Fan Nickname / Survivor

WARNING: Spoilers ahead are unmarked. You have been warned.

For the TV series:

Alliances

Here's a few other popular (or once popular) fan nicknames for alliances featured on the show:

• "The Boran Boys" (Lex, Big Tom, and Ethan during Africa)
• "Twigs and Sticks" (Jenna and Heidi during The Amazon)
• "Crazy Casaya" (Shane, Courtney, Danielle, Aras, Cirie, Bruce, and Bobby during Panama. This is an exception in that it describes the entire tribe instead of a specific alliance.)
• "The Ometepe five/six" (Andrea, Natalie, Grant, Phillip, Ashley, plus Rob when it's six, during Redemption Island)
• CRABS (Coach, Rick, Albert, Brandon, and Sophie during South Pacific.) After Edna joined, the acronym got changed to BRACES.
• "Cool Kids 2.0" (Taylor, Jay, Michelle, Will, Figgy, later joined by Michaela and Hannah (who defected)) and "Nerd Voting Bloc" (Adam, Zeke and Hannah) on the Millennials side of Millennials Vs. Gen-X.
• On Gen-X, there was "Paul's Posse" (Paul, Chris, Bret, Sunday, Jessica and Lucy) but after a swap, losing its members, and making the merge with the outcasts, they formed together and became "The Gen-X Alliance" (Chris, Bret, Sunday, David, Jessica and Ken).
• "The Campout" (Danny, Deshawn, Shan, Liana), nicknamed as such due to being an alliance consisting of black contestants similar to the Cookout alliance from Big Brother 23.
• "The Tika Three" (Yam-Yam, Carson, and Carolyn during 44). They are also alternatively known as "The Three Stooges".

Game Mechanics and Strategy

• "Goats" are people who are intentionally taken to the end of the game by other players with the knowledge that none of the jurors will vote for them to win. It has ascended as the show went on, but the original term of this came from a post on Survivor Sucks.
• A blindside is when a contestant goes into tribal council thinking they will be safe, when in reality they’re the one who gets voted off. Works as both a verb and a noun.
• "Pagonging" is when, after tribes merge, the one with the majority systematically eliminates the other (named for the Pagong tribe of Borneo, the first victim of this). As many of the players don't feel a need to immediately break the original tribal alliances upon merging, pagonging is attempted rather often. (It often leads to a Boring, but Practical strategy if one thinks about it; because removing the opposing alliances at merge means you can waltz undefeated to the finals.)
  • "Ulonging" is similar; only the tribe gets utterly destroyed before the merge by losing challenges. Named for the Ulong tribe in Palau, who lost every single Immunity challenge. They went down in history as the only tribe to be completely eliminated before the merge (except for Stephenie). In fact, there was no official merge in that season because of this.
  • "Matsinging", named for the tribe from Philippines, is similar but refers specifically to a losing tribe in 3-tribe seasons since those seasons have different dynamics. Interestingly, those dynamics tend to put the survivors of these in favorable positions after their tribe is inevitably dissolved. When done on purpose, this is an "Intentional Matsing."
  • "Unintentional Tandang", named for the tribe from the same season as Matsing, is the exact opposite of the "Intentional Matsing" as it refers to a tribe within a three-tribe season that keeps on winning immunities, but get picked off at the merge very quickly, as their sheer numbers make it harder to gain allies, while the lack of tribal council also prevents them from booting wild cards they had on their tribe before the merge.
• "Medevac" or "medivac" is a portmanteau of "medical evacuation," wherein a player gets removed from the game for their own health.
• "Hidden immunity idol" often gets shortened to "idol" for convenience.
  • "Idol" is also used as a verb to describe the act of playing a hidden immunity idol, and "idoling someone out" means using an idol to take out a player who did not receive the most votes.
  • The "idol with special powers" in Cagayan is referred to as the "Tyler Perry idol", since the idea came from a text message from Tyler Perry to Jeff Probst. Alternatively called the "Super Idol," to include functionally similar idols from Panama and Cook Islands.
• "Advantagegeddon" refers to the final 6 Tribal Council in Game Changers where 3 immunity idols and a legacy advantage were played, sending Cirie out of the game as the only person not immune, despite not receiving any votes. By extension, it refers to any theoretical scenario where the same can happen.
• "Gamebot" is a player whose entire focus is on winning the game and maximizing their success at winning the game at the expense of everything else (such as enjoying the experience). They tend to be panned for poor social game. They are differentiated from most players (who also want to win) by their apparent disinterest in anything that doesn't advance them further in the game.
• The term "Big Move-itis", often used when somebody makes a big move just for the sake of making a big move, despite it being more or less a bad move to make at that point in the game.

