You Already Know

This should come as no surprise but if I could be on a reality tv show I would no doubt pick Survivor. For anyone who has never seen Survivor before, basically it's a show where they take people and put them on an island and have them compete in challenges. Typically, they split the players up into two teams and have the teams compete in challenges for immunity. If you lose a challenge you go to "Tribal Council" where the team that lost votes one of their own members out. When each team gets down to a certain number of players the teams merge and the different tribes become one large group and everyone now competes for individual immunity. Just like with team immunity challenges, if you don't win individual immunity you risk being voted out after a challenge. At the end of the show, (usually this is when there's three players left though sometimes it changes) the players who have made it to day 39 have to pitch an argument for why they should win the show to The Jury which are all the players who got voted out starting at Merge. On top of all of that, the only food the players get provided with while they're doing these super physical challenges is rice.

The reason I like Survivor is because it's a social-strategic game that tends to mirror real life. As a player you constantly have to manage your relationships with your cast-mates to ensure that you're not voted out. But of course, you can't let people know that you're playing too hard or people will see you as too much of a threat and you'll get voted out. I guess at it's core it is a "numbers game", as many players like to say, but I don't know I still think that's an oversimplification of what it is. Like yes, the show is about how many people you can get to trust you but there are other factors at play and I think that's what makes the show so interesting. People are not pawns, they're people with emotions and biases and you see how all of those things effect aspects of the show (who aligns with who, who gets voted out, who's viewed as a threat, etc.).

I also think the progression of the show is interesting. In the first season, people had no idea how to play or what to do to get to the end and the show was mainly about likability. I remember there was one contestant who never knew who to vote for so he just started voting for people in alphabetical order. And then one contestant came up with the idea to create an alliance with some of his cast-mates and that changed the game. Now that they're on season 40, you still see traces of alliances but they're a lot less strict than they used to be. No one expects you to be loyal to your alliance until the end and there's a general understanding that everyone has a few different alliances that they've promised to go with until the end. In fact, in the last few seasons there's been sort of this shift towards "voting blocks" rather than alliances, which is the idea that you vote with certain people and then after the vote you're kind of a free agent until the next vote.

Anyways, these are my thoughts. I've actually thought about going on Survivor for realsies lol but I know it's kind of hard to get picked and it seems like a long time to commit to something though I guess it's only like a little over a month. But if I were to go on I would definitely need to learn how to swim better as there are many water challenges.

also if I went on I could meet the iconic Jeff Probst

Other than Survivor, I would also go on Family Feud or The Bachelor. Family Feud just seems like a good time and I like playing from home. As for The Bachelor, I would love to hang out in a mansion and eat good food and get to travel for free and potentially make some friends.

And since we're on the topic of reality tv, I think it would be super interesting to be an editor or producer on of one of those shows. Or just to see the editing process. Not so much on Family Feud but on Survivor or The Bachelor or any show where they have to create a narrative for each contestant.