‘Survivor’ is harder than you think

As Jeff Probst stands on the beaches of Fiji facing 24 returning players for the milestone 50th season of “Survivor,” he calls it “an adventure of the human spirit.”

Two Atlanta alumni from season 50 say the adventure begins long before you set foot on the island.

The internet changed the game

When the series launched in 2000, “outwit, outplay, outlast” meant building a shelter and strategic alliances. In 2026, it also means surviving the internet.

The “new era” of the show plays faster and harder, and it exists permanently online. Contestants aren’t just managing alliances anymore. They’re thinking about Reddit threads, recap podcasts and the very real possibility of looking like a villain when they get home.

Rick Devens, a Macon native, first played in Season 38 and returns for Season 50. (Gail Schulman/CBS Broadcasting Inc.)

Rick Devens, a Macon native who first played in Season 38 and returns for Season 50, remembers when none of that was part of the equation.

“I didn’t know there was a podcast and there was Reddit,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview. “I’m not out there about to make a move and thinking, ‘Oh no, if I make Ron Clark look stupid, are all the Ron Clark fans in the world going to attack me on Twitter?’”

He looks back on that obliviousness as an advantage.

“There’s a lot of things where I’m like, ‘Man, I’m glad that I wasn’t as caught up on ‘Survivor’ as some of these other people,’” he said. “I would have second-guessed a move. I would have not made a move.”

Prepare like an athlete or pay for it

Getting into the “Survivor” headspace requires work before you ever board a plane. The gap between players who prepared and those who didn’t shows up almost immediately on the island.

For Season 38, Devens was underprepared in a way that accidentally worked. With a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old at home, most of his focus was on making life “slightly less awful” for his wife, Becca, while he was gone. With other contestants studying the show’s evolving strategy and social media ecosystem, he was tucking in his kids and walking the dogs.

This season, he’s bringing a new approach: hiring a trainer, swimming at 5:30 in the morning twice a week and building a balance beam in his backyard with his dad.

“When you have an opportunity like (this), you just want to make the most of it,” he told the AJC.

Savannah Louie, an Atlanta native and the winner of Season 49, returned to Fiji to film Season 50 just nine days after coming home from her victory.

In advance of her first season, Louie prepared for the island like an athletic training camp. She fasted, cut added sugar, worked with a life coach and eliminated caffeine, which she’ll tell you is one of the hardest parts.

“Cutting out caffeine ... I’m so glad I cut it out before I went out there because I had the worst headaches,” she said. “Like, I was very grumpy.”

The dirt, the bamboo and the unexpected clarity

In “Survivor,” the physical deprivation is a challenge unto itself. Contestants receive no toothbrush, no shampoo, no blankets. Players sleep on bamboo or dirt, wake up cold in the dark and have no idea what time it is. It sounds miserable, and it is, but both players experienced something they didn’t expect amid the chaos: clarity.

“It was probably, in a weird way, less stressful when they were coming after me on ‘Survivor’ than normal life is day to day,” Devens said.

On the island, he explained, stress has a name: “It’s the six people who tried to vote me out.”

Louie dreaded hunger most.

“I’m the kind of person where if I’m not eating every, like, you know, four hours, I get a little hungry,” she said, but once she got out there, “food wasn’t even on my mind.”

What carried her is something she hasn’t planned for.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had an adrenaline rush quite like that first challenge. You could feel the energy pulsing through your body, and it was nothing to do with what I ate for breakfast that morning. It was everything to do with just how nervous and excited I was to be out there.”

With no mirrors, no makeup and no curated persona to maintain, the island strips players down in ways that are uncomfortable and, somehow, freeing.

“You get to the purest form of yourself,” Louie said. “You just feel so raw.”

The challenges don’t stay on Fiji

So, what happens when the cameras are gone and the adrenaline stops?

Louie came home from two seasons filmed back-to-back, and her body came undone almost immediately.

“I literally could not stop eating,” she said. “I would eat until I felt physically sick. Like, five big slices of cake after a full dinner and I would still want more.”

She gained roughly 30 pounds in two months. CBS connected her with a nutritionist and with a therapist who specialized in eating disorders, support she says she’s grateful for.

“The hardest part about this entire experience was everything that came after I got off the island.”

In a culture obsessed with “what I eat in a day” content and wellness optimization, “Survivor” delivers the opposite. A body that ran on scarcity and adrenaline for weeks, overcorrecting the moment comfort returns.

Twenty-four returning players are abandoned on the islands of Fiji for a monumental 50th season, with the chance to win $1 million. (Robert Voets/CBS Broadcasting Inc.)

For Devens, coming home from “Survivor” confirmed a latent positivity he’s always known about himself. Now, as director of communications at Middle Georgia State University, he pulls from that when real life piles up.

“I know now that I can handle these situations,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not the end of the world. Just deal with what’s in front of you. Stay positive — because that’s what’s worked for you in the past.”

It’s a mindset he’s now intentionally passing on to his kids. His daughter Juliet, “Juju,” is, he says, “like my PR person. Just anywhere we go into a room, she’s like, ‘My dad was on ‘Survivor.’’”