A Fan Should Have Known Better – Survivor: Micronesia’s Kathy Quits

Let’s get something straight as we start this Reality TV Hall of Shame induction: Kathy seems to be a very nice lady. She seemed that way on the show. She seemed that way when I interviewed her. But while being a nasty person can get you into the Hall of Shame, being a nice person when you’ve done other things wrong does not get you out.

And hoo-boy, did Kathy do some things wrong. In fact, the main thing she did was one of the primary reasons for finding yourself in these halls: She quit Survivor.

Even in its sixteenth season, Survivor remains hugely popular. Thousands of people routinely try to get on the show, but only a few actually make it. Those few should know what they’re getting themselves into and should be prepared for it.

That goes double this season, as half the contestants have been through this before and the other half are supposedly super-fans. These are not folks who have merely a passing familiarity with the game – the Fans should have known everything they would face.

Yet Kathy, from the first couple days she was out there, couldn’t handle the situation in which she found herself. Allow me to quote from my first episode recap, long before we knew Kathy would quit: “The rain starts pouring down and, well, they get wet. Kathy complains about how much ‘this sucks’ – and it’s only the first night! Wow. She’s a fan? She’s watched the show before? Holy cow.”

Of course, it didn’t end there. Kathy’s problems with the weather only got worse as time went on. As she told me, “Mother nature out there just really… you don’t expect it. They show it raining for 10 seconds, you don’t realize it’s 12 hours.”

But many viewers have since then commented on this particular statement, noting that anybody who watches the show should know how bad the weather gets. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous to assume that just because they show 10 seconds of rain on the show, that means a downpour only lasted that long. As I noted in Why Kathy Lost, “Most of us hear the contestants complaining about how bad it is. I’m just not sure how Kathy missed that.” Remember, Kathy is supposed to be a fan, not just some casual viewer. Indeed, as Teeuwynn Woodruff said in her Survivor Insider recap, “What really gets me about Kathy is that she goes on and on about how it’s raining and you don’t have anything when you’re on Survivor, yet she has supposedly watched every episode of the show. Yes, I know experiencing something is different than watching on TV. It looks miserable, exhausting, cold, hot, wet, hungry, and plain sucky out there. And I’m sure it’s worse than that. But that is just my point. I watch the show and I know that. Kathy should not have been as surprised as she was about how rotten the experience was out there.”

Since leaving the show, Kathy has admitted she was overwhelmed. She told me, “I was not prepared for how brutal it would be.” She also apologized to viewers and those who would themselves like to appear on the show. That’s all well and good, but she also said other things. For example, she told me, “mother nature kicked my ass – and the seven other people I was with on my tribe.” That’s a key point. Yes, mother nature did kick her ass – but she was with other people. They all survived, they all stuck around, they all continued to play. She quit.

I think we can look at Kathy’s situation and see that it wasn’t just the weather that caused her to leave, but her own emotions. Kathy missed her family and felt she had nobody. She stuck it out for 19 days, through all the weather. But during that time, she had crutches to lean on in the form of Tracy and Chet, and then Jonathan. It wasn’t until they all were gone (or in Tracy’s case, in the other tribe) that Kathy’s breakdown was complete. She decided she had nobody and missed her family, and she couldn’t go on.

I asked her about the fact that she would be sequestered upon quitting and thus not with her family anyway. Logically speaking, that should have entered into her decision to quit. But she said quitting at least put her “one step closer.” I don’t really see how that helps in this case.

Let me just be clear about this: I’m sure it was nasty out there. I’m sure Kathy missed her family. But the others faced the same problems. Many others in the history of Survivor did likewise. But only a few have quit for these types of reasons – and they’re here in the Hall of Shame. For instance, we inducted Osten when he quit and then did likewise for Jonny Fairplay quitting early this season. We have inducted a number of other quitters from other shows as well, such as Vinny Pastore and Gene Simmons from Celebrity Apprentice – and that was just this past season!

No matter how much we might like Kathy or feel bad for her, the fact of the matter is that she took a spot on Survivor that should have gone to a Fan who could hack it. She should have known what she was getting into, in this of all seasons especially. But she apparently expected it to be a day at the beach.

Survivor is a tough game. Otherwise, what would there be to survive? People who want to play need to be prepared, both mentally and physically. But Kathy was not. She needed crutches to support her emotionally. Once those were taken away from her, she fell down flat. Kathy quit. And now she is inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Micronesia articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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