“Well Done, Cirie” – An Interview with Survivor: Micronesia’s Joel

I’ll answer some of the questions addressed in the above introductory paragraph right now. Unlike what we saw of Joel on Survivor, he seemed very happy and easygoing to talk to – he laughed, saw things objectively, and was obviously not upset anymore at what happened. Let’s see what he has to say.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Joel, and thanks for taking the time to talk to RealityNewsOnline! Starting at the beginning, what was your strategy coming into the game?

Joel: My strategy was to align myself with people who saw whatever attributes they thought I brought to the game as a necessary to go further. If they thought I was strong, I wanted then to be weak. If they thought I could get food, I wanted them to not be able to get food. If somebody couldn’t make fire or shelter, I wanted them if they felt I could. When you have contrasting abilities those are the people you want to align with. With two people who have similar things to offer, or are perceived to, one of them is going to be expendable.

RNO: How did your strategy change once you got into the game?

Joel: I don’t feel like it changed at all once I got into the game. Sadly, it changed at the shuffle, not really because I wanted it to. But it threw me for such a loop that I started playing the game emotionally instead of logically.

Prior to that, I was playing a numbers game. I made an early alliance with Alexis, and then we had Natalie and Erik in it by day two. From then on, I felt it was a done deal. I had a strong alliance and we were on the same page with what we wanted to do, with opinions on other players and basically the way we were going to go about making sure the four of us made it to the merge. When they shuffled the tribes, that threw a stick in our spokes.

RNO: What were your first thoughts upon seeing the Favorites?

Joel: Oh crap. That was my first thought: Oh crap. Great, here are some people who have been here before, they’ve had the experience, they’ve dealt with the social dynamic. They’ve got an advantage. Here we are, a bunch of yahoos who don’t know fire from a palm frond and trying to figure it out. That was pretty obvious in what we see in the episodes with us trying to make fire and build shelter and trying to get along. It was humorous.

RNO: Now that you’ve seen the episode, what do you think of the events leading up to you being voted off?

Joel: Having seen it and seeing the conversations going on when I wasn’t around, quite honestly I applaud them. Cirie specifically, good job, well done, and well played. There was a plan that as far as I was concerned was set in motion. Until Cirie heard it and then she worked her butt off to change it. She saw the “strong” people on the tribe were going to vote off the “weak” people on the tribe. She knew she would follow Chet shortly thereafter. She didn’t want that to happen and she worked her tail off getting that to change.

RNO: Did you realize Cirie could be so strategic and devious?

Joel: No. I had no idea. In fact, she was so non-threatening, she flew completely below my radar. When we first did the tribe shuffle, Ami approached me and Ozzy approached me. Both separately said we should vote Cirie off because she’s running things. But I said, “Are you kidding me?” Ozzy said don’t tell Ami; Ami said don’t Ozzy; both said they wanted to vote off Cirie. And I was like, something’s going on here that I’m not aware of.

I tried to do my own thing, but my own thing was no longer based on the numbers, but on my emotions. If I had continued to play the way I had been playing, I would have gone to Tracy and Chet and said the two of you, Erik, and myself will agree to never vote each other. Worst case scenario we’ll have a four-four tie at Tribal Council. But emotionally I didn’t allow myself to view things that way, that got the best of me and that was my downfall.

RNO: What are your thoughts about Chet?

Joel: I think Chet’s a great guy. I think Chet understands the game of Survivor. I think he understands where he falls in the hierarchy of the players on the game. I don’t think Chet did a single thing to get himself to where he is in the game now. I think people are looking at him, thinking he will very likely never win an individual challenge and he will very likely never get a vote to win the millions dollars, so strategically I want to keep him close because he guarantees me a win.

RNO: What about Mikey B?

Joel: Michael is a strong player. He understands the game of Survivor. He is a very competitive person himself but I think Michael wants people to believe that about him and so he is the biggest self-promoter that I’ve ever seen. That was his downfall. That didn’t just frustrate me, but others too.

Erik said in Tribal Council that strength is more than physical. We shouldn’t be alienating the other three just because they’re not strong. Tracy said at Tribal Council [they’re] being blamed but [they’re] being sat out. Chet said when he voted that Michael hasn’t stopped talking since he got here. That was his downfall. Mine was switching to playing the game emotionally, and Mike’s was he was so overwhelmingly vocal about how great a player he was and how everybody should attach themselves to him if they wanted to go far.