“Here’s to you, JD Robinson. Genie’s safe. You lost your Extra Vote. Oh, oh, oh.” It’s safe to say the reference above may be lost on JD Robinson, as one of the youngest players out there on Survivor 41. But the 20-year-old is literate in all things Survivor, constantly making references to his childhood heroes whose time on the beach made him the person he is today. Unfortunately, while JD was always keen to do an impression of a former contestant, his first impression with his Ua tribe members left a little to be desired. His overt socializing earned the attention of Ricard Foyé, who tried to turn the tables on him at the first Tribal Council. Luckily for JD, his early connection with Shan Smith bore out, as the pastor whipped votes in his favor. As a result, JD survived the chopping block, walking away with his torch lit and an extra vote in his pocket from his earlier field trip away from the tribe. Despite surviving the first vote, the attention on JD was only heating up (while his basketball skills were not). Though they voted together, Brad Reese was not happy with his apparent unpredictability, and was the next person to target him. Luckily, his bonds prevailed once more and Brad went out, leaving Genie Chen as steamed as a batch of broccoli. When Ua faced their third Tribal Council, Shan expressed her paranoia about JD, questioning his loyalty. As a result, he begrudgingly gave her his extra vote, hoping their relationship would come through once more. But unfortunately for JD, the third time was not the charm. The collateral he put up was too tempting an asset for Shan not to seize for herself. And as JD openly questioned that night what his Survivor journey would ultimately be, he didn’t realize he would soon have time to reflect on just that as his torch would be snuffed. Now out of the game, JD talks with Parade.com about the thinking behind his gameplay in the beginning, why he offered up his extra vote to Shan multiple times, and how he looks back on his Survivor journey as a huge fan of the game. To say your love of Survivor is a fundamental part of your life would be an understatement. So what has it been like watching things back and making that transition from Survivor fan to player, even if you left a few things checked off on that large checklist you had? Watching it back had its ups and downs. I’m getting so much screentime; who could ask for more?! But I made so many mistakes out there. I can’t even lie. I was playing abysmally. I kept trying to correct those mistakes and ended up making more mistakes. So watching it back was so hard for me as someone who’s a fan of Survivor strategy. Watching myself fumble and make mistakes was so hard. But at the same time, I was having fun out there! And I think people can tell. I enjoyed every second. I never complained about the food or lack of sleep. I was playing the game that I loved. I was honored to be out there. In your preseason interview, you seemed to build up how you had the perfect set of skills and strategy to win Survivor. What would you say was the biggest thing that you didn’t anticipate, considering the literal lifetime of game knowledge you have? First of all, I listened to your podcasts and watched everyone’s predictions. And everybody was like, “JD has all these things. He can do really well!” And I know it didn’t look like it, and I promise to you and viewers that it’s in me. I just couldn’t execute. I think I expected everyone to play similarly to me, and that was a huge mistake. You can’t expect everyone to make the optimal move or not to be too vicious. Was there anyone in particular that surprised you the most in that regard? I don’t want to throw shade at anybody; that’s the last thing I want to do. Then again, they all threw shade on me in their confessionals, and I never said a bad thing about anyone. But Shan and Ricard were playing so well from the top. They were playing a little vicious, using us as their puppets. Then I had Genie and Brad, who didn’t want to make the optimal move. I wanted to flip the game so many times on Ricard and Shan. I didn’t want to work with them because I wanted to. I worked with them out of necessity. Interesting! Why did Brad and Genie not want to go through your flip idea? If you’ll indulge me for a little bit here. I looked at it as Zapatera versus Boston Rob’s alliance. Boston Rob was Shan. And Brad and Genie were members of Rob’s alliance. They’re like Natalie and Philip. And I’m Zapatera. I’m like, “Guys, we can take control of this game. We can flip it on them; I can work with you. I have an extra vote.” They didn’t show