by Sam Cotthoff
As I finished watching the Survivor season 49 finale, I was excited to hear about Survivor season 50. It’s mind boggling to me that TV shows run this long. General Hospital has had 63 seasons over sixty years, Sesame Street is in its 56th season in over sixty years, and Saturday Night Live is in its 51st season fifty one years later. Unlike most legacy shows, Survivor hitting 50 feels different because it’s only 25 years old. Survivor premiered in 2000 and has aired two seasons a year since 2001. 50 seasons in a quarter century is impressive.
Let me explain how a basic season of Survivor works. 16 to 20 individuals are marooned in a “deserted” location and split into 2-4 tribes that compete against each other for immunity and reward. They live in separate camps and create their own mini societies. The losers of tribal immunity challenges head to Tribal Council, where one person is voted off and their torch is snuffed. Eventually, a merge happens, where all players join one tribe and compete for individual immunity. A jury is formed of people eliminated after the merge. This jury, at the end, votes for the winner of the season after a Final Tribal Council
My journey with Survivor was expedited due to the wonders of YouTube and the vast other wonders of the internet. I learned about Survivor, fell hard in eighth grade, and haven’t really looked back since. My first full season that I sat through and watched was season 35, Survivor: Heroes, Healers, and Hustlers. I then went deep, buying seasons 13 and 15, Cook Islands and China respectively, on iTunes. I finally turned to streaming services to watch older seasons in between the two seasons in a calendar year. My obsession went into the classroom. I took College Algebra as a senior in high school at the Hopkinsville Community College, where my final project was Survivor themed. It has also followed me to college, where I “hosted” Survivor Nights in the Campus Center Game Room my first semester and went as a Survivor contestant for Halloween sophomore and junior year (I needed to reuse a costume junior year, the double Halloweekend was a trying time).
I’ve always loved the show because of its combination of social, strategic, and physical elements and its emphasis on community dynamics. I find it fascinating to watch people create, maintain, and then unravel complex interpersonal connections. They try to blindside each other at the vote, but often end up being blindsided themselves. It’s also interesting to see how the social game links to their personal, physical state of food deprivation and exhaustion from challenges. The physical aspect of the game creates a reliance on alliances, as they are lifelines when your head is on the chopping block.
Survivor is a social scientist’s dream show. As an Anthropology/Sociology major, I love witnessing the creation and recreation of societies, the identities the tribes give themselves, and how things like tribe swaps impact social order. The show compresses the formation of societies from years and decades into a matter of hours and days. It forces strangers to negotiate leadership, trust, and morality while leveraging their own survival in the game against the actual survival of the members of their tribe. Hierarchies emerge, solidify, or vanish with every vote. Cultural norms form and dissolve with tribe swaps and merges. The changing of power is fascinating to follow. Ultimately, the game exposes how humans adapt when resources are scarce and social bonds are necessary. Survivor has always been, for me, a study of human behavior, reward, and social hierarchy.
That’s why Season 50, titled “Survivor: In the Hands of the Fans,” felt like a celebration.
Set to premiere on February 25th, 2026, the season promises fan involvement on a level that has never been seen before. “The fans voted on things that impact this game,” says host Jeff Probst in the season 50 trailer. Throughout the airing of Survivor season 48, fans voted on major components of the game. Here is a list of a few of the things that fans voted on:
- Are there immunity idols? (tokens contestants find at their tribe camps that they can play to prevent them from being voted out of the game)
- What should the individual immunity necklace look like? (in the latter half of the game, contestants are part of one tribe and compete for individual immunity; the winner of the challenges wears a decorative necklace)
- What should the final individual immunity challenge be? (fans voted between three famous Survivor final challenges)
- What should the starting tribe colors be for the three tribes? (options included 1 – Red, Blue, Green; 2 – Cyan, Orange, Purple; 3 – Green, Red, Yellow
It was cool to feel like I was a part of the making of the show, especially for a season so monumental. But my smile turned into a frown when Mr. Beast showed up.
The season 50 trailer showcased several celebrities in moments that appear to directly impact gameplay. Mr. Beast is shown in a clip that hints at an event similar to the Survivor Auction, a reward challenge where players wager money for advantages and food. We also see a cinematic shot of a coin/token flipping, with the words “Beast Games” on the top and “Survivor” on the bottom. Singer Zac Brown is shown walking up to a tribe’s beach with a fish slung over his shoulder. Contestant Rick Devens mentions a “Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol” while Christian from Survivor: David vs Goliath says “Jimmy Fallon may decide my fate in the game.”
At the heart of the game, Survivor has always attempted to reflect the social world. The show prides itself on being a microcosm of the real world in game format. Contestants are forced to work together to win challenges, debate and decide who to vote off the island, and survive as a tribe on an island. The premise works because everyone is theoretically on equal footing when starting the game. There are seasons that include all returning players, like season 50, and some that are a mix of new and returning players, and others that are all new players. Gameplay is sometimes affected by outside relationships, like wife and husband duo Amber Mariano and “Boston Rob” Mariano on season 40. However, that is a social relationship that potentially hurt them in the game, not outside interference.
While we don’t know the role of celebrities in the show, their presence undermines the purpose of the game and unnecessarily commercializes random aspects of the show.
To be clear, Survivor has never been free from branding. The show in the past has had themed food rewards, like Outback Steakhouse or Applebees, or product placements from Coca Cola, Sears, and Sprint. Getting food as a reward will influence gameplay because you aren’t starving, but it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a brand attached to the food. However, there is a difference between sponsored rewards and celebrities potentially influencing gameplay.
While mine is a fairly emotional reaction, it still reveals a structural concern about the show. In a SAPIENS article, anthropologist Travis Warren Cooper argues that equating celebrities and everyday people “conceals the social, cultural, and economic asymmetries at play.” Jeff Probst encourages people “just like you, on the couch at home” to come play the greatest social experiment ever created. We cannot just pretend that celebrities are neutral participants in this game. They are not some whimsical addition to the game. The presence of celebrity further deteriorates the “reality” of reality competition, creating a misaligned spotlight from the contestants and their gameplay to the celebrities.
As a fan of the show, I’m annoyed. Every conversation I’ve had with fellow Survivor fans has centered on fewer twists and more gameplay. I don’t care for the gimmicks; I want to see gameplay and social strategy. Celebrity involvement feels like a step in the wrong direction, disconnecting me from the game even more. This season is apparently “In the Hands of the Fans,” but it feels like it’s out of our hands. Sure, we got to vote on tribe colors, but celebrities with named idols, and Mr. Beast and Zach Bryan are on the islands of Fiji? I feel scammed.
Now, will I still watch the season? Yes. You got me there. That does not minimize or take away from the concern I have for this season. Survivor is still creating its legacy, and as it goes past its fiftieth season, I hope CBS remembers the most compelling part of the show is the gameplay and the social structure that is created. It is important to focus on the individuals that play the game and make the social connections, not the celebrity that wants to join the fray.