A (2:35)

Oh my God, that's awesome.

B (2:37)

Well, that's really cool.

C (2:38)

Nobody said that. No, no, it is.

B (2:40)

You're in the right place. You're in the right place. We like it.

C (2:44)

But so you know, I just like. It's really mechanical. It's not at all related to my work, then I can just be bad at it at my own pace. I don't have to, like, worry about the quality. And that kind of just sort of gets me out of the cycling of the day's concerns and into the, you know, more, you know, focused mindset.

A (3:03)

Wait, what miniatures do you paint?

B (3:06)

Yeah. Is this like Warhammer?

C (3:07)

It is. It is Warhammer.

A (3:09)

Okay, so what is Warhammer? Okay, good question.

B (3:14)

We both go, all right, reasonable follow up then.

A (3:16)

Obviously, I know, but the listeners might not know.

B (3:21)

So.

C (3:21)

Okay. Wow. I'm really just wading through my shame. You know, I was a real nerd in high school, and so I think I have a lot of, like, built up sense of, you know, this is an embarrassing thing, but I think people just play it now and are not embarrassed by it. They just like, they love it.

B (3:36)

Absolutely.

C (3:37)

And so it's a game of miniatures. And my. I play Warhammer 40,000, which is set in like the 41st millennium, you know, where different armies vie for supremacy. And I just have. My army of guys in their space suits is just sort of meticulously painted with their colors. And, you know, I don't actually play, but I just. I've just been painting. At some point, I. Oh, you don't play the game?

B (4:05)

Okay, okay. Once they're all painted, perhaps they need to go out on a little trail.

C (4:08)

And that might be like, I'll spend. Because this is a very slow process. So I'll spend weeks on one miniature. Not that it's good, it's just I'm very slow.

A (4:15)

It's very tedious.

C (4:16)

Yeah, it is tedious, but it's a nice tedious.

A (4:18)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (4:20)

There's something really freeing too, about being bad at a hobby. Because then you're like, nice. I don't have to think about monetization. I'm bad at this. I don't have to sell these.

A (4:29)

I've been really big on my no screen activity that I've been doing is. I got a Sudoku book that I've been making my way through.

B (4:37)

Oh, my God. My mom has them piled to the scene.

A (4:40)

I love Sudoku.

B (4:42)

They are fun. They are fun.

C (4:43)

But, Sofia, you know about Warhammer? Do you play Warhammer?

B (4:47)

I asked about the Warhammer.

C (4:48)

Oh, I'm sorry. I got it.

B (4:49)

No, no, no, no. Well, and I don't know a bunch about it, but I sometimes go to, like, board game cafes just to kind of, you know, see what's new, go with my friends, just have stay up to date on pop culture, what's going on in board game news and in a lot of the game, board game cafes, there'll be tables for Warhammer. So I've seen the figures. I've seen. I've seen the setup. And it looks, you know, it's elaborate.

C (5:14)

Okay, it is elaborate.

B (5:18)

And I have some really, really cool friends that are into the painting of it. Some real punk chefs. There's a few punk chefs that I know that too.

A (5:26)

Wow.

B (5:27)

So you're in. Good.

A (5:31)

Yeah.

B (5:31)

Tattooed chefs love this one trick.

C (5:34)

Well, it is kind of like, I mean, Survivor fandom and that just the most random people you'll mention it to, and they will, you know, absolutely start nerding out about it. Like, I was shocked about, you know, all of the secret Survivor fans out there.

B (5:47)

Really?

C (5:47)

First on Survivor, like, people like, just like, from all walks, you know, from all walks of life. Our Survivor fans.

A (5:53)

Yeah. Do you have one person that you were like, that's floored me to know that you love Survivor.

C (5:58)

Can I give spoilers for something that happened 15 years ago?

A (6:00)

Yeah, I think. I think we're good.

B (6:02)

Yes. We've given so many.

C (6:04)

So I was walking the person who won my first season, jt, we were going into, like, I think it was JP Morgan or Morgan Stanley's, one of the Morgans, to, like, deposit his check, like, with his new financial advisor.

A (6:17)

That is, like, the scariest thing in the world.

C (6:21)

Million dollar check. And, like, one of the bankers there was like, oh, my gosh, you guys were on Survival. Like, I was like, what? Like, this is not, you know, I just, like, sort of. I mean, that was like. I mean, and since then, there have been many people from, you know, every profession, but that was, I remember, like, a sort of shocking first introduction to that.