me talking to them about my extra vote. But Brad and Genie didn’t want to flip it. They wanted to come after me even though I was loyal to Brad. So my only option then is to suck up to Boston Rob himself. I have to be like, “Shan, I will do absolutely anything. You want my extra vote? I’ll give you my extra vote.” I saw that Shan was in charge. I couldn’t flip it on her. So my only option is to try and work with her try to get in good with her. So that’s what I did. On that note of the extra vote, you end up withholding it from your initial story about the summit to the tribe. Then you literally get caught with your pants down by Shan, and it suddenly becomes a bargaining chip between the two of you. Overall, do you think the extra vote helped or hurt your game more? I think getting the extra vote helped my game. However, getting caught with it hurt my game. First off, when I got the extra vote, I didn’t choose by “eenie meenie miney mo.” I know a lot of people think that. But I talked myself through it. I was like, “This is Nash equilibrium. This is calculated risk. If I lose my vote, I can make the first vote unanimous. So it doesn’t matter if I lose my vote, so this is worth going for. But getting caught with my pants down was terrible. And that’s on me. I can’t say that that was anything other than me not paying full attention to where I was and what I had. Speaking of the premiere, you hit the beach intending to make small connections with everyone. And that really pings on the radar of Ricard and Sara, who attempt to target you in the first vote. Were you aware that people saw you that way so early on? Absolutely. When I had first hit the beach, I knew that I was a target. Ricard did not talk to me at all. We did not have one conversation on that first day. For whatever reason, he really, really wanted me out of the game. And when I was talking to Sara, I knew she felt a little bit uneasy around me. So I knew I was a target. Before I leave for the trek, I told Brad, “I wish I’d I actually didn’t pull that rock because I’m already in trouble.” People like Brad already were telling me that people were coming after me. Brad is someone who ends up targeting you. And he told me in his interview that you were too paranoid and a “loose cannon” at that first Tribal Council. What is your reaction to that? I don’t want to undermine his interviews, but that doesn’t make any sense. Brad’s the unpredictable one! I was unpredictable at that Tribal Council because I was getting up to say, “Don’t vote Brad.” I could have easily stayed in my seat. After Ricard whispers, “Brad,” and Shan tells me Brad from across the room, I could just be like, “Okay.” but I didn’t want Brad to go home. So I get up, and I’m like, “Shan, we can’t get rid of Brad.” And Brad ends up not going home. People will say Shan saved Brad. I did that. Brad was my closest ally. Brad was who I wanted to work with the most. If I had to make a hierarchy of who I wanted to work with, I would say Brad first, Sara, Shan, Genie, and Ricard. That was my plan when I hit the beach. And you didn’t see it, but Shan, Ricard, and Sara would go off in their little trio. They’d be like, “Let’s get water,” and they would just disappear. And Genie would disappear and look for the idol. I said that in the second episode, Genie was always looking for that. So the only people working on the shelter were Brad and me. Brad is a very old-school guy. He’s a good man, and he’s a man of faith. So whenever I would talk to Brad, it was always, “Yes, sir. No, sir.” Use your manners and work hard. That’s what bonded me to Brad in the first place. I was like, “We’re Rudy and Hatch! We’re an unlikely duo.” We would eat grubs together. We would go walking on the beach. I hung out with Brad 24/7. That’s when I knew he was coming after us after that first Tribal Council. He did not want to talk to me at all. So I got up to save Brad from Shan and Ricard. And then the next day, Brad’s like, “I can’t trust JD. I’m going to work with Shan and Ricard.” And people are confused why he goes home?! He wanted to work with the people who wanted him out before and flipped on the person who saved them. I don’t understand how people are confused about that. Genie was on the bottom of that pecking order you mentioned. And one of the reasons why Shan vocalized she wanted to get your extra vote was a fear that you would join up with Genie and use your extra vote to get out her and Ricard. Were you actually entertaining that idea? Contrary to what you see, Genie and I had a good relationship. We didn’t align strategically; we weren’t on the