An Arrogance-Fueled Horrible Game Move: Big Brother 8’s Dustin Gets Himself Evicted

Many shows don’t have a single person from their cast mentioned here in the Reality TV Hall of Shame. Rare is the show that has more than one. And yet here we are in Big Brother 8 with a second induction – for almost the same exact reason as the first one!

You may recall that a few weeks ago, we inducted Mike for giving up his safety and taunting Head of Household Dick until Dick purposely gave up in the veto competition and vowed to nominate Mike in place of veto-winning Jen. Mike had been safe. Then he ensured he was not. And then he was voted out the door.

Does this remind you of anybody else?

OK, so you may say it reminds you of 2002, when Marcellas was inducted for failing to use the veto on himself. Almost the same thing – he could have been safe, he chose not to be, he was gone.

But we’re not talking about the past, we’re talking about the present – at least as present as the night of Thursday, August 16. That’s when Dustin was evicted from the Big Brother house after, like Mike, making a move so dumb from a game play viewpoint that it can only be called shameful.

Dustin was perfectly safe. His ally, Jessica, had won HOH and nominated Dick and Daniele for eviction. All was fine until Dick won veto and vowed to save daughter Daniele. This left a spot open for Jessica to fill.

Odds were good that Jessica would likely replace Daniele with Jen or Zach. In either case, Dick would probably have gone home. But even if he hadn’t, it would have removed somebody who was not part of the Late Night Crew (LNC) alliance. And Dustin would certainly have been safe – and in a great position to move towards the end.

Not only did Dustin belong to the LNC, but he controlled Amber’s vote as well. He had influence on the others, but with two solid votes, heading into a week when only three were needed for an eviction, that was power. If Dick had gone home, the LNC could have focused their efforts on Daniele, Jen, and Zach before worrying about turning on themselves, which would have put Dustin into an even better position.

And on top of all of this, Dustin knew there had been mystery votes cast in the house. All it took was one vote to change the outcome for Dustin, and that one vote kept popping up in the most unexpected places.

But Dustin got cocky. He volunteered himself to be put on the block next to Dick. He decided to be a pawn, to show Dick who was really in charge of the house.

Well, he did do that, didn’t he? It just wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

The tide turned against Dustin in part because of America’s vote, telling Eric to target him. But that alone couldn’t have done it. As described in Big Brother 8: Why Dustin Lost, Dustin made himself vulnerable to Eric’s surprise attack in a number of ways.

But none of that would have made a lick of difference if Dustin had just kept his mouth shut and stayed safe.

When we inducted Mike here earlier this season, we wondered if his move was the dumbest ever – worse even than Marcellas’. We didn’t come up with a good answer and decided only that they were both in the top two. Now we have to add Dustin to both of those and make it a top three. Indeed, if anything, I think we need to place Dustin’s move a bit higher than Mike’s, as Mike was doing his for reasons of honor while Dustin was doing it for reasons of arrogance and vengeance.

Still, this nomination is not really about Dustin’s personality. It is focused on his game play. We’ve had six seasons of Big Brother being played in essentially the same way it is now. Everybody should know that being a pawn is a terrible idea. Often, people don’t have a choice. Dustin did. He put himself into the pawn position and gave others the opportunity to eliminate him from the game. They did so. And because of it, Dustin is now being inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame.

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