Think back to high school or at your office. There have always been a few people that are left out of the main group. Those that don’t “fit in”. Hell for some, they are those people that feel ostracized by the majority. It’s not a great feeling and I would wager that at some point in their life, nearly everyone has had it happen to them. Within the realities of everyday life, being left out of the group has ramifications on one’s ego and willingness to socialize with others. On a reality show, it can be the mistake that costs somebody a whole lot of money.

Because Survivor is ultimately a game of numbers, there are always going to be majorities and minorities. How the majority treats the people outside of the axis of power will often dictate how the game ends up going. A prime example, and one of the earliest if not the first, is the Mallrat’s treatment of the older people on the Samburu tribe in Survivor: Africa.

Silas the great and powerful.

Having gained the majority after a 4–4 deadlock was solved through a trivia contest, Silas Gaither, Brandon Quinton, Lindsay Richter and Kim Powers found themselves in power at Samburu. Previously, when an alliance was able to get the numbers in a tribe, if they entered the merge with a majority that was the path to the end. Seeing how the game would play out, Silas and his gang got really cocky with the older members in the minority. They started getting really bossy to the point where they were telling the older people not in their alliance where to vote. Imagine trying do something like that in modern Survivor.

Then a tribe swap happened. The first in Survivor history. Both tribes were asked to bring three people to a meeting with Jeff Probst. Silas as the leader chose himself and decided to bring along Frank Garrison and Teresa Cooper. As it turned out, that was a bad idea. Suddenly Silas found himself swapped onto the Boran tribe with two people who hated him. His new tribe was composed of the people he had been competing against in challenges and who knew that Silas had a shot to go all the way. In an instant, Silas went from on top of the world to the most obvious vote off ever. It was all because of his terrible mismanagement of the minority on the Samburu tribe. Had Silas treated Teresa and Frank better, maybe they respect tribal lines and force a tie with Silas but because of how badly they were dealt with at Samburu, Frank and Teresa were salivating at the mouth to flip sides.

“I am so fu…”.

Teresa and Frank were clearly at the bottom on Samburu. They had no reason to stick with their original tribe so when a better deal came along, they jumped at the chance. It’s something that Rob Cesternino was really the first one to figure out: the people who are most likely to make a move to change the game are the ones on the bottom of an alliance who understand they are on the bottom. It’s how he was able to flip back and forth so seamlessly while avoiding getting the axe. He was angering the people at the top of alliances but he was also empowering those at the bottom by helping them become the majority. Instead of hoping to luck into the majority by picking an alliance and sticking with it, Rob was creating his own majority out of thin air.

Like Rob, Jonny Fairplay realises the same thing when he starts to weaponize Lillian in the Pearl Islands post-merge. Consider how that game might have gone if Andrew Savage doesn’t completely mishandle his vote off of Lill. He tells her that he will inform her if she is the one going at Morgan’s 3rd tribal. Instead of following through with that, he just votes her off without any heads up and she is sent to live with the literal outcasts, stewing about his decision. When she suddenly returns to the game and holds power as a swing vote, it’s kind of easy to understand why Lill isn’t so quick to save her old buddy.

While Savage’s mistake is egregious, he is far from the last person who will ever make a similar error. Mishandling people at the bottom is a Survivor mistake that is destined to be repeated for eternity. It’s easy to lose sight of how people feel at the bottom when you’re on top. You don’t relate to people in the same way depending on your position in the tribe. People you might think are in your alliance could clearly be out to sign your death note but if you aren’t perceptive enough to stay humble and keen to how others are feeling, you’re doomed to make the same mistakes dozens have made. Take Survivor: Gabon, the Onions, and the fake merge for example.

An alliance forged purely off of one man’s lust.

To set things up, the Onions 2.0 were Marcus Lehman, Charlie Herschel, Corrine Kaplan and Randy Bailey. They represented the majority on Kota which also had Bob Crowley and Susie Smith. Bob was loosely part of the Onions alliance and Susie was definitely on the outside looking in. Like Randy, she had started the game off with the Fang tribe and swapped over to Kota. Unlike Randy, she did not ingratiate herself to the new tribe. In simple terms, Kota had a 6–4 numbers advantage against the horribly inept Fang tribe of Matty Whitmore, Crystal Cox, Ken Hoang and Sugar Kiper. Instead of merging at 10, production decided to have a very late second tribe swap and even out the sides at five. Marcus ends up on a tribe with Susie, Bob, Ken and Crystal and is voted out of the game. The long standing argument is that Marcus was screwed by this twist and that he would have otherwise ran the game at a merge.

Here’s why I think this is wrong. Regardless of whichever tribe lost, both sides had a 3–2 advantage of Kotas over Fangs. Marcus should have had the numbers to vote out Crystal or Ken so why did he get voted out? Because his Onions alliance treated Susie like dirt. Corrine hated Susie because Susie had openly told Corrine she was thinking of targeting her. She had also claimed to be physically stronger than Corrine. While these are good reasons to dislike someone, in a game like Survivor you either have to vote out Susie or play nice with her in an effort to keep her along as a number. The Onions were not thinking long term towards the merge when interacting with Susie because they didn’t think she would have the balls to flip over. As it turns out, Susie wasn’t afraid to rock the boat. Because Susie felt like the Onions were never planning on playing ball with her, she quickly flipped over to Crystal and Kenny. She did not feel a sense of kinship with the Onions because they had never made her feel safe and made her feel like an outcast.