B (6:36)

Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of, Steven, you have written a novel, true, called Escape. And this is about a reality TV show that takes place on an island, which is a familiar concept to us. Can you give people that might not have this bookmarked yet to read, but they will by the end of this, give us a little bit about this lovely book?

C (6:56)

Yeah. So Escape is about a Hasbro reality contestant going back. Ollie already told you. I mean, this is not based on me. I know that's what you're thinking.

A (7:05)

It's completely fiction.

C (7:07)

Yeah, totally fiction. Going back on a new show set on a jungle island and looking to sort of reclaim his past glory. And while there, he meets and kind of faces off against a manipulative reality TV producer who is herself sort of trying to overcome the traumas of her past.

B (7:31)

I mean, I also think that the life of a reality TV producer is so fascinating and not talked about a ton because they are, I mean, on certain shows more than others, deeply devious individuals.

A (7:42)

Some of the most sinister people in the world. I can't even imagine.

B (7:46)

Really scary to me. Oh my God, I'm sure so many are lovely. But I, I mean, and some of it is just these premises of certain games. I go, this is so devious at its core already.

C (7:55)

Yeah, but there's something about, I mean, I just think the fundamental endeavor of taking people's real lives like in this chaotic environment like the jungle and turning it into a three act structure, like that's really interesting. I mean, there's certainly a devious component, but there's. The thing that I have noticed from my experience with reality producers is that they are amazing storytellers and the work they are doing is really hard and really fascinating. And so like, that's kind of one of the things I wanted to evoke with the book was just, of course there is this, you know, slightly manipulative component to it. But they are incredible the way they are kind of plotting out real people's lives in a structured way and doing

A (8:37)

it like in real time.

C (8:39)

Yeah, exactly.

A (8:40)

Have you seen the show Unreal? Have you seen the show? Yeah. Okay.

C (8:43)

Yes. So I actually. But I did write a draft, I will say before of before I watched it when I had this idea, I was so excited. I thought to myself, nobody's ever done this before. No one's ever exposed this world before. And then my wife was like, oh, have you seen Unreal? No, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear about Unreal. Don't tell me. So I did, I did watch or I did do a draft first so I could sort of have. And then I watched Unreal and kind of just. But there was, it was really, I mean, it was interesting, you know, seeing it because there were a lot of similarities and there was stuff that I could think like, oh, I could lean into that. And, and at the time I was worried that a lot of people would just associate my book with Unreal or as an Unreal knockoff. But fortunately took me so long to write this book that now it's more sort of like a loving, you know, something from the past that we love

A (9:26)

to look back on. That's kind of that this is. And for the listeners who don't know, Unreal is basically this show that, yeah, came out a pretty long time ago and is basically about A producer on, like a fictional version of the Bachelor.

B (9:38)

That's really interesting. Survivor sleeping, two things we're talking about today. Now, did would you find that without a hatch on the island was your experience sleeping on Survivor? What does that sleep routine and hygiene look like?

C (10:09)

Yeah. So anyone looking to have a good night's sleep? I would not recommend bamboo.

A (10:14)

Oh, my God.

C (10:15)

So both my seasons of Survivor, I was really fortunate. So I started off on these really quite uncomfortable bamboo poles where it's really hard to find. They're hard. And it's an uneven surface and because there's two logs next to each other. So I was often slipping in between the different logs and it was pretty unpleasant for a few nights. But there's something soothing about being on the beach. The wind rustling through the dried franz. But both of my seasons of Survivor, I was fortunate that I ultimately ended up in hammocks.

A (10:52)

Oh, my God.

C (10:53)

My first season, we won a hammock in a reward and my second season, another two contestants, Joe Anglum and Keith Nail, we got all this. These fishing nets and they built hammocks for us all out of fishing nets and strung them up between trees on the beach.

A (11:09)

Wow.

C (11:10)

So every night I would lie in my hammock and fortunately it was chilly. So I had fortunately had a jacket that I could put over myself and sort of like rock to sleep in this fishing net hammock looking out over the sea. You know, there'd be fishing boats in the distance. I could see their lights and it was actually incredibly light. Yeah, a real upgrade over the shelter. Yeah. But it was actually like a lovely night's sleep, which is not something people usually talk about on.

B (11:35)

Well, people try and simulate stuff. I mean, the fake waves, ocean crashings. You had the real thing. So it is like people do try and simulate. As good as that gets.

