Ok, so I hadn’t seen or followed Survivor until today, when I couldn’t escape it’s expanding event horizon. It was even on the front page of the New York Fucking Times. Below the fold, but still.
So now I know exactly two things about Survivor. 1) Richard won a million bucks. 2) Richard is an asshole.
Would you make that trade? Would you be willing to be thought an asshole by 100 MM people in exchange for a $1,000,000? $10,000,000?
Make the check out to Brian Stringer, please. I’ll do it for $100k.
Correction: you know one thing about Survivor. Richard did indeed win a million bucks. However, he is not an asshole. He has been portrayed that way by the producers of the show because, as everyone knows, villians sell. Richard might not have been the best person on the island, but he was certainly the best player. This fact is what allowed him to sway the jury into giving him the million. Whether he truly is an asshole or not is something that we can’t possibly know. We are familiar with Richard the contestant, not Richard the human being. After all, how far would you go for a million dollars? And does that necessarily make you an asshole?
Oh, and if you want to be really picky - Richard probably won $600k or less after taxes. So both of your statements are false.
Wasn’t this whole thing in the can before the broadcasts started? So the producers, knowing in advance of the series broadcast who the winner would be, just might have been able to edit the interviews and the filmed events to show him in the worst possible light?
Ever watch the way 60 Minutes plays games with their hostile interviews?
(Pure speculation and question. I haven’t seen any of the episodes or read about the personalities. I don’t even know why everyone hates Richard.)
Interesting NY Post article from a few days ago.
http://www.nypost.com/news/10339.htm
Never watched the show, but I suspect this article is right on. Sounds like the corporate world to me.
Anyone who pays a full dollar for an M&M is an asshole.
I can go one step further. What are ya’ll talking about? 
Just from the title, I thought this thread was about me.
Well, except for the million bucks part.
Hell, everyone already thinks I’m an asshole. Where’s my million bucks?
I think it is curious that many people viewed Survivor as some sort of popularity contest, as if the nicest person should win. The name of the game was Survivor, ferchrissakes!!! Why should it surprise anybody that the asshole won? That’s the way it is in real life; nice guys (and girls) get eaten for lunch. If it were otherwise, Jimmy Carter might still be President.
It is a truism in business: Cream and bastards rise to the top. Every company needs an asshole at the top to make the cutthroat decisions, tell the lies and screw the competition. In nature, the nice creatures are usually the nachos of the food chain, conveniently breeding in large enough numbers to feed the more aggressive animals.
Would anybody have watched if the object was to compete to see who could be most congenial? Sounds to me like an ice cream social of Mormons on Prozac (or Who’s on your SDMB Laminated list?).
Although I didn’t like him, Rich played the game the way it was supposed to be played. If it rewarded assholishness, so be it. Perhaps it makes some people uncomfortable because it runs counter to what they wish the world was like; however, I found it interesting as a study of how the world is. I prefer to see the world for what it is, warts and all, than to live in a fool’s paradise.
Oh yeah, the question: I’d take the money. So what if strangers don’t like you? My friends know me, that’s all that matters.
Well, even my FRIENDS don’t like me, so I guess I’ll take the money, too. I can buy an island or somethin’ and live on it.
<waits…shuffles feet…waits some more…wonders where manny came up with this much cash>
Ukelele Ike said:
You didn’t hear? Phaedrus finally paid him, with back interest.
Why is he an asshole? Did he break the rules of the game? Did he play unfairly?
I can’t believe these attitudes. If you sit down with some friends to play Monopoly, are you an ‘asshole’ if you manage to get you hands on Park Place and Broadway and bleed everyone dry? No. It’s what you are SUPPOSED to do. The GAME was called ‘Survivor’. They had little flags on the island that said, “Outplay, Outwit, Outlast” or something like that. You were SUPPOSED to scheme and plot. That was the whole point. It was what the producers wanted. They didn’t want a bunch of buddies to get together and have a weenie roast for 39 days and then hold a popularity contest. Richard provided a ton of entertainment (think how boring the show would have been without him), which ultimately was every player’s reason for being there.
And give him credit - right from the very beginning he made no pretenses about the fact that he was going to do everything he could to win. He didn’t pretend to be a lovable teddy bear and profess undying friendship to people and then stab them in the back. He formed alliances, found a skill that made him indispensible, he used a lot of strategy in the reward challenges, etc. Ultimately, he played the game to its fullest extent as he was supposed to. So did many of the other players. They had their own strategies for staying on the island. They all failed. Richard won. Good for him.
Who exactly is everyone? Is it my friends, my family, or my loved ones? If its a hundred million strangers that I have and probably will never meet, I couldn’t care less. Would people refuse me service, spit in my food, etc? It wouldn’t matter to me, because only a complete idiot would do something like that. It really doesnt matter if a lot of people think i’m an asshole, as once said, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.”
As for Richard being an ass, i’m sure the media only made him look like one. Kelly would have made a good candidate for an ass, pretty much anyone on the island could have been portrayed like that, even the host if they wanted it.
Good point. Let’s narrow this down a little.
For TEN MILLION DOLLARS, would you grow a little toothbrush moustache, comb your hair diagonally across your forehead, and wear a Nazi uniform at all times, even to bed?
Only if I’d get to be on TV.
Ukulele Ike got the spirit of this thread right. It matters not whether you are (or Richard is) actually an asshole. The point is that in exchange for your million bucks, you’d appear on the front cover of the New York Post with KING RAT written in 50-point type, people stuck in airports would accuse the gate agent of being a [your name here], etc.
You have no way to predict whether the furor would die down quickly or if people would still scowl at you in restaurants 10 years hence. But you do know that, at least for a few weeks, pretty much everybody would know who you were and consider you an asshole.
Would you make the trade?
I thought M&M’s were candy coated chocolates?
There is however a huge difference between an “asshole” like Richard who did what he had to to win and a bigot who promotes genocide.
I would gladly take a million dollars in exchange for people thinking I did what I had to do to win, ie. asshole as portrayed by a ton of idiots (which seemed the question in the thread). But I however would not be portrayed by millions of people as a nazi for ten million dollars; which is a entirely different question.
I really like making people happy, and I like people liking me. I don’t think I would like people coming up to me and saying they hated me for measly $1MM. That isn’t actually that much. Not even for $10MM. For $100MM? Well, not that it would happen, but maybe we’d talk if I got offered that much.