My friend wished to remain anonymous, but she recently went to a party hosted by Erik from Survivor Micronesia and she actually got a chance to meet him and
talk with him. This is what she told me.
It is long but amazing:
I just got back from Erik's party. :) It was pretty sweet. Erik's really nice and a lot like he is on the show, but not as dumb as they make him look lol. I actually got to talk to him quite a bit about the show and other random things. Then he invited my boyfriend and I (he came with me) to go hang out at a bonfire with his friends after the party had ended. So that was pretty awesome. His mom even invited us to stay at his house and make us pancakes in the morning!! haha. She was really nice and talked my ear off lol. Unfortunately my boyfriend had to work early the next morning so we didn't stay the night.
I think it would have been pretty neat though.
Unfortunately, no other Survivors were able to make it which was disappointing. Alexis would have come if she hadn't been in Egypt and Natalie was for sure supposed to be there but Erik said she had some sort of hold-up at the last minute. Ahh well. At least I actually got to talk with Erik instead of just say hi, take a picture and leave. And he gave me an ice cream scoop from the place he works at which is autographed and says "The Ice Cream Scoop From Hell" haha. (Hell is the town the ice cream place is in).
Anyway, just wanted to let you know how it went. :D You should definitely check out my pictures though. I didn't take many because after I started talking to him a lot it felt weird to just take a random picture of him lol. But yeah, check out the pics of him and my boyfriend dirty dancing with an old lady haha. It was hysterical! Good times. :) You should have come!!!
p.s. He said a producer from Survivor told him that a gorilla punched someone in the face while they were filming Survivor: Gabon hahaha. He's not sure if that will be aired or not but I thought it was rather amusing.
Erik's not in Gabon, the producer called him. He said that on the set you pretty much become friends with everyone there and a lot of people exchange numbers with each other. Except for the camera men. Haha. He said they're paid to be quiet and even if you get up close to the camera and say funny things to them they won't talk to you. Isn't that sort of like the guards in England? haha.
One thing he told me about Micronesia is that Kathy was on anti-anxiety pills before the show and you're not allowed to take them if you're on Survivor I guess. So she went cold turkey right before she went on the show and sort of went crazy I guess. He said she had breakdowns almost every day and said she started saying she wanted to quit on the second day.
Another thing... He was telling us how the paying system works. First place gets a million obviously then 2nd is 100,000 then he said third place gets quite a bit too but he wasn't sure how much. He said that after that it drops and goes down by weird increments of like $1,250 or something. So he told us that he ended up making about $60,000 for being on the show. I think maybe you already know this but everyone that attends the reunion show gets $10,000. And the people that got voted out early in Micronesia (pre-jury) went on an all paid for cruise around Australia AND got $100 each to spend/save per day. So Erik basically said that if you're not going to make it far in the game you might as well be voted out early and just get a free vacation out of it lol. He said that Johnny Fairplay had planned all along to do that because he didn't think he would get far because of his reputation.
Another really interesting thing he told me was about tribal council. Apparently no one ever really walked to tribal council. Tribal council took place near civilization (not on either of the islands the tribes were on) and so they always took a boat there. He said if they had walked or swam I guess, it would have taken them 2 hours to get there. So he said the camera men would just start rolling as they started walking toward wherever the boat was at then flip to the tribal area.
Hmm what else... he was talking about some of the people's personalities in real life... he said James was really cool and that when they were at Ponderosa they played Halo a lot lol. He said he liked Ozzy in the beginning but it wasn't as extreme as they showed him on TV. He said after a while he started to notice that Ozzy was extremely full of himself and basically just an ass. He said he was in a really bad mood most of the time he was at Ponderosa. He also told me that Ozzy and Amanda aren't together anymore and they weren't even together during the reunion. Ozzy cheated on her... who would have guessed? I wondered why they didn't mention anything about the relationship at the reunion...
He also said Joel was a really angry person who didn't get along with anyone. But you could pretty much figure that out by the editing...
