By Jeannie Ben-Hain
Survivor is one of those shows on TV that people love to condemn
as pop culture at its worst. During its first season run, I adamantly
refused to watch it. So now I ask myself how did I get hooked this
time around? This season, I have a group of friends I get together
with each week to watch the show with. We enjoy speculating beforehand
about what will happen, whom we think will get voted off, and which
characters we love (or love to hate). During the show, we yell at
the screen and criticize players' motivations, fashions, and dialogue.
Whether or not Survivor is a quality show, it's an entertaining experience.
Survivorsucks.com offers an online equivalent of this very same experience.
On the surface, the website offers a place for people to criticize
the show and question its place in our culture. The very name of the
site writes the show off as something that sucks. But, in reality,
the site offers a place for watchers of the show to join together
and share the experience of watching it. Immediately after this week's
show, members logged on to the message boards to speculate what will
happen next week (will Colby continue his run of immunity?), to mourn
the loss of a favorite tribe member (Rodger), or to mock Colby's ridiculous-looking
fur hat.
The part of the site I enjoyed the most was the message board threads
that showed off the members' creativity. One topic had posts with
pictures of cast members with endorsement products that would most
fit their show persona. A simple understanding of photoshop and a
bit of imagination and very funny pictures emerge. I also really enjoyed
another thread where members would post a picture from that week's
episode and encourage the most original caption. All of these creative
outlets could be perceived as copyright infringement but the ability
to use these pictures in ways they were not intended has lead to a
new type of storytelling surrounding the TV show.
The website also offers a "Fantasy Outback" segment similar
to the fantasy sports leagues we discussed in class. Each week, players
choose who they believe will win the various challenges, get voted
off, and other random questions assigned by the game master. Then
the scoring criteria is decided and points are handed out and taken
away. I enjoyed guessing who I thought would come out ahead in the
show, it allowed me to speculate and attached me to the game in a
new way. At the same time, this offers the chance for 'celebrity'
for the winner of the contest, as discussed in class.
I recommend Survivorsucks.com as an entertaining way to add to the
experience of watching the show. If nothing else, browse the message
boards to find some of the wild speculations people have about the
show or the creative modifications people have made to pictures.