Survivor vote off reactions

Logging the reactions of players after they're voted off in the American version of Survivor.

How it works

The 00_create_vote_lookup.py script creates an ordered tribal council vote-off list with details about seasons and castaways for use with data processing and analysis. It merges two CSVs in the survivoR and survivoR2py repositories — vote_history and castaway_details — and stores the resulting file on S3.

The 01_vote_off_reaction.py script fetches a Google Sheet with hand-collected data detailing the reactions of Survivor contestants after their torches are snuffed at tribal council. This sheet is updated each week. The script merges it with the vote order table, converts Google's string columns to Boolean values, calculates a tribal acknowledgent score for each castaway based on specific criteria (more on that below), and then cleans and formats the data.

Any vote at the council gets logged, even if that person stayed in the game in one of the purgatory seasons. Medical evacuations and castaways who quit were not included.

Output format

The resulting castaway file, which logs nearly 700 reactions during 46 seasons, is stored on S3 in CSV and JSON formats using the following structure:

Column	Description	Type
season	Season number	string
season_name	Season name, i.e. "Survivor: Africa"	string
vote	Vote number that season	string
episode	Episode number that season	string
castaway	Castaway first name	string
full_name	Castaway full name	string
castaway_id	Castaway unique ID code	string
gender	Castaway gender ("Male" or "Female")	string
date_of_birth	Castaway date of birth (%Y-%m-%d)	string
personality_type	Castaway's Myers-Briggs Type Indicator code ("ENTJ", "INFJ", etc.)	string
occupation	Castaway job outside the game	string
acknowledge	Did the contestant acknowledge their teammates in one of these specific ways after snuffing — or just walk away?	boolean
ack_gesture	Category of acknowledge. See rules below.	boolean
ack_speak	Category of acknowledge. See rules below.	boolean
ack_look	Category of acknowledge. See rules below.	boolean
ack_smile	Category of acknowledge. See rules below.	boolean
ack_speak_quote	Optional: What, if anything, the contestant said. Direct quotes only.	string

Acknowledgment notes

Acknowledgment after being voted off in Survivor is categorized into four Boolean fields (each action is recorded as True if performed, otherwise False):

• ack_gesture: for any physical gestures towards the tribe after torch snuffing
• • Types: wave, nod, wink, bow or prayer sign with hands
• ack_speak: for any verbal communication directed at the tribe after torch snuffing
• ack_look: for making eye contact with one or more members of the tribe after torch snuffing
• ack_smile: for smiling at the tribe after torch snuffing

Example scenario: Jim!

• Jim, from season 11, was the first person voted off. He acknowledged his team by half-heartedly waving, but his slight glance went down and didn't make eye contact. He also didn't say anything or smile. So, his acknowledgment would be True, but his score (see below) would only be 1 because all he did was (sort of) wave. Maybe 0.6. Poor Jim.

Column	Example Value
season	11
season_name	Survivor: Guatemala
vote	1
episode	1
castaway	Jim
full_name	Jim Lynch
castaway_id	US0151
gender	Male
date_of_birth	1942-01-07
personality_type	ISTJ
occupation	Retired Fire Captain
acknowledge	true
ack_look	false
ack_speak	false
ack_gesture	true
ack_smile	false
ack_speak_quote
ack_score	1

NOTE: Jim didn't speak, so the ack_speak_quote is empty. The parting words of others castaways, such Kane in season 44 ("Enjoy your rice, you bitches."), are listed in almost all cases. If there's text in this item, it should be considered a direct quote that's been confirmed via transcript, broadcast and/or closed captioning.

Acknowledge score calculation

The score is derived from the four subcategories of acknowledgment: words, look, gesture, and smile. Each true value in these categories adds 1 to the score. For example:

• If a contestant says words while looking back, waves, and smiles, their score is 4.
• If a contestant does nothing, their score is 0.

NOTE: This score doesn't consider season-to-season factors that might have to altered castaways' acknowlegment behavior, such as tribal council design. In "Survivor: Thailand", for example, castaways were required to double back towards the tribe after being dismissed by Jeff. That appeared to make it more difficult for them to leave quietly. Other sets seemingly made that easier. In addition, in earlier seasons, before the mores of this moment in the show evolved, castaways might have felt required to leave quietly after Jeff said, "It's time for you to go."

Seasons collected

Seasons 1-46; Season 47, episode 1-4

Related

• survivoR: The Internet's most-detailed Survivor data collection, in R format, created by David Ohm, et al. Details about season locations, vote orders and castaway personal information was all derived from the fine work here.
• survivoR2py: Converting survivoR to CSV format so it plays nice with other data-science tools, such as Python/Pandas.
• survivor-transcripts: Fetching and storing complete transcripts for each episode of the American television show and analyzing the text for keyword/phrase frequency.