He also said that the reason the Fans tribe looked so weak was because their beach was way worse than the Favs. It rained ALL the time and that's why they couldn't start a fire because by the time the rain stopped they had to wait a couple hours for everything to dry out. Kathy wasn't exaggerating when she said it rained for 8-10 hours straight. Erik said it was just awful because of all the bugs too. And going back to the whole Fans tribe looking weak, apparently the Favs got fire right away because Yau-Man knew a trick to starting a fire. He used three different people's glasses layered on top of each other to focus the sun's rays better and start a fire. I think he said the Favs had fire the first day because of this. I don't quite remember what they showed on TV...
Wow this is so long but I have to share something else... the beach that the Favs were on was the EXACT same one that the Ulong tribe lived on in Palau... the cave that the Fans slept in was the same one that the Ulong members slept in. I guess they aren't too creative on locations haha. Erik said he wishes they would do a Survivor: Greece. That would be pretty sweet.
Omg I still have more lol. He told me that Survivor 3 was set to be filmed in Palestine, but because of 9/11 they couldn't go there and changed the location to Africa instead. I bet Palestine would have been pretty interesting too. It's a landscape that Survivor has never been to before.
He also told me some pretty sad news. He's 99% positive that Survivor is going to end at 20. He told me that the show just isn't getting enough viewers and sponsors. Remember how neither China or Micronesia had a car challenge? No car company wanted to sponsor them. Even though people have been saying
Micronesia was one of the best seasons, there still weren't many viewers; the numbers have been steadily decreasing year after year. So yeah, you better
make a kick-ass video and app cuz time is running out!
It was weird because he said that while he was there Jeff was "soul searching" and trying to figure out what to do with his life lol. That sounds funny for Jeff but maybe he's going to be lost in his life after Survivor ends. I mean, he's done it for what, 8 or so years now? And that's a pretty awesome job, going around country to country staying in luxurious places while other people starve lol. But maybe he's tired of always traveling, who knows...
Oh yeah and he has an idea about what the "twist" or whatever might be for Survivor: 18. Since ratings have been low they're trying to mix it up I guess by letting 18 year olds on the show. And what more of a perfect time could you get than Survivor 18? haha. Anyway, he said he thinks they are going to do a young vs old thing and basically match people who are physically strong against people who are not as physically strong but have more knowledge/experience with the world. I think that could be a good idea because it may draw in some of the older crowd to Survivor. They may want to see how people their age to against the "youngins" lol. Anyway, that's just his theory, I'm not really sure where the basis of it came from.
It is long but amazing:
I just got back from Erik's party. :) It was pretty sweet. Erik's really nice and a lot like he is on the show, but not as dumb as they make him look lol. I actually got to talk to him quite a bit about the show and other random things. Then he invited my boyfriend and I (he came with me) to go hang out at a bonfire with his friends after the party had ended. So that was pretty awesome. His mom even invited us to stay at his house and make us pancakes in the morning!! haha. She was really nice and talked my ear off lol. Unfortunately my boyfriend had to work early the next morning so we didn't stay the night.
I think it would have been pretty neat though.
Unfortunately, no other Survivors were able to make it which was disappointing. Alexis would have come if she hadn't been in Egypt and Natalie was for sure supposed to be there but Erik said she had some sort of hold-up at the last minute. Ahh well. At least I actually got to talk with Erik instead of just say hi, take a picture and leave. And he gave me an ice cream scoop from the place he works at which is autographed and says "The Ice Cream Scoop From Hell" haha. (Hell is the town the ice cream place is in).
Anyway, just wanted to let you know how it went. :D You should definitely check out my pictures though. I didn't take many because after I started talking to him a lot it felt weird to just take a random picture of him lol. But yeah, check out the pics of him and my boyfriend dirty dancing with an old lady haha. It was hysterical! Good times. :) You should have come!!!
p.s. He said a producer from Survivor told him that a gorilla punched someone in the face while they were filming Survivor: Gabon hahaha. He's not sure if that will be aired or not but I thought it was rather amusing.
Erik's not in Gabon, the producer called him. He said that on the set you pretty much become friends with everyone there and a lot of people exchange numbers with each other. Except for the camera men. Haha. He said they're paid to be quiet and even if you get up close to the camera and say funny things to them they won't talk to you. Isn't that sort of like the guards in England? haha.
One thing he told me about Micronesia is that Kathy was on anti-anxiety pills before the show and you're not allowed to take them if you're on Survivor I guess. So she went cold turkey right before she went on the show and sort of went crazy I guess. He said she had breakdowns almost every day and said she started saying she wanted to quit on the second day.
