Two Eliminated 'Survivor' Contestants Are Feuding on Social Media

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 13, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 13, 2024 |

After a slow start to this season of Survivor, things have escalated quickly since the merge. Every vote has not just been a blindside but a brutal blindside, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many people in one season go home with an idol.

The latest to do so is Venus Vafa, who called out the “misogyny” in this season of Survivor several weeks ago. After being eliminated, she apparently did not have a good experience at Ponderosa, the place where eliminated players live until the season has been completed. In past seasons, there have been fascinating dispatches from Ponderosa, but the network hasn’t done so in a while and is clearly glad they didn’t do so this season, although CBS probably could have made a separate and successful reality series from the footage.

In her post-elimination interview with EW, Venus — who had a lot of personality clashes with players during the game — was candid about her experience at Ponderosa.

The vibes were terrible. I was terrified going to Ponderosa because I was like, “All of these people hate me.” And then when I got there, several of the people there straight up did not talk to me, even though I still made an effort to be like, “I’m sorry if I came off negatively or if I rubbed you the wrong way, I genuinely didn’t mean it.”

Silence, did not speak to me. And then a few of them actually personally attacked me and my character, saying that I was a joke and that no one liked me. Honestly, Ponderosa was more traumatizing than the game because I was met with a lot of hostility that I didn’t really expect because the game was the game, and Ponderosa should be separate from that. It was a very difficult time. I felt even lonelier at Ponderosa than I did in the game. It was hard. I’m going to tear up right now because I’m going through the trauma again, but it wasn’t a fun time. The best time was just playing Scrabble with Hunter — that was the only time I enjoyed Ponderosa.

Venus does not name those who did not speak to her, but it’s easy to assume that she is referring to Tevin — who mocked Venus relentlessly during the game — and Soda, with whom Venus had a number of arguments. In fact, Soda Thompson wrote a lengthy response to Venus’s complaints on Instagram, outing herself as the target of Venus’s ire.

The gist of Soda’s response was that her “top priority” at Ponderosa was to make it a welcoming and inviting experience for all the eliminated players, saying that she even wrote a song for each eliminated player (I’m not sure every player would have appreciated that). Soda also adds that recent “claims of exclusion and mistreatment” are untrue and that the player in question — clearly Venus — “struggled with her communication style and emotional regulation.” Soda also felt she was blamed for all of Venus’s negative experiences both in the game and at Ponderosa. Soda added that she was misrepresented, and that misrepresentation led to “unwarranted attacks and hate.”

“Standing up for myself is important to me,” Soda wrote, “especially in light of my trauma history.”

Venus had a brief but pointed response on Twitter.

It is unclear how this will affect — or even if it will affect — the jury vote. It’s been an unpredictable season, and the bitterness and dislike that some players clearly have for one another may ultimately play out in the final tribal council, which will air on May 22nd.