Survivor: Micronesia – Why Jonny Fairplay Lost

The first person voted out of a new Survivor season is typically a boor or a jerk who doesn’t get along with anybody. Frankly, that would describe Jonny Fairplay in general. However, it doesn’t explain why he was voted out of this particular edition of Survivor.

It may seem odd to even discuss it, given that Jonny asked to be voted out, thus essentially quitting. But we have a history of still doing “Lost” columns on quitters, including the likes of Osten from Pearl Islands, Verna from The Apprentice 3, and Michelle from The Apprentice: Los Angeles. So to maintain tradition, we will take a look at Jonny’s situation and answer the question of why Jonny Fairplay lost.

As part of that discussion, we will also talk about what Jonny was doing and how well he might have done as the game went on. Part will be speculation, of course, but the guy didn’t stay around long enough to work with much more than that. To aid us on our path, we will base our discussion, as usual, on What Micronesia Survivors Should Have Learned. So let’s get started.

The first rule, always and forever, is to scheme and plot. This one was certainly well-known to Jonny in general and in particular how to apply it on Survivor. Indeed, in just the first couple days, he had already figured out how he was going to game the system – and the other players.

There were two groups of four looking for a way to ensure a majority. Cirie apparently took a “wait and see what shakes out” stance, so that left Jonny. Both groups approached him and he of course pledged loyalty to them both. He could have sided with either of them and moved forward in the game, probably ensuring he would make it at least to the merge unless the Favorites went on a disastrous immunity challenge losing streak. After that, a lot would have likely depended on which tribe arrived at the merge with more players.

In my interview with Jonny, he indicated he was sure he could have won it all. What else would we expect him to say? He claims he is the best player ever and the most well-known. I, however, would dub him the most egotistical – and that’s saying something when you’re being compared to the likes of Richard Hatch!

In any case, I do have to say that Jonny was in a good position moving forward. He, like Dr. Will of Big Brother fame, somehow manages to convince people that although they are well-known liars, and might have even lied to them previously, this time they’re telling the truth. Really. Honest. Cross their hearts. That could have certainly helped him if he chose to keep going.

One thing that could have worked against him, though, was if he had been caught scheming and plotting too much, in violation of the second rule. This was only the first few days, after all, and he had made promises to both major alliances. If he continued this sort of behavior rather than firmly aligning with one group or the other, there likely could have come a point where these experienced players looked at each other and said, “You know, we can fight it out later, but for now we need to get rid of him,” much like what happened to Christy (Amazon) and Dolly (Vanuatu).

Certainly, Jonny knew how to follow the third rule, which says to be flexible. Heck, there hadn’t even been a vote yet and he understood that he couldn’t just tie himself to one alliance and hope it survives.

But he didn’t do so well with the fourth rule, which says not to allow your emotions to control you. Jonny Fairplay, the guy who took such joy in using emotional manipulation his first time around, fell prey to his own emotions this time. He apparently got it into his mind that there might be a problem with his unborn daughter. This thought started infecting both his dreams and his waking hours. Given what he told me in his interview, and allowing myself to do a little amateur psychoanalyzing, I suspect it stemmed from him telling his fiancé not to call him if there were any problems. That made him realize that if there were a problem, he wouldn’t know. So what if there is a problem?

Jonny needed to find a way around that type of thinking rather than allowing it to consume him. While him telling his fiancé that probably wasn’t the best idea, it was done. Once he was there, however, he needed to focus on the game. He needed to recognize that even if there were a problem, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it anyway. It wasn’t being a bad father, as he described, because there was no baby yet. He just needed to get past the thoughts and into the game. But he couldn’t do that.

The fifth rule tells players to pretend to be nice. As we’ve mentioned earlier, Jonny is good at getting people to believe him – and a large part of that is his ability to pretend to be nice to both sides, even as he’s planning to stab at least one of them in the back. So on that front, Jonny was fine – at least for the three days he was there. Who knows how long it would have lasted beyond that.

The sixth rule takes us to an interesting conjecture. It says not to be too much of a threat. In terms of challenges, Jonny didn’t have to worry. However, everybody knows he will lie to anybody about anything. In a game like Survivor, that makes him quite a threat. In those first few days, it seemed that most people foolishly thought they could control that threat, at least for now. Some would have been perfectly happy to vote him off right away and get rid of the threat. Indeed, I suspect that was one reason people didn’t try too hard to talk him into staying, as has been done historically for some other players who considered quitting. “Jonny wants to leave? By all means, there’s the door!”

The seventh rule, warning against being lazy, didn’t play a role here at all. For that matter, neither did the eighth, which tells players to vote off the weak first (unless you consider that Jonny’s state of mind was making him weak).

So that brings us to consider all of the facts available to us. Let us look back in history a bit – to the first person to quit Survivor. It was Osten, ironically in the same season as Jonny Fairplay first appeared. As I said in “Why Osten Lost,” “he signed up for a game that he had no business playing.” In a way, Jonny was in the same situation. He knew his fiancé was seven months pregnant. He knew this would mean leaving her for over a month and that she could theoretically have the baby early. He knew complications occurred. He convinced himself ahead of time that he could handle it, but once he was in Micronesia, he convinced himself quite the opposite.

As I also said of Osten, “He allowed his emotions to overrun him and fell prey to despair even when it didn’t seem warranted.” The same was true of Jonny here. They were different emotions but they were there all the same. Jonny, the guy who would do and say anything in the game, became Jonny, the guy who would do anything to get out of the game.

In an incredibly ironic twist of fate, the man who tried to use the emotions of others to help him win ended up succumbing to his own emotions. That is why Jonny Fairplay lost.

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 RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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