Another thing... He was telling us how the paying system works. First place gets a million obviously then 2nd is 100,000 then he said third place gets quite a bit too but he wasn't sure how much. He said that after that it drops and goes down by weird increments of like $1,250 or something. So he told us that he ended up making about $60,000 for being on the show. I think maybe you already know this but everyone that attends the reunion show gets $10,000. And the people that got voted out early in Micronesia (pre-jury) went on an all paid for cruise around Australia AND got $100 each to spend/save per day. So Erik basically said that if you're not going to make it far in the game you might as well be voted out early and just get a free vacation out of it lol. He said that Johnny Fairplay had planned all along to do that because he didn't think he would get far because of his reputation.
Another really interesting thing he told me was about tribal council. Apparently no one ever really walked to tribal council. Tribal council took place near civilization (not on either of the islands the tribes were on) and so they always took a boat there. He said if they had walked or swam I guess, it would have taken them 2 hours to get there. So he said the camera men would just start rolling as they started walking toward wherever the boat was at then flip to the tribal area.
Hmm what else... he was talking about some of the people's personalities in real life... he said James was really cool and that when they were at Ponderosa they played Halo a lot lol. He said he liked Ozzy in the beginning but it wasn't as extreme as they showed him on TV. He said after a while he started to notice that Ozzy was extremely full of himself and basically just an ass. He said he was in a really bad mood most of the time he was at Ponderosa. He also told me that Ozzy and Amanda aren't together anymore and they weren't even together during the reunion. Ozzy cheated on her... who would have guessed? I wondered why they didn't mention anything about the relationship at the reunion...
He also said Joel was a really angry person who didn't get along with anyone. But you could pretty much figure that out by the editing...
He also said that the reason the Fans tribe looked so weak was because their beach was way worse than the Favs. It rained ALL the time and that's why they couldn't start a fire because by the time the rain stopped they had to wait a couple hours for everything to dry out. Kathy wasn't exaggerating when she said it rained for 8-10 hours straight. Erik said it was just awful because of all the bugs too. And going back to the whole Fans tribe looking weak, apparently the Favs got fire right away because Yau-Man knew a trick to starting a fire. He used three different people's glasses layered on top of each other to focus the sun's rays better and start a fire. I think he said the Favs had fire the first day because of this. I don't quite remember what they showed on TV...
Wow this is so long but I have to share something else... the beach that the Favs were on was the EXACT same one that the Ulong tribe lived on in Palau... the cave that the Fans slept in was the same one that the Ulong members slept in. I guess they aren't too creative on locations haha. Erik said he wishes they would do a Survivor: Greece. That would be pretty sweet.
Omg I still have more lol. He told me that Survivor 3 was set to be filmed in Palestine, but because of 9/11 they couldn't go there and changed the location to Africa instead. I bet Palestine would have been pretty interesting too. It's a landscape that Survivor has never been to before.
He also told me some pretty sad news. He's 99% positive that Survivor is going to end at 20. He told me that the show just isn't getting enough viewers and sponsors. Remember how neither China or Micronesia had a car challenge? No car company wanted to sponsor them.
Even though people have been saying
Micronesia was one of the best seasons, there still weren't many viewers; the numbers have been steadily decreasing year after year. So yeah, you better
make a kick-ass video and app cuz time is running out!
It was weird because he said that while he was there Jeff was "soul searching" and trying to figure out what to do with his life lol. That sounds funny for Jeff but maybe he's going to be lost in his life after Survivor ends. I mean, he's done it for what, 8 or so years now? And that's a pretty awesome job, going around country to country staying in luxurious places while other people starve lol. But maybe he's tired of always traveling, who knows...
Oh yeah and he has an idea about what the "twist" or whatever might be for Survivor: 18. Since ratings have been low they're trying to mix it up I guess by letting 18 year olds on the show. And what more of a perfect time could you get than Survivor 18? haha. Anyway, he said he thinks they are going to do a young vs old thing and basically match people who are physically strong against people who are not as physically strong but have more knowledge/experience with the world. I think that could be a good idea because it may draw in some of the older crowd to Survivor. They may want to see how people their age to against the "youngins" lol. Anyway, that's just his theory, I'm not really sure where the basis of it came from.
