Last week, we looked at some data from first boots in our Survivor Statistics column. This week we will do the same but with the second boots of each season. Once again, some ground rules to help establish my methods before we begin:
· Some returning player seasons have not been included in this set of data but do have their own set of data I will get into at the end of this article. The seasons that are separate from the majority are: All-Star, Heroes vs Villains, Cambodia and Game Changers.
· I took my statistics for players’ ages from Wikipedia which seems to be the most accurate for when the filming period took place.
· In terms of occupation, I simply went with what the CBS bios told me because that is what I officially consider cannon.
· My source for who are applicants and recruits is this chart which has been very accurate in the past.
· In seasons with Redemption Island twists in play, I still stuck with the order the person was voted off their tribe. That is why Matt Elrod makes an appearance in the data even though he obviously returns to the game
· Similarly to the Redemption Island twist, I chose not to consider Wanda and Jonathan since they were never actually voted off. They didn’t even get a torch, they simply weren’t selected and I have always just thought of them as backups that were allowed to be filmed. That may not be fair but it’s the decision I went with. E-mail or tweet me your hate if you disagree.
· Finally for One World, I did not count Kourtney as she wasn’t voted off at all. Being a medevac is not being sent home by your tribe. Nina instead took her place as the first boot and the order goes from there.
Got all that? Good. Let’s get into some observations.
Age
At an average age of 33.33, the second boots are considerably younger than the first boots at 36.53. If you were to take out the two oldest second boots, B.B. Andersen and Gillian Larson, the average age drops to nearly below 30. Whereas the early Survivor trends of voting out the older people first was definitely noticeable with first boots, the mantra did not stick to the second boot.
People in their 20s and 30s are in most danger to become the second person kicked out of the game. Part of that is simply being part of the largest demographic of players. Still, it seems like a player in his 50s has a good chance of surviving that second tribal since no one in that age group has ever gone home second.
We have two people who happen to fall right onto the average age. Those would be One World’s Matt Quinlan and Blood vs Water’s Rachel Foulger. Three people are 32, Melinda Hyder (who looks considerably older and was put on the older women’s tribe, ouch), Vince Sly and Mr. Beef Jerky himself, Kel Gleason. Nobody was voted off second at 34 years old.
There is something about the age being this low but to tackle that, I first need to elaborate a little bit more on…
Gender
Of the 30 second boots in the data set, 20 of them are women. 10 of these women are in their 20s. This in combination with the average age above helps support my long held theory that there is a typical second boot in the same way that first boots used to be the older, less capable player. The typical second boot is the younger woman, usually she is very attractive, and who the tribe perceives as not really wanting to be there.
The players I am thinking of are people like Ashlee Ashby, Morgan McDevitt, and Ashley Massaro. These are all women in their 20s. All contestants that were voted either for not working hard enough at camp according to their tribe mates or for looking like they have checked out of the game.
What can anybody possibly do to combat that kind of thought process? It’s impossible to change one’s look if they happen to be an attractive young woman. All they can do is work extra hard at camp and really seem invested into the tribe’s chores as to not look like they don’t want to be there. It is often unfair of the others to judge people based off their looks but it’s going to happen in Survivor and knowing the trends, at least players can do things to avoid falling into the same pitfalls.
Occupation
Three police officers have been voted out second. I can see why Tony Vlachos was so hell bent on insisting he was not a cop. The interesting thing is that of the four players, their job never came into the equation for why they were voted off the island. Jessie Camacho was voted off because she was getting sicker by the day. Betsy Bolan was voted off for daring to stand up to Russell Hantz, and Val Collins went home for having 1,000,000 idols. If you count Papa Bear, who was voted off third but went home second because of Redemption Island, he was voted off because he was the weakest of the Savaii members and not due to his police days.
What that means to me is that while being a cop does have a stigma among future players because of their performance, they didn’t remember the actual reason these people were voted off. You can point to these four as low finishers who happen to be cops but they are not low finishers BECAUSE they are cops. That’s a big difference. Avoid being weak, lying about multiple idols, getting sick, and playing with Russell Hantz and you should be fine whether or not you’re a cop.
Being a pro-something or other is also a bad omen if you don’t want to be a second boot. We have a pro-poker player, a pro-video game player, a pro-wrestler, and a pro-duce clerk all as second boots. And yes, that was a bad joke.
Students and musicians also have a rough time being voted off second. Three students have gone home second, two of which were part of the attractive young female group and the other being Matt Elrod. The immortal Billy Garcia and the less memorable Melinda Hyder are the singers who have taken an early fall, joining their four fallen brethren from the first boot group. Interestingly enough, the first two boots in Cook Islands, Sekou and Billy, both worked in the music industry, at least according to their profiles. Those Cook Islands players really were not into musicians.
Recruit or Applicant
16 applicants went home second versus 14 recruits. This is almost split down the middle which offers us no real trend to study. Though I can tell you that up until Vanuatu, every second boot was an applicant. This makes sense considering they used way less recruits back then. Post-Vanuatu, we have 22 second boots, and all 14 of the second boot recruits are part of that group.
Part of this is the obvious inverse of what happened earlier on. Production started using more recruits and thus increased the chance of having recruits go home early. That being said, it needs to be considered that recruits start going home early because they don’t understand how to play the game and maybe play too hard too fast or make some socially damning moves early on.
Did the winner or first boot come from the same tribe as the second boot?
Only roughly a third of the second boots shared a tribe with the winner. That means if you’re on Survivor and want to win the game, desperately try not to lose that second challenge. It’s an even worse percentage than losing the first challenge and still going on to win.
Like the recruits vs applicants, about half of the second boots came from the same tribe as the first boot, 16 of them to be exact. This means that about half the time in Survivor, the same tribe loses the first two challenges. There seems to be no specific trend to when it happens or doesn’t and there has been no significant streak of one or the other happening consistently over a considerable portion of time.
Returning player data
There isn’t nearly as much to look at with the complete returning player seasons because it is such a small pool of data. For example, looking at an average age (44.5) gives us basically nothing because Rudy Boesch is pulling the average almost 6 years simply by himself.
The one thing I wanted to look at was these players’ previous placement and if it comes into play with their early boot the second time around. It kind of seems like it does in certain cases. The average previous placement for this cast is 4.2. The lowest placing returning player was Shirin Oskoi in World’s Apart followed by Stephenie Lagrossa’s Palau game. They are pulled up considerably by Tony’s Cagayan win, Steph’s runner-up game in Guatemala and Rudy’s third place in Borneo.
This at least tells us that if you place well in your seasons before returning, you could be in some trouble with your new cast. This isn’t exactly old news but it does help confirm what our eyes tell us is happening.
Conclusion
In order to avoid being a second boot, your best bet is to not be a 33 year old woman who also happens to be a police officer and isn’t sharing a tribe with the eventual winner of the season. It’s also dangerous out there for anybody named Ashley (or Ashlee) and Matt since two second boots have shared each name. Maybe consider a name change if you’re planning on playing the game under those names. Finally, if you can avoid it, don’t try to smuggle beef jerky with you into the game.
Really this set of data is still unpredictable because 30 seasons, while a lot for television, doesn’t give us a huge sample size for predicting behaviour. Still, in that small sample size, we have seen some tendencies pop up that can help inform somebody going into the game of what not to do. Especially when putting this set of information next to the one produced for first boots and as we go along to the 3rd boots. Eventually once I have done a lot of early boot statistics, my plan is to look at the entirety of pre-jurors across the history of Survivor and that should bear some interesting fruits.
