Day 12: Survivor Whose Brain You’d Love to Pick
Survivor 39-Day Challenge
I’ve got to be honest here, I don’t really know how to answer this category. Let me think… alright. I’ll pick one whose game I admire the most, but I don’t think I have very much in common with on the ground level. With that, I’d love to pick the brain of Mike Holloway.
I think him being a religious man is the main difference from myself. I respect everyone’s religion and beliefs, but I never consider myself religious. Spiritual may be the most appropriate description of my relationship with the supreme being/s. And if we consider the “collar” theme of his season, I pretty much can relate the most with the white collar tribe, and the least with the blue collar tribe, in which Mike was placed in the thirtieth season of Survivor.
Such classification as a hard-working blue-collar guy coupled with his Christianity defined how Mike would play the game in Worlds Apart. He was able to build a strong connection with his tribe-mates who are blue-collared as well, which, from outside looking in, is the easiest to build relative to the other two opposing tribes. I think among the three tribes, the blue collar connection would be, and has been, the strongest because of the pride the classification actually establishes. “We are the hard workers doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do,” say their battlecry. White collar people tend to compete with each other, part of the ugly corporate culture I suppose, while the “no collar” tribe tend to just have fun and not necessarily care too much when they should.
I admire Mike the most the moment he was isolated from the tribe a few votes after the merge. He was gaslighted by Rodney who was about to make a big flip on Mike, that Mike was the one who’s flipping from the blue collar alliance; a bit icky of a strategy which didn’t work anyway to erase Mike’s likability altogether. However, it still turned Mike as ‘Enemy No. 1’ and became the biggest target. The events that happened during the auction that season didn’t help him either and made a stronger case for Rodney and, by extension, the whole tribe to further isolate him. The way he carried himself through such isolation and gaslighting amazes me, because if I’d be in his position, I’d never be as strong as he was; maybe that’s where his faith comes into play big-time.
He also won a record of five individual immunity challenges in a single season, testing agility, dexterity, even puzzle solving skills (not to mention his wins on the tribal phase and the reward challenges).
What’s interesting as well is despite being isolated for the most part of the merge, he was still able to collect enough votes to win in the end, beating Carolyn who I think played a strong game. Meaning, he was still able to maintain a good relationship with everyone despite being painted as the ‘flipper’ who’d ‘never win’.
He was able to play the part of the biggest target and did balls-to-the-wall moves. The mindset was “I had nothing to lose at this point so might as well do whatever.” For a calculating and strategic person such as myself, this is very admirable, and I would want to talk to Mike for his thought process regarding this. Was it his faith? His blue collar association? How did he do this? I wanna know.
I would’ve loved to see Mike’s game without, for the most part, the blue collar mentality. Too bad, he was one of the winners not at war for Season 40. That would have been a perfect season for him to return.
Runner-up: Kim Spradlin, Winner, Survivor: One World
