Why People Love Underdogs… and Hate Villains

Last year I wrote a post about British singing sensation Susan Boyle called Why Does the World Love an Underdog?

It wasn’t picking on Susan — it was pointing out limiting patterns many people have, and why we need to provide value in order to receive it — but it caused quite an uproar from Susan fans who took it personally, and don’t understand the personal-development lessons that Barry and I offer by dissecting trends and actions.

(This blog is written by me, whereas our LWL blog has been written by both of us, but make no mistake… I discuss a lot of thoughts and feelings with Barry before writing posts like this, so parts of him are here too.)

Don’t go to that post looking for the flames, though, because most of them weren’t approved. I always welcome intelligent commentary, but not things without substance, like, “You’re evil! Susan rules!”

Again, I think Susan has a great singing voice — not my taste, but she’s certainly talented.

As for the winner of this season’s Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, I can’t say the same thing. What it proves is that some people still love underdogs, and can’t stand villains…

This is Thursday, and for the first time in awhile, Barry and I won’t be watching Survivor. I know, it seems like a pretty pedestrian viewing choice at first, but it’s a fascinating look at human nature and psychology (and yes, I “get” that “reality shows” aren’t “real”… that doesn’t take anything from the fact that, even if some things are set up, real human emotions and relations come into play).

I remember watching the first season of Survivor a decade ago, but I never watched again until we stumbled onto Samoa (Season 19) last summer, saw 37-year-old oil services company owner Russell Hantz mouthing off about what he was going to do, and then experienced him actually doing it.

Hey, ya gotta respect someone who does what he says, cocky or not! He really makes the show interesting with his scheming.

He also revealed his belief that he could control his competitors’ thoughts by controlling their feelings… something that anyone who’s studied metaphysics knows to be true.

That’s why, when we found out he was going to be on Heroes vs. Villains (Season 20), we had to watch that too.

If you didn’t follow it, the first time around he made it to the end, but lost to a soft-spoken girl (26-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep Natalie White) who had been riding his coattails in an alliance.

Entertainment Weekly‘s Dalton Ross described the fiasco this way:

“You may not like Russell. You may consider him cocky, sneaky, and lots of other things. But he OWNED this game, and he owned the final Tribal Council as well. Natalie’s opening speech to the jury contained NOT ONE SINGLE REFERENCE to anything she did well in the entire game, just that it was ”the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Hey, hand her the million then! Later, she talked about how her big strategy was to NOT be aggressive. That was her strategy!!! Don’t do anything. Again, hand her the million!”

Yeah… that was our first clue that people don’t like anybody who makes them uncomfortable, rocks the boat, or dares to be different from what “the crowd” dictates. They voted for Natalie over Russell because she didn’t ruffle any feathers, and Russell definitely did. People like to believe that being “nice” is better than being ambitious, and it showed in that vote.

But no matter how much you like to watch the cheerleaders, you can’t say they’re the true winners of the game. The guys getting dirty on the field are the ones who get the Superbowl rings, and in this case, that was Russell.

Pundits, bloggers and commentators observed that he played a good strategic game, but a poor social game.

“Reality” Steve Carbone, for instance (the guy who repeatedly reveals “secrets” and outcomes from The Bachelor franchise, well before they air), made this comment partway through the season, in formulating his prediction of who would (or wouldn’t) win:

“Essentially, Russell has made no friends along the way, doesn’t care who he pisses off, and doesn’t care who he lies to. That’s great to get you to the end, but when it’s those people that have to turn around and vote for you, most are vindictive enough if you didn’t give them a hug or ask them about their family life back home, to not write your name down…

So in closing, do I want to see Russell win? Yes. Has Russell been the best player we’ve seen on this show? Yes. Will Russell win? I doubt it.”

He was astutely basing that on an interview from ousted player Monica, who may have been the first to publicly say that Russell wasn’t playing a very smart social game.

But that’s not really true; he may have angered and annoyed others through game-driven lies and deception, but face-to-face he seems very likable and convincing. In other words, he played a good social game, in my opinion:

It’s not his social skills that were lacking so much as others’ social skills… meaning, they couldn’t see the wolf under the sheep’s clothing.

I know, we’re not supposed to give a schemer credit. It’s “not right,” right?

But Russell wasn’t scamming old ladies out of their life savings. He was just playing a game, and playing it by the rules, which are basically the show’s tagline: “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.”

And the general public, who had been able to watch the show from arms-length and not be emotionally involved with players, could see that Russell was a far better player than Natalie. In fact, they voted him Sprint Player of the Game.