C (11:43)

Yeah. But then when it rained, you know, and I had to go into the shelter and it was both uncomfortable and getting rained. On the simulator, the simulated rain is a lot better than the real rain.

B (11:52)

I will say I've camped in the rain before and I did, you know, I did like a five day version of Survivor where I was just sleeping on the ground. Very fun. But even the smallest bit of rain, I was like, yeah, this brings your mood down to a full zero.

A (12:05)

This is just.

B (12:07)

That one's a little tough. Did you prepare? I mean, I'm sure you prepared very hard for this show in general. Did you prep for, like, the lack of sleep at all or like the way of sleeping? Did you sleep on the ground.

A (12:18)

And like, how many hours would you say you were getting a night?

B (12:21)

Ah, that's great.

C (12:22)

Think. I mean, certainly the rainy nights, you would get very few hours. You might be up just like if there was a real storm. Like there were a few times in Cambodia.

A (12:30)

Yeah.

C (12:30)

You might be up basically all night. And that could last for a couple of days, which would wear on you, of course. But, you know, I think normally we would base. You know, there's nothing to do and there's no lights. So when the sun goes down, you can't see a single thing.

A (12:43)

Right.

C (12:44)

You know, and so when the sun goes down, you really just go into the shelter and sleep and wake up when the sun comes up. And it may not be the most restful sleep if, you know, if you're on those shelter beams, but it can certainly, you know, it's not horrible sleep and you don't have to do a lot the next day. You know, you just have to sort of exist.

A (13:02)

Yeah, Yeah. I feel like if I don't get like a full nine hours of sleep in my, like, comfortable bed, it's like it's game over. And the thought of that is just so crazy.

B (13:13)

I usually am like, I'm kind of a six, seven hours. I keep it kind of low. I know, but that's just my normal. Everyone's got their normal. This just works for me. But I did recently, I was getting really, really bad sleep and I was noticing my word recall going way worse and I was like, whoa, I'm getting ancient. But no, it was just, it was just one bad sleep. Can really make you be like, I've lost it. I've just lost it.

C (13:36)

Well, I remember after like the. A couple there was during like the worst of our. Our storms during the monsoon on, on in Cambodia. It had been like two or three days since I'd had like, like a real sleep and I could not speak. We were at Tribal Council and Jeff Probst asked me a question and I literally could not formulate a sentence to respond to him.

B (13:55)

Just staring back.

A (13:56)

Oh, my God.

C (13:56)

Yeah.

A (13:57)

And you're at Tribal for like, how long?

C (14:00)

It's hard for the contestants to know because we don't really have any way of measuring time. I'd say maybe like an hour or two.

A (14:06)

Okay, okay, okay. It's not horribly long.

C (14:08)

And that's the fun part, you know, Is that boring? You know, so much of being on Survivor was just. So we're at Tribal Council, like, that's the action packed stuff your adrenaline feels.

A (14:16)

You get to Play.

C (14:17)

Yeah.

B (14:18)

And I noticed in your book you say in the first few pages that the experience with the lovely team of Survivor you did not have deeply antagonistic feelings perhaps towards. Did you find yourself finding comfort in their presence? Do you like any of the producers as people?

A (14:37)

Do you like any of them as people?

B (14:40)

I was being so professional and then I went, eh, alright, the end of the sentence just evolved into do you hate, hate those guys?

C (14:46)

No, I had, I mean an amazing, I mean I, I created like deep bonds. Yeah, I'm sure my producers, especially from my first season. You know, part of the, you know, what works about reality producers is that like literally everybody else out there is trying to get you. Like they're actually out to get you. But these people are smiling at you, they're your best friend and you really do bond with them. And I think the kind of reverse thing happens too where they sort of project themselves onto you and that's kind of how they do their job and they sort of like deep interweaving happens where they're your counselor and friend out there and you're their kind of avatar in the game and so you can create these real intense bonds. And I'm still in touch with quite a few of the producers.

A (15:32)

Oh, that is really sweet. And that makes sense. Yeah, I know. I mean that would be. As a producer you must be like rooting for the contestants so hard, obviously. And yeah, like as you were saying, it's like all this narrative building and stuff. You obviously get to know these people so well and like very intimate things

C (15:50)

about them and you're seeing them at their lowest moments, you know, and their highest moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (15:54)

Oh my God.

B (15:55)

I take back what I said about them being devious people. I think so.

