Chapter 1: How did Rider convince Will to become a Survivor fan?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
Welcome to Pod Meets Twirled, a podcast that once chronicled two guys who had never seen Dancing with the Stars, but watched a season and walked away experts. From there, we ventured into Traitors, a show I'd never seen, but Will swore he could win. And now, Survivor, season 50, the big one. And this time the roles are reversed. Will has seen exactly one season, the first one.
Meanwhile, I've watched for years. We are Will Friedle, who prefers his wilderness with room service, and Ryder Strong, who will hike any mountain... but man, I hate the beach. Two best friends, one devoted to the comforts of civilization and one who would never leave the woods if he could, both reality competition scholars.
Join us as we dive into alliances, blindsides, fire-making, sand-related misery, and 25 years of television history culminating in a single massive season. This is Pod Meets Twirled, Seeking Immunity. Whew, yeah, that's a lot.
Well, speaking of a lot, it's been quite a day in the reality world, hasn't it, my friend?
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Chapter 2: What shocking news did Will reveal about Jonathan's pants?
Yeah, we should talk about the elephant in the room.
Yeah, the piece of s*** in the room.
Is that the easiest way to just say it? We were all set. We had already announced on the Twitters and the Instagrams that we were going to fold... actually double up our reality watching and go right into The Bachelorette because the fans have demanded that we keep watching shows that we know nothing about, or at least one of us.
In this case, neither of us have ever seen a single episode of The Bachelor. I didn't know anything about it. And yet, they canceled the entire season.
Thank God.
Yeah, and not without, you know, by the time ABC had canceled it, we had already decided to pull our show. Yeah. After much back and forth and hand-wringing and concern and not, just don't have clarity in these things. Yeah, it's tricky. But it seems like in general, she is not a very good person.
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Chapter 3: What are the hosts' thoughts on the recent Bachelorette news?
No. And reality shows that celebrate not great people are not cool.
No, I agree. And it's... Yeah, again, this is a world that you and I know very little about reality. And when you get into it, you forget that there's a reason it's called reality. Whether it's quote-unquote scripted reality or heavily produced reality, these are real people. So real people come with lots of baggage. Some of them, it's a minimal amount of baggage.
Some of them, it's kind of a disgusting amount of baggage. The thing that is starting to come out more and more, though, is what the networks actually know about these people before they still put them on the air. Or don't know, right. Right. Or don't know.
But in this case, it seems like ABC knew quite a bit about this woman before they decided to pull the trigger on what I think is their biggest franchise by far.
Chapter 4: How did the tribe swap impact the dynamics of Survivor 50?
I think The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is like their flagship show.
Well, I think we've talked about the, you know, The conversation I believe I had with an MTV executive years ago, this guy I used to be friends with, telling me that everything changed for the network when Snooki got punched. That was the turning moment. That was when MTV became a network that was no longer about music because they were suddenly going to be
all about the reality and the drama, and it went, like, so viral back then.
Did you watch that?
No.
Oh, see, I knew it backwards and forwards. I knew that one backwards and forwards, yeah.
The thing about this is, like, for me, this just... And this is something I've wrestled with... you know, even doing these shows. I avoided all reality because I generally thought it was a lot of garbage, you know? And I, you know, we've had great interviews with Ben Mendelker and Chad Koltgen and they really did, you know,
sort of champion reality and explain how it's, you know, not just trash television, but actually has nuance and strategies.
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Chapter 5: What was the significance of Zac Brown's cameo in this episode?
And I've come around to see a lot of that. I really have. Me too. I get it. But I think fundamentally, unfortunately, there's still a little bit of exploitation and exaggeration and schadenfreude. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Which is, you know, one of those words that once you learn, you just want to use as many times as possible, but it means, you know, taking pleasure in other people's misery. Yeah.
And I think that there's an element of that, you know, a company, it's, you know, watching a train wreck can be fun. It's rubbernecking, right? Yeah. All the different ways to describe the feeling bad about watching something good and not being able to turn away. Yeah. Yeah, I think that the reality shows that I gravitate towards are the ones that are more game show based.
Chapter 6: How do alliances form and shift in Survivor gameplay?
Yeah, me too. Or talent based for me. Or talent based. Yeah, a Top Chef kind of thing, American Idol, that kind of stuff.
And then even like Alone, which is about survival, you know. Dancing with the Stars. We had a great time watching Dancing with the Stars.
Yeah. So yeah, no, I get that too. But the Snooki thing, the thing that was really interesting about the Snooki situation was, and it showed kind of the direction they were going, the first time they aired it, they blacked out the punch. So you saw the guy turn to order, the screen went black, and then you saw her on the ground.
The next time they aired it, they showed him punching her in the face.
Wow.
So it was really interesting the way they decided to go like, no, let's just show it. And so they originally didn't, and then someone made the decision, show the actual hit, and then they showed it over and over again.
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Chapter 7: What strategies are discussed for surviving the next tribal council?
Well, see, that's kind of my problem is that I feel like you know, it's the frog boiling in the water thing. It's like these little degrees of like, well, what are we going to accept as okay to like just stand by and let people do live on television or not even live, but we're going to edit it and exploit it.
And, you know, I feel like, yeah, if you think back to the way the news used to be or even these early reality shows, it was nothing compared to these days, you know? And I think, of course, everything's been accelerated by the internet. So videos.
I was going to say, look at social media now. I mean, so much violence and flat out watch murder. I mean, it's just, it's really sad. And maybe we are getting to a point of, yeah, let's just go back to gladiators. you know, let's go back to people surrounding each other in the ring and it's running man. And, and they would be slickly produced.
UFC is kind of that, right? I mean that I remember when UFC, I know, I know you're a fan, but I remember when it first came out feeling a little, I mean, I can't watch it.
Chapter 8: What are the hosts' predictions for the next episode of Survivor?
Like I can't, I can't even really watch a regular boxing. I find violence really hard to watch and I find it, you know, so abhorrent to experience. I've gotten more used to boxing, but I like it better in a fictional context. I
like it in a movie i like it yeah when i'm watching a real fight i'm usually just like oh i look away and ufc i can't watch because for that reason it's like it's just early ufc especially was when before there were any rules when i mean i started watching at ufc one and it was brutal because there were no rules and it was just the whole idea was let's see what what happens if you put a boxer against a wrestler what happens you put a mix you know uh somebody who does kung fu against somebody who does blah you know so it was that but it was way too brutal
Then the Fertittas bought it, and Dana White came in, added actual rules. And then now it's to the point where the people train their whole lives in MMA, and it's two people that it becomes like a game of chess when you get two people that are really good at it.
Right, because they're both doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Correct, and it's both straight-up MMA. It's striking, it's grappling, it's all that kind of stuff. So I've always been a fan of that stuff.
Watching somebody punch somebody else in the face repeatedly is really hard for me. Agreed.
I get it. I get it.
But at the same time, this is where the algorithm of the internet is just so crazy. I definitely have gone through periods where I'm flipping through my Instagram and I realized I've gotten a lot of drunk guy getting kicked off a plane for being racist videos. I'm like, for whatever reason... I lingered too long on two of these, and now it's just, he didn't read the same thing.
I remember when Reels first came out, you could click a button and see your recommended Reels.
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