Other

• "Loser Lodge" is a popular term for the Ponderosa, the nearby complex at which Jury members are sequestered before the Final Tribal Council.
  • "The Mayor of Ponderosa" is a nickname given to the first member of the jury.
  • The name "Ponderosa" comes from another long-running TV show; it's the homestead ranch featured in Bonanza.
• The term "Island Hot" is used to describe players who are considered to be becoming more attractive the longer they stay in the game as they lose weight, get more tanned, and, in the case of the men, grow beards.
• "Mactor" is a Portmanteau of "model" and "actor", referring to the large number of models and wannabe actors who've been cast over the years. It's implied to mean in a cynical way that said mactor doesn't care about being on Survivor and is only on the show for the exposure (as opposed to an "applicant" who is more likely to have watched previous seasons).
• “Golden Boy” is a young, conventionally attractive male who Jeff likes to fawn over. They also tend to get lots of screentime.
• "CG-I", to refer to a player with an Out of Focus edit to the point that they seem almost digitally inserted into the show halfway through the season, especially Brett in Samoa. In a similar vein, thanks to Purple Kelly's Out of Focus edit in Nicaragua, people have referred to Out of Focus contestants as "Purple ______" as well as those types of edits being referred to as "Purple Edits" in general.
• To disambiguate between the many Natalies to play Survivor, Natalie from Redemption Island is often called Nat10, short for her surname, Tenerelli.
• A darker example, in light of his real life larceny and child pornography charges, some fans have started referring to Michael Skupin as [REDACTED]. The name "Bob Johnson" also caught on for the same reason.
  • A similar thing happened to Jeff Varner after he outed fellow contestant Zeke Smith as transgender.
• Shortly after she was voted out first again, Francesca gained nicknames such as "Anti-Sandra," or "Reverse-Sandra," etc.
• During the merge of Caramoan, Dawn lost her set of false teeth and had a breakdown. Brenda then went on to find them and the two bonded. Despite this, Dawn voted Brenda out at the final six. This got turned around on Dawn when she made Day 39, where Brenda asked Dawn to take her teeth out, only to not vote for her anyway. This situation, very divisive among the fandom, is often referred to as "teethgate."
• "The Smurfs tribe", the post-shuffle Escameca in Worlds Apart due to the tribe having blue Color Motif and The Smurfette Principle being blonde and an original member of said blue tribe.
• After Stephen Fishbach incorrectly referred to Missy as Muffin on Rob Has a Podcast, several fans started doing the same.
• The eleven people who were not voted to play on Cambodia are often referred to by fans as the Bitter Eleven.
• Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers has been called "Triple H" or "HHH" by fans.
• Many fans have taken to referring to Ghost Island contestant Chris Noble as The Noble One.
• Donald Glover for Wendell Holland (aka the winner of Ghost Island) thanks to how similar looking they are.
• 42's Mike has been dubbed Stan Mike after him mistaking the slang word stan for fans thinking that was his name.
• 44's Lulu tribe has been nicknamed the "Lulu Losers" and the Lulu Lemons" for their incompetence and constant failure throughout the season.

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