No, not those Outkasts

With that in mind, consider what happens in a merge scenario. The Kotas superficially have a 6–4 advantage but knowing that Susie is looking to flip at a moment’s notice, the game is really tied up 5–5. So with Susie on Fang’s side, Kota suddenly doesn’t control who goes home. This is doubly true when you consider that Sugar is in possession of the hidden immunity idol and Kota isn’t aware of it. If they successfully guess who Kota would be coming for at the merge (Matty), they play the idol and idol out Marcus. Same result as what happens on the show in a slightly different way. Marcus doesn’t lose the game because he gets “swap-fucked” he loses the game because he fails at placating the outcast in an effective way.

Not those Outcasts either.

There are ways to really control those people on the outside or at the bottom of an alliance. Brian Heidik put on a masterclass with this in Survivor: Thailand. He understood that Ted Rogers, Helen Glover and Clay Jordan all need re-assurances about their spot in the alliance and he told them all that they were Brian’s closest ally. Brian played everything close to the vest and excelled at one on one conversations. Anybody who talked to him left that talk feeling like they were set in the game. Because they all felt comfortable with him and trusted him, they didn’t think twice of double checking with the others and Brian was able to comfortably coast to the finish. For a sociopath who is also possibly a robot, Brian played one hell of a social game.

Another person who perfectly understood how to control her relationships was Kim Spradlin. I’m not sure anybody has ever managed her alliances better than Kim did in Survivor: One World. She made an initial alliance with the women by forming very strong bonds with each of them. At the tribe swap, she was able to bring in some men and form an alliance with them. Both these groups were fully onboard with Kim as a partner. At the merge, she leveraged her alliance with the guys to skew the numbers towards the women and then disposed of all the male challenge threats as soon as she could. By the time they figured out what was happening to them, it was too late for them to do anything as the women were all deeply loyal to Kim because of the bonds she had forged with each of them from day one. Kim also understood when it was time to cannibalize her own alliance and let Kat Edorsson go before she had originally planned in order to keep her end-game strategy perfectly in place. Kim understood how power dynamics in the game worked and she never let anybody feel like they were outside the core of their alliance.

Everyone listening to Kim: Survivor One World in a single picture.

Of course, there are also ways not to handle someone at the bottom of the totem pole. I don’t think anybody exhibited that any better than Laura Boneham in Survivor: Blood vs Water. She found herself in a Galang alliance composed entirely of women: Tina Wesson, Katie Collins, Monica Culpepper, and herself with Vytas Baskauskas as the lone male. The thing is, Vytas and his brother Aras had a by now well-established pre-game alliance with Tina and Katie. He was in a pretty safe spot despite looking like an obvious odd man out. Additionally, at this point, Laura was already kind of on the outs of her alliance for being as odd as her husband Rupert without any of the tangible skills. That’s when she decided to tell Vytas that he was the next to go. Without even consulting her alliance first.

It should be rule number one in Survivor to never tell the person who is going that they are going. In this case, Vytas would have probably been safe regardless and Laura was playing the game on a level lower than everybody else. That said, if Vytas had truly been marked for dead, telling him that he was next is enabling him to start making crazy moves. When you know you’re leaving you start throwing shit at the wall in hopes to get something to stick. When Laura goes rogue and tells Vytas he is going, it allows him to start wheeling and dealing out of desperation and it shows her alliance that she is unreliable with secrets and needs to be let go before she implodes their entire games.

Later on in that same season, there is a moment that perfectly captures the dynamics of knowing you’re the next one out and knowing you’re at the bottom of an alliance. At final six, Hayden Moss is able to flip Ciera Eastin away from Tyson Apostol’s dominant alliance at tribal council. Hayden goes hard at Ciera because he knows the writing is on the wall for him. If he isn’t able to flip Ciera over to his side, he is going home regardless and Tyson is in perfect position to win the game. If he at least tries to get Ciera to come over with Katie and Hayden, then they have a fighting chance to sniff the final three. Moves out of desperation are sometimes the most effective because they are the most passionate. Passion resonates with people because it sounds genuine.

On her end, Ciera decides to flip over to Hayden and Katie because Hayden is able to demonstrate to her that she is number four in an alliance of three. Only three people get to reach the end and fight for a million dollars and as soon as Ciera realises that Tyson never had any incentive to take her over two people he can easily beat, Ciera’s motivation to flip sides is suddenly upped to 11. If Tyson had been able to convince her before tribal that despite what it looked like, Ciera was his closest ally, she doesn’t flip over to Hayden and risk her life over drawing rocks.

While it may seem like a bad thing from any angle, being the outcast can be a good thing for a Survivor’s game. Think of players like Chris Daugherty, Danni Boatwright and Denise Stapley. They quickly found themselves as the only players from a certain tribe or alliance left in the game with a majority looming over them. All three of them won their respective seasons. They were smart enough to realize cracks in the majority and were able to convince parts of that majority that they could be used as an extra number to take over the game and be disposed of later. An army of one is not intimidating to an army of many but given enough skill and guile, one is all that is needed to conquer many.

Something, something, back door.

So if you ever find yourself playing Survivor and controlling a majority alliance, remember this article. Don’t forget the ones outside your alliance and especially the ones at the bottom of your alliance. Make them feel higher up, don’t let them know what number in the pecking order they are going to be. The second they realize they are coming up soon, they will bolt on you and your road to the end will get a lot more complicated. As Criss Jami, an American poet once wrote, “I never feel unsafe except for when the majority is on my side” and that, in a sentence, sums up the entirety of Survivor social dynamics.