rupert will win by a landslide.
But what if one of the players has a lot of cyber-savvy friends who jam the ballot boxes? Rupert is unlikely to have such friends. Some of the younger folks are more likely.
As for their videos, some are pretty good. Most of the former winners say they don’t need the money and they’ll donate it to charity. Ethan says he’ll divvy it up 18 ways and each Survivor All Star can choose a favorite charity. Jenna M. will give it to breast cancer research. Tina says don’t give it to her, just give it to the one who will make the best use of it. Richard says “I’m the best player ever; vote for me.” Jerri says she’ll start her own reality show that focuses on good people making positive contributions to the world (there’s too much negativity, she says). Boston Rob says you know he was the true winner of this Survivor, and the only reason he didn’t get it was sour grapes from the jury (which isn’t anything new). Rob Cesternino has maybe the funniest idea: if you vote for him, he’ll give half the money to Rupert and take Big Tom out to dinner. He seems to know… Susan, surprisingly, is funny. She says that if you don’t vote for her, she hopes you’re dying of thirst in the desert and vultures come to pick your eyes out, and she won’t stop to help you. Big Tom points out that he has spent more time on Survivor than anybody (he was fourth-place in Africa, which meant 38 days, and fifth-place here, which meant maybe 36 days or whatever). The rest are fairly uninteresting, even Rupert’s. Rupert does say he’ll help the kids he mentors in Indianapolis, which I don’t doubt he will do. Already before Survivor the guy was working to help people.
Anyway, that’s my take. I want Rupert to win, and I think he will win. The only thing that could mess it up is, like I said, some insane cyber-zombies voting for Rob C. all day with a virus program that automates the process from a thousand computers. (But even then, Rupert would get half!)
Patrick • Observations • 05/12/04 • 4 comments
Comments
Anita • 05/12/04 • 11:52 PM:I can’t believe I read your entire post. And then I can’t believe I followed the link and actually voted. And then I can’t believe I surprised myself and voted for Cathy when I thought I was going to vote for Rupert. He was the most colorful character on all the shows (and I watched maybe half of the series) but then I thought about Cathy and remembered how much I rooted for her on the original show. How much I liked her when her teammates didn’t. She’s the one person I’d like to have lunch with. Will they announce the winner this Thursday?
Patrick • 05/13/04 • 9:00 AM:Hello again, Anita! Yes, the winner will be announced tonight, Thursday, at 8 pm EDT. I’ll be in a class then, so I’ll have to catch it on tape. I hope your vote for Kathy doesn’t make her edge out Rupert!
Anita • 05/15/04 • 11:55 AM:For the last few weeks I’ve been spending most of my online time reading political blogs and newspapers. I read this post after a long evening of online reading, and with Nightline on in the background, so I’m surprised I was even able to write a coherent sentence the way my head was spinning. Too much online reading will do that to me. I did watch the show Thursday, and am so glad Rupert won. Even though I voted for Cathy, he was the one person who really excelled at physical survival — he knew what to do, from stealing shoes to catching fish. He deserves the million dollars!
If I’d known they were going to tell us the final four, I never would have guessed who they’d be. I was very surprised at the choices. When he announced Rob, I was depressed, to put it mildly.
Patrick • 05/17/04 • 4:31 PM:My wife said she’d completely lost faith in the American people when she saw that Boston Rob was in the final four. (My wife is Uruguayan, so she’s keen on noticing Americans’ shortcomings.) Now that she knows Rupert got 87%, she is feeling a lot better (she heard this on an E! television interview with several Survivor All Stars). I wonder if people bothered watching the videos though. For instance, Ethan had the best plan for the money. I can understand Colby getting some votes, since he really did deserve to win in Australia.
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
Please capitalize your name properly and use the same information each time you comment. We will not send you spam, and your email address will not be posted.