Welcome to the closest I will ever get to a Survivor New Zealand article!

After the first season snapped my goodwill in half from the get-go I wiki-watched that season and even that I regretted. I can’t imagine watching it live, and the fact that season two’s gimmick was essentially “we aren’t gonna do the same stupid shit as we did last season” is a telling, strangely honest shot at itself that we would never see on US Survivor (I mean good luck convincing me that Probst would ever stop bragging that men benefit from the firemaking twist).

At the same time, this season did give me hope. I mean, the attitudes won’t change, there may still be a prevailing “being good at survival is all that matters” spirit that would actually be really entertaining (I am proudly a big fan of Out Of The Wild) if I had faith the cast wouldn’t make paint dry. However, there’s one person on the cast that gives me faith that maybe this season won’t be a complete snoozefest.

Her name is Franky. She won a wild card contest over everyone’s favorite archetype, the young male superfan. How did she do it? How did the manage to pull it out?

Well… total nuclear annihilation, of course.

Here’s the backstory- Angus was the other competitor in the poll. Male, superfan, white- in the age of Michael Yerger, the surefire audience favorite. This allowed him the privilege to lie about Franky and get defended. Some of his and his friends’ “facts” about her were true- she is, in fact, a woman- but they progressively got less and less proven and factual as they went along.

“She’s a model,” they claimed. “She has ten thousand followers,” they exaggerated. “She’s never had a real job,” they condescended. “She’s never seen Survivor in her life,” they assumed. For awhile, they got away with it for reasons I cannot understand.

They even had Rob Cesternino’s backing!

Things were going fine until someone from Clubs That Suck encouraged Franky to post on reddit in response to the shit talking from Angus. From there, it blew up.

It should have been an immediate disqualifier for Angus, but there were still people gatekeeping Franky about how much of a Survivor fan she was, praising Angus for relying on old those-dang-women dogwhistles to get ahead, and accusations that Franky was trying to start a fight and not, you know, clear her name about lies that shouldn’t have gotten her denigrated in the eyes of fans in the first place. Any fan of Chris Noble or Michael Yerger does not get to attack someone for being a hot model.

But here’s the thing. She isn’t a model. In fact, it said on the page to vote for her that she was a journalist. Her instagram was also easy to find- and had way less than the ten-thousand followers they claimed. The lies against her weren’t only malicious, but poorly founded… and people bought them.

In contrast, Franky was not only not Angus, but she was cool! Working with social media marketing meant she not only knew how to market herself, but market herself well. She took a hold of the bitter work and rebuffed it in a way that showed she was willing to win off of more than just the lusciously termed #AngusExposedParty. After a season full of people on the street with less TV presence than most backyard Survivor contestants (don’t laugh, I hope Lindsay Bebout and Maria Bruno are on the actual show soon) Franky struck me as someone who could actually own the camera.

I will admit, despite my having zero plans or desire to watch Survivor New Zealand, I was anxious about the results. For me, it wasn’t about the money. I mean, to her, it is, because she’s on the show and she’s not here to fulfill my dreams. But for my selfish ass, it was about sending a message. Flat out, it was to send the message that in the Survivor fanbase, for once, a lying, deceitful, dogwhistling man would not triumph in the eyes of fans over a strong, charismatic woman he tried to put down.

And what do you fuckin’ know.

This made me actually cheer, celebrate, and harass many friends in celebration that Franky made it. I think the others from RTVWarriors knew about it before Franky did. I was thrilled that she would be on the show and that you couldn’t act like Angus and win. As you may have seen up there, he deleted his account after the results. If you wanna see the fireworks show that was his thread, click here. For Franky’s own thread, click here.

Now that the reality is that Franky is going to be on Survivor, it’s my job analyze her not just as the holy Angus Slayer, but as a contestant. Thus, even though I have no plans to cover New Zealand, I’m going to initiate a Survivor: FrankyWatch. Most of these will be post scripts in normal articles unless there’s a lot of Franky Ongoings to cover. Consider this me having my fun- not only was this the closest I came to caring about SNZ, but it’s also one of my favorite things to ever happen in the fanbase.

Name: ‘Franky’ Francesca

Hometown: Auckland

Age: 24

Occupation: Journalist

The first sentence in her bio?

“Franky is out to prove that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

Mama, if this were Clubs I would mash the :gay emote so fucking hard it’d be damn near sinful.

In her bio, and in a bio video, she says her game plan is to be authentic and stay under the radar until a merge breakout. Not the most original plan, true, and it does come with a lack of promised #bigmovez and Dr. Sean references like Angus promised, but for Survivor: New Zealand, it may just work.

There may be an air of “don’t do it like the first season, play to win” and other Ciera-like statements, but the contestants can only base it off of the first season of SNZ, and probably the season of Australian Survivor. On the first SNZ season, tall poppies got cut quickly. Someone who said she was open to being a villain got cut on day one. The season took a shit on anyone who played individually. Even if SAU4 happened, that’s not assurance that it’ll happen again. Playing under the radar and authentically may work well for her.

Franky herself has admitted that she hasn’t seen much of the show and isn’t a superfan, which may have people turning their noses at her, but at the same time- does she need to be? I’m not just caping for Franky- the entire mindset that superfans are the only truly worthy players needs to die out.

Many players who are recruits or not huge fans do just fine for themselves, while superfans can sink their reputations at lightspeed and act in unacceptable ways. Compare Earl the recruit who played on a whim and stunted on everyone, and Dan who played a stagnant game and laughed about slapping women and about abuse victims getting karma. So the fact that Franky hasn’t seen too much of the show? I don’t give a rat’s ass about it, and neither should you.

I won’t touch on this for too long, but it’s also come to light that Franky has struggled with polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis, which she was diagnosed with at age 14. She’s had “every treatment in the book” for it and has felt its effects in her life- how she eats, how she interacts, how she plans for the future. She wants to take it and become a spokeswoman of sorts for the ailments and the effects of something not many people (myself included, I’ll wholly admit) understand too well.

In fact, that ties very well into the most prominent Franky element- she says often that she isn’t going to be judged by first appearances. She’s going to be authentic, not resting on assumptions. To be honest, I think that’s what got her the vote. I mean, obviously the not lying about Franky camp beat out the lying about Franky camp, but Angus’ replies and campaigning revolved around inauthentic superfan references and promises he wasn’t gonna keep, while Franky was entirely authentic in how she responded to people.

Being authentic definitely won her favor in the eyes of many people, and it’s so refreshing to say that.

Hopefully these little check-ins last the entire season and not just one week, but even if she is the first boot she’s left a hell of a legacy already.

-Cam

P.S. Was there anything to cover last week other than Wendell’s voting confessional? I mean, the rest was self explanatory, but it cannot be said enough times, especially in the face of battlers, that Wendell’s voting confessional was awesome.