Day 3: Most Annoying Survivor
Survivor 39-Day Challenge
I go back and forth between two Survivors for this category. But I ultimately decided that, in my opinion, the most annoying Survivor in 40 seasons of the show is Dan Foley.
Dan was a part of the milestone 30th season of Survivor, which had a very odd theme to it — White Collar vs. Blue Collar vs. No Collar (side note: if this collar thing is possible, I do think anything is possible, like Survivor: Hogwarts – Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin; still waiting for that to happen). Being a postal worker, he was placed with the tribe of people doing blue collar jobs. His opening line: one way or another, you will not forget me. He was right, for all the wrong reasons.
Dan’s candor somehow made him annoying. He’d make comments about things that did not necessarily involve him, but would take a moment to jump in anyway. It was kind of narcissistic. He was able to compare a very controversial topic in domestic violence to his childhood experience which has nothing to do with domestic violence itself. “I am an adopted child,” he explained. Quick to shut this one down was Jeff Probst, thank the Survivor gods.
He was also self-righteous. Right off the bat, he’s shown this with the shelter building, when he scolded everyone on the tribe and lectured them about bamboos as construction materials. Yet, after all this hullabaloo, he’s just concerned that the structure the entire tribe was making would not be able to support his, uh, well, let’s say stout figure.
We learned how Dan, in the context of the show, looked down on women. It’s like telling future castaways ‘this is how you talk to women and voila, you can now manipulate them’. But he’s so wrong, not only in his belief that he could talk to women, but also his treatment of them. All of it, very appalling. He ostracized Sierra early on, and when the swap happened, Mike was very worried about Dan’s actions toward Sierra coming back to bite their alliance’s sweet patootie. “Dan just doesn’t have the social skills to just work it out,” Kelly described.
The satisfying part was his boot, getting idol-ed out by Carolyn, after confidently playing his well-earned extra vote advantage (ha! a chance to do a theater show for the jury to see how I am playing the best game right now) which turned out to be null anyway. Up until that point, he believed (or at least he was saying) he’s playing a good game. If you watch his boot episode, there’s a certain play he could have made with that extra vote that might make one go ‘huh, perhaps he’s playing a little more clever game than I thought’.
I think it’s just for show, because boy, Dan loved to give us some showmanship, yes? But the sheer bitterness towards Mike at the tail-end of the season, just because he’s clearly being outwitted and outplayed (may have some bias over here), was painful to watch. He described everything he hated about Mike, which, scrutinizing more closely, were all the descriptions that actually suited him. It was so weird. In the end, he amended their differences by giving Mike his million-dollar vote.
Disclaimer: Perhaps, Dan is a good man and fun to be with and anything but annoying outside the game. He could be, I don’t know that, and I am assuming because you just have to assume that as the default about people — the goodness. I’m discussing Dan Foley as a Survivor player/character here, not much else.
Runner-up: Tasha Fox, Runner-up, Survivor: Cambodia
