Big Brother 8: Why Amber Lost

At one point, Amber was a part of the ruling alliance. But then she eventually found herself with only one ally in the house. How did she fall out of favor? Where did she go wrong? Did she do anything right? Why did Amber lose?

Amber seems to firmly believe that she was voted out because she was too much of a threat to win if she were up against another player. Then again, Amber also believes God gave her visions about Big Brother events and that she will be a model when Big Brother is over. Since her track record isn’t that great, we aren’t simply going to accept her beliefs on the matter. Instead, as we always do, we will look back at What Big Brother 8 Houseguests Should Have Learned to see where she went wrong.

Well, look at where we begin – with a massive failure on Amber’s part. The first rule tells players they need to scheme and plot. Yet as we heard Eric say on Thursday night’s show, he was sick of her non-existent game play (among many other things he’s sick of with her). Quite frankly, I can’t think of one good game move Amber made over the course of the entire summer.

Let’s see. She paired up with Dustin, and he led her around by the nose. When he was gone, she floundered around for a while. When she had an opportunity to make a deal with Daniele, she offered up everything but the kitchen sink (though she might have thrown that in too and we just didn’t see it) when she really only had to make a one-week deal. Previously, she swore on her daughter that she wouldn’t vote against Eric, only to later find out he said something that made her mad enough that she wanted to vote him out. But swearing on her daughter was more valuable than the game, so she couldn’t do it.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Heck, you’ve been watching the same show I have. Scheming and plotting takes a certain amount of intelligence; I hate to say it, because I’m don’t like to gratuitously insult people, but Amber simply did not seem to have such intelligence.

How many times did we hear Amber talk about wanting “the good people” to win? To her, good people are the honest, God-fearing, never-say-a-bad-word. Mind you, she didn’t fit into that category (failing in at least two categories), but that point never seemed to get through to her. In any case, the point here is that Big Brother is not about being a “good person.” It’s about playing a game. In that game, it’s necessary to make alliances, scheme, plot, and yes, tell the occasional (or more than occasional) lie. You can be a “good person” all you want in the real world – it isn’t going to get you very far in this game.

Since the second rule tells players not to scheme and plot too much, you might be surprised when I tell you Amber failed there too. “But how could that be?” I hear you ask. “After all, you just chastised her for not scheming and plotting enough!”

True. However, there is a specific provision in the rule about pairing up. “Open partnerships,” it says, “are just begging to be split up.” Yes, there are two other open partnerships in the game right now, but they wisely teamed up rather than going against one another (for now). Amber and Jameka were on the outside, looking in. And since neither of them knew how to play the game, “outside” was where they were destined to be (Amber is, Jameka likely will be soon unless she changes something fast).

Another part of this rule Amber failed was in her stupid attack on Eric to Jessica. While it’s likely that Amber would have been gone anyway, how dumb did she have to be to say all the things she said about him to the one person he’s been closest to in the house? Did she really think she was going to pry Jessica away from him? No! Instead, Jessica told Eric everything, which only fueled his desire to see her go. Not smart on Amber’s part.

At least Amber tried to accomplish the third rule, which is pretending to be nice. The problem is that she couldn’t hold back when talking to other people. She was nice to Eric’s face, but then slammed him in the diary room and to other houseguests (as just described above). And she did the same with other people as well. As much as she talked about being a good person, she said numerous things about other people that were not so “good.”

As some other examples, there were her (unaired) comments about Jews and Asians. There was her discussion of what she did in her life that wasn’t so great (all of which violate the portion of the rule that talks about avoiding controversy). And she often failed to act like an adult, crying herself practically to the point of dehydration.

In this particular case, Amber’s failure to abide by this rule had an additional result. America was tired of her. Viewers spoke very clearly in telling Eric they wanted her nominated and evicted. I know I was personally sick of seeing her on my TV screen. Her whining, her hypocrisy, her holier-than-thou attitude – it all became too much. And when the viewers got tired of her, America’s Player had to act – though it was convenient that he was thinking the same thing anyway.