Over the years, many contestants have held this dreaded last place spot on my list. You all know that I was never a Russell fan. Osten's quit pissed me off enough to throw him down here. Yet Osten and Russell were topped in awfulness by subsequent contestants, and Coach is one of many contestants who I have actually come to appreciate over the years after hating them for quite some time. I don't see either of those things happening ever again. Maybe it's because One World is so recent, but I truly feel like it would take somebody raping or murdering somebody on the show to top my hatred for Colton. The kid is probably the closest thing to pure evil that has ever been on the show.
When the One World cast was first announced, Colton annoyed me quite a bit in his video, but I did respect three things about him. First, he announced himself as a Republican. As a young Republican myself, I feel like too often we get shafted. Our generation is clearly a left-wing majority and Republicans are often seen as just regurgitating what our parents believe, which isn't always true. At least in my case, my father is mostly liberal, and my mother, while she usually votes Republican, doesn't really give a s*** about politics. So yeah, I respected that. Second, as I always do when one comes along, I respected the fact that he was a huge superfan. Nothing pisses me off more than someone just going on Survivor to be on TV. No, Colton is a hardcore, would-do-anything Survivor obsessive, and frankly, I would love to see a season of 16-20 of those. I know we had Fans vs. Favorites, but here's a little-known fact about that season - only Erik and Jason were actually truly superfans of the show. The rest were just recruits who happened to have seen a bit more of the show than the typical recruit. Third, and finally, I respected him because anybody who has the cajones to come out as gay at age twelve is okay in my book. I've never had to go through that experience myself, but I can say that middle school is tough enough socially for anyone, let alone establishing yourself as "different." Also, probably a good 30% or so of my close circle of friends in high school were either gay or bi, and most of them didn't come out until at least 9th or 10th grade. So 12 years old is really gutsy. So right from the start, while Colton annoyed me, there was a chance that I was going to like him.
And we get to the first episode and what does he do? Within the first two minutes of the season, rather than try to fit in with his all-male tribe, he immediately establishes himself as "different." That's right. Nobody called him out for being gay. Not Matt, not Mike, not Tarzan. It was Colton himself. And still the rest of the guys just said, "Whatever dude, doesn't make a difference to us." So what does Colton do with this newfound acceptance? He decides to find other ways to establish himself as an outcast just so he can have this come-from-behind outcast story. He lays around camp and does nothing all day while the other 8 men work their asses off, and when they politely try to get his ass moving, he completely shuts off all contact with them and goes over to hang out with the girls. While it isn't necessarily a bad thing to be making relationships with the other tribe early, you can't shun your own tribe because they're the ones who currently have the power to vote you out. And he cries to Sabrina that he needs the Immunity Idol because the other guys hate him (which they don't), and he gets it, which only adds to his ego. So first episode I dislike him, and he's probably in my bottom 100 contestants ever, but nowhere near this dreaded spot.
*CONTINUED IN NEXT POST*
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