C (15:58)

Well, you know, Survivor has, you know, the benefit of just having been this, you know, reality TV stalwart where it's been on the air for 25 years and it's got this built in fan base. I think a lot of these shows have a lot more pressure to kind of deliver excitement and big moments and like, like meaningful storylines because otherwise they're not going to get a second season, you know, so you really have to keep the, the momentum going.

A (16:19)

Yeah.

B (16:27)

We are entering, of course, the 50th season.

A (16:29)

Yeah.

B (16:31)

Which is huge and giant and humongous.

A (16:34)

It's half of 100.

B (16:35)

All three things.

C (16:37)

But what's different about this season is that there's, for the first time ever, 24 players instead of 2018 or 16, you know, so it's going to be more, more contestants than they've ever had before but the same length season. So it'll be interesting to see what they do to catch up with that.

B (16:53)

Is this one of the changes to 50 that you're in favor of?

C (16:56)

Oh yeah. I'm really excited if people will have more space to play. You know, if you are the one outcast on a tribe of six, you know everyone's like quickly piles on that. They make an easy decision. Then it's just like it becomes a little bit formulaic in how you play a group of six. But with eight it's a little bit harder for there to be such a clear cut majority group and I think it'll make it a little bit more interesting. I also just think like any kind of structural innovation is just, just going to be fun to watch. You know, how are they going to do double eliminations or you know, these. This huge game with now, you know, four more players will be interesting to see.

B (17:30)

Totally. And former lovely players. It's a great cast.

A (17:33)

I know. Do you have people that you're like particularly excited to see?

C (17:36)

I have a lot of real life friends out there. Rick, Rick Devins is one of my closest friends. He was on Survivor the Edge of Extinction and I'm really excited to see him go out again. He always has like, like first of all he's hilarious. He has a lot of, a lot of like joy and he also plays really hard. He's good at challenges, he's great at finding idols and he's great at the social game. So I'm really excited for him. Christian. Hugh Bicky is, oh my God, truly,

B (18:02)

I mean he's just.

C (18:05)

Christian is one of the most universally beloved players that is exists and the other, I mean serie Fields is another one who's played a lot of time. When I was on my book tour I would ask a lot. You know, a lot of people coming were obviously Survivor fans and I would ask them like who are they rooting for? I would say 99% of people said either Christian or surreal.

A (18:22)

Right.

C (18:23)

Like those were like by far the top.

B (18:24)

Of course, yeah. Sophia, do you have a front runner for you?

A (18:28)

I mean it's gonna be Surrey. Like I'm like that's mother, she's the goat. But I, yeah, I'm just, I'm just freaking excited. I'm like, I can't wait.

B (18:41)

I'm going Team Q.

A (18:42)

Okay.

B (18:42)

I know, okay.

C (18:43)

I like teams.

B (18:44)

Everyone likes to throw it back but I just Q really charms me in a really authentic way to me Where I just like there was recently a video of him going viral where he said he doesn't trust people that are left handed or eat pork. And I said, that's awesome. That's really interesting. He said, I don't trust people that eat pork or left handed or drink Coke Zero, not diet Coke. Listen, that's an interesting character.

A (19:09)

There's a story there I like.

C (19:11)

And he says it with such commitment and passion, like as though we all should be on this like anti Coke Zero bandwagon.

B (19:17)

Yeah. And it really turned me. I said, yeah, maybe if I look at all of my friends, I don't know that I have a ton that are Coke Zero drinking left handed pork eaters. Yeah, I guess. I agree.

A (19:28)

Small population, cute.

B (19:31)

I guess he was speaking specifically about Liz who's coming back or somebody that was.

C (19:35)

I think it was about Emily. Flippin.

B (19:36)

It was about Emily. You're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah. So, so interesting stuff. I'm going Team Q on this one. Just to give the new gen a little bit of love. I think everyone's so excited for some old gen, but you know, why not?

C (19:49)

I'm excited about D too. D. Valladares.

B (19:51)

Oh, yeah, of course. I think she was a lovely winner.

C (19:55)

One of the best, most dominant games of the year and it would be fun to see her play again. Maybe she can pull it off twice.

A (20:00)

Yeah. I mean, I also do feel like that there's that where I'm like, I'm like, as I said, I'm excited to see Saree, but I feel like fear for her in terms of. I just feel like they're gonna want to get her out so early that I'm excited to see what happens and who else can kind of rise.

