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Richard Hatch (Survivor contestant) - Wikipedia
How a Naked Man on a Tropical Island Created Our Current Political Insanity
- Sept. 13, 2024
As a contestant on the first season of the CBS reality show “Survivor,” Mr. Hatch did something that, in the year 2000, seemed shocking. Instead of trying to win the show’s competition on its own terms — that is, voting in a straightforward manner on which of his fellow contestants most deserved to advance to the next round of competition — the often rude, sometimes randomly naked Mr. Hatch struck a strategic alliance to force out his strongest adversaries. Then, in full win-by-any-means-necessary mode, he outsmarted the producers by opting out of a key challenge and maneuvered himself to victory. But most shocking of all, he broke the golden rule of network television: You have to be likable. David Letterman even predicted “rioting in the streets” if “the fat naked guy” won. He was the most hated man in America.
The TV business took notice. The early 2000s were a heady time for the new reality genre, filled with madcap experimentation, wild conceptual leaps and a lot of questionable judgment. At VH1, where I worked at the time, our innovation was to program shows that were at their core in-jokes about television itself. “Flavor of Love” was a dating competition starring the giant-clock-wearing rap star (and non-obvious object of romantic ardor) Flavor Flav, but it was also a broad parody of the ABC hit “The Bachelor,” which treated the quest for TV love with great solemnity.
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