Second time around, Russell made it to the end again, and lost to a woman (35-year-old military wife Sandra Diaz-Twine) who, again, played the game by doing basically nothing. She’s the first person to have won Survivor twice, but she’s never won a single challenge.

The only strategy she said she had was to get rid of Russell, but she never actually did that. And her social skills were abrasive at times, confrontational at times, and just wishy-washy at others. She pretended to be tough, but voted for whoever Russell suggested… really just playing it safe.

When asked if Sandra, having won twice, was the best player ever, Russell pointed out how she was a loser socially, physically and strategically. Then he said sarcastically, “Let’s reward her for her failures.”

Yup… people love to reward others for failures and mediocrity, because it makes them feel better about their own failures and average existence.

A comment on Russell’s Facebook fan page sums it up:

“That is f%&*ed! The LEAST deserving person winning has really destroyed this show for me. If Parvati had won, well at least she actually had some part to play in the game. Sandra did NOTHING!!! Pathetic. :(“

Even Survivor host Jeff Probst says he wouldn’t have voted for Sandra to win:

Now, here’s the thing: Sandra may not have even known this herself, because I never heard her say it. But she might not have had a complete lack of strategy after all. Her strategy may have actually been to be the underdog everywoman. She sure shared a lot of personal stories, like her mother dying and her husband fighting in Afghanistan, which made her come across as the victim-turned-survivor (literally, in real life).

But then, if she didn’t know that was her strategy, it really wasn’t a strategy… it was just her natural personality, featuring an ingrained desire for empathy, at work.

Here’s the other possibility: her strategy was to be the least-villainous “Villain” on the Heroes vs. Villains season. She might have talked tough, but she wimped out way too often. She didn’t act like a hero, but she tried to align with the Heroes. She was the least-threatening person left on the Villains team, and that’s why Russell seemed to just ignore her presence.

Hey, I always said that Russell should have had Sandra voted out long before, instead of focusing on scrawny little Courtney, who never made a move without Sandra’s say-so. Just like I learned in self-defense class many years ago, you always take out the leader of a gang.

But then, maybe Courtney would have won for being even less threatening than Sandra.

Look, I’m not saying Russell played flawlessly. In fact, he made a few key mistakes:

He didn’t display even an ounce of humility, right up to the reunion show.

He never quite understood the power of female bonding and “sisterhood”, or his own inability to manipulate women the same way he can manipulate other men (his strategy there is to pretty much treat females like dumber men).

He didn’t know that flirty girls often play men to get what they want by flashing smiles and body parts.

No matter how likable he can be one-on-one, that falls apart when he addresses or interacts with a group.

He thinks it’s okay to be a social outcast, and continuously says he doesn’t care if people hate him, which makes him even less likable to his teammates than he already was.

Once again, though, the people of America saw through it all, and voted Russell the Sprint Player of the Game.

So what can we glean from all this?

It looks to me that, while the masses love an underdog, and want to be around people that make them feel good, they can look at things more objectively when their emotions are removed from the situation.

People saw Susan Boyle sing her heart out, and got lumps in their throats and tears in their eyes. They felt the way they do at the end of a romantic comedy, when the girl-next-door finally wins the boy’s heart, because he realizes that what he wanted was right there under his nose the whole time.

But when the final vote came through on Britain’s Got Talent, weeks after those tears had dried up, she placed second.

And people may have gotten lumps in their throats when they heard Sandra talk about her family. But it wasn’t enough to make them overlook everyone’s strategies and pick her as the best player, even though the Survivor players did.

Those players voted out of spite, with a personal vendetta. Fourth-place Jerri Manthey, a 38-year-old actress, said it this way:

“You know, I voted for Parvati because she was my biggest competition physically, mentally, socially, I had to give her mad props for that. On the other side of that, I’m actually very happy that Sandra won if for no other reason than for the fact that Russell absolutely despises her. That’s what you get for taking Sandra in to the Final 3 and not me.”

But just like a clerk told another Jerry on an episode of Seinfeld, “I don’t think you can return an item for spite… I’m afraid spite doesn’t fit into any of our conditions for a refund.”

And maybe spite shouldn’t fit into conditions for voting, either; but that would change the whole game of Survivor… not to mention our so-called democracy (which is another discussion for another day).

But I will say this: making choices based on spite or anger almost always leads to a bad decision, and results in carrying around the wrong type of energy to ever truly get what you want.

Rewarding ambition, creative thinking, and determination, on the other hand, paves the way for more of it in this world.

Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!