B (20:14)

We saw a dynamic on Australia versus us though, or Australia versus the whatever versus the world. The world. It was really how it ended up. Although there were some Swedish ones that I was like, you're in an interesting character. You're still here. We saw though, I mean, everyone thought Parv was gonna go home first because it is like, how could you possibly let her go? Even one more ep and look what happened. So I do think as much as somebody is like, oh, we must get out the big threat, sometimes people are just so stoked to work with the big threats that you let them go too far and it's too late to get them out.

C (20:51)

So you guys are real survivors. I didn't realize, like some people say they're survivor and you're like, you're quoting the international season.

B (20:59)

And I'm playing. I'm playing the LRGs too. I mean, I'm really. I'm spending my weekends on it.

A (21:04)

Irl.

C (21:06)

That's amazing. What was the five day Survivor you did?

B (21:09)

That was survival challenge, which was five days in Illinois and it was against 24 people. And I did win.

C (21:16)

Listen, you won.

A (21:17)

I did win.

C (21:18)

Well, I never won.

A (21:19)

That's amazing.

B (21:20)

Well, it was very, very fun. And I mean, I did sleep really well to the point I was like, the crickets were beautiful and I was just on the dirt, but I was like, you're just so tired from competing that I was like, yeah, I guess if you just are running around all day, you do sleep kind of nice outside. We're a real Survivor fan. We do. You have to kind of stop us from talking about it, to be honest. Every episod. So we're like, and if we can tie it in. What else? If you don't mind.

C (21:44)

No, I mean, it's a pleasure. Like, before I went on Survivor, like, my big hesitation in doing it was I just didn't want to be like the Survivor guy. Like, I didn't want that to be the sum total of my identity, but that's absolutely who I am. Like, that is 100%. And it's been great. Honestly, it's been fantastic. Like, I wrote a book about reality tv. You know, like, I get to go to. I get to meet an incredible community of people, both former contestants, but also, like, the fans have been, you know, just like, of the show for, like, some strange reason, the fans of reality television. And I like, like watching Survivor often will indicate, like, a lot of readers in that community and also, like, a lot of, like, strategy gamers. Yeah, like, of course it makes sense. So I play this social strategy game called Blood on the Clock Tower and there's huge overlap. Really? Oh, my gosh. There's a big overlap between the Survivor and the Clock Tower community.

A (22:34)

Wait, I have to get into that. This.

B (22:36)

It's really fun. Oh, my goodness.

A (22:37)

I'm going to look into this.

C (22:39)

It's like Mafia or werewolf, but, like the best version of of those two.

B (22:46)

They've gotten rid of all of the, like, kinks of Mafia traders where you're like, okay, well, it's just a lot of guessing and here it's like, okay, there's certain roles that you get a little info, but you can't trust it.

A (22:55)

Okay, good to know.

B (22:56)

It's very fun.

A (22:57)

Before we wrap, Steven, of course we have the book, but if there's anything else you want to plug or if you just want to plug the book more, please tell our listeners. I started it yesterday and I'm really excited to finish it. So I'm stoked. Yeah. Any plugs?

C (23:12)

Yeah, I'll plug the book again, I guess, Escape. But you know, since this is an audio medium, maybe I should specifically plug the audiobook. It's a great audiobook. There's a wonderful cast who, including Julia Whalen. A lot of audiobook listeners will know her as, I think the New Yorker culture, the Adele of haunted books or something like that.

A (23:31)

Do you want to shout out your podcast also if anyone wants to to listen to that?

C (23:35)

Oh, yeah. So I every week do a podcast analyzing the strategy of Survivor. It's called the Survivor Know It Alls with Rob Sestronino. He was another former contestant and also this most recent season of the Traitors. So he's got a whole slew of podcasts, a whole network of podcasts, and the Know It Alls is one of them.

A (23:54)

Amazing. And basically, before we turn in, we always have our guests give a special good night if you want to just give a little goodnight to anyone. Sure.

C (24:05)

This will, of course, go out to my daughters, Margo and Pru. You know, feel free to wake up with each other when the yellow light goes off and then when the green light comes on. We look forward to waking up with your parents as well.

B (24:16)

Oh my gosh, that is perfect. Well, thank you so much, Stephen. This was so awesome. We really can't wait to finish your book. Everybody else, I'm sure, feels the same and we'll talk to you next time. Good night, Sophia. Good night, Stephen. Good night, kp.

A (24:30)

Good night, Stephen.

C (24:31)

Thank you guys for having me. Good night.

B (24:32)

I. Sam. To learn more about our phone free

A (25:37)

light and audio experience, head to Hatch Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.