same wavelength. But once Brad was gone, I probably hung out with Genie the most. We would just laugh and cut up and hang out and make jokes. It was super fun. But that was not the first time I tried to flip it with my extra vote. That’s why I didn’t want her to play her Shot in the Dark. You saw Genie wanted to vote Ricard. That’s actually what I wanted to do! But that was not the first time that I tried to flip the game on Shan and Ricard. I tried at the previous Tribal Council. Before that, I went to Genie, and I was like,” Genie, Brad’s not talking to me. You have to get him to work with us. We can flip this." But Genie’s like, “I don’t know JD. I’ve got to talk to Brad.” She’s saying this as she’s brushing her teeth. And Brad wouldn’t say three words to me. I wanted to get them and flip it on Ricard and Shan, but they didn’t want to do that. So after Brad leaves, I come back, and I’m like, “Genie, because Brad’s gone, we have to get out Ricard.” And she didn’t want to do it. So then, the only choice I have is to try to work with Shan. That’s why you see that I’m even a little paranoid when Shan comes to me. She’s like, “Are you gonna vote me out with Genie and your extra vote?” And I thought Genie told her that that was my plan. So that’s why I’m like, “No, Shan. I’ll prove my trust right here.” It was a bad move. But it makes more sense than I think people believe. Let’s say you survive last night’s vote. If you get your extra vote back, it would have been your two votes versus Shan and Ricard. What would your plan have been if you went back to Tribal Council? I actually thought this through when I was out on the island. I was hoping for a merge or something. But I thought, “If there’s another Tribal Council, if we go to three, I can use my extra vote, and it’ll be a two-two tie. And if those two vote for me, I can’t use my extra vote in the revote. So I just go home automatically.” So the only play that I had was to try to use my superfandom and convince them that my extra vote carries over. If I vote for Ricard and Ricard votes for me, Ricard can no longer vote. So it’s my extra vote and Shan’s vote in the revote. Then it would be deadlocked. You can’t vote for me; you can’t vote for Ricard. Shan would automatically go home. That isn’t actually how it works. But if I told them that, I might have been able to make Shan paranoid enough to put a vote on Ricard. That was my plan, but it didn’t get put into action. I want to talk about your challenge performance the past two episodes, Survivor headline-making. Have you been able to step foot on a basketball court since? (Laughs.) First of all, for all the haters talking about me in basketball, you can’t guard me. I just have to throw that out. But let’s talk about the sandbag challenge. I couldn’t get those sandbags up there. There’s no denying that that challenge performance was so bad. The problem was I think people made a bigger deal out of it than it was. A lot of people cost us challenges. Shan cost us that first one. They didn’t really show it, but Sara killed that puzzle. Shan put two pieces in and was in charge of dumping out the bags with the extra piece in them. She cost that challenge, and nobody talks about it. Tiffany struggled on the balance beam, but they didn’t talk about it. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get a sandbag! You spoke last night about not being able to reflect on what the Survivor journey meant for you. Now that it’s been about six months since you filmed, and you’ve seen your time on the show bear out, what do you think your journey ultimately was? I talked about it a lot out there, but I wanted to be for kids now what Malcolm and Ozzy and Woo were for me. I wanted my Survivor experience to come full circle. That’s what I wanted to have come to fruition. Unfortunately, I didn’t play as well as I wanted to. But people have messaged me like, “Hey, I’m 20 years old. I’ve lived a life like you did. I was bullied in high school. I’m a super nerd.” That makes my Survivor experience. People are telling me, “Hey, you’re an inspiration for me.” I wanted to be a role model for people to be like, “If he can win, I can win.” Anyone can win Survivor. It’s an equal opportunity destroyer. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, gay, straight, short, tall. You can win Survivor regardless of who you are. And I wanted to prove that my age wasn’t a factor in winning. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. But it’s the thought that counts. Next, check out our exit interview with Brad Reese, who was voted out in Survivor 41 Episode 3.
