Most people spend their 21st birthday going to the club or getting wasted, but Ben Nuss spent his doing something a little different.
Nuss, a fourth-year student in economics, led 20 of his friends in an all-day “Survivor” challenge — and he filmed the whole thing. Nuss shared that along with being a “Survivor” superfan, he also enjoys experiences over gifts for his birthdays, which motivated him to arrange the event.
“I don’t like receiving gifts for my birthday,” Nuss said. “That’s not really me, I like to do things and experiences with my friends. For my 21st, I wanted to do something really special — I wanted to do something with as many friends as I could. And as I was thinking about it, I saw something on YouTube about someone who had created a custom ‘Survivor’ game. I saw it as a cool opportunity and I just ran with it.”
A self-proclaimer planner, Nuss arranged the big day for over eight months. Isabel Pardal, a recent NC State alumna with a degree in business administration, reflected on how detailed Nuss’s objectives were.
“He had his Google Doc that was, like, 20 pages long,” Pardal said. “And he didn’t show me anything specific because I couldn’t see it. But he had a lot of detailed planning — the times, challenges. It was very, very exact. I was very impressed by it and excited to participate.”
His friends were not exactly sure what they were getting themselves into when they agreed to participate. Jake Segmiller, who graduated last May with a degree in business IT, said he was unsure of how it was going to work.
“I thought he was kind of crazy,” Segmiller said. “I had never seen ‘Survivor,’ but I’d seen ‘Big Brother,’ which is a similar reality game show. And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s gonna take forever. It sounds crazy.’”
Other participants were excited to compete. Timothy Sellers, who also graduated in May with a degree in middle grades education language arts and social studies, said he was ready to put up a fight.
“When Ben approached me with it, I was like, ‘This is a wild idea,’” Sellers said. “But I was 100% down because one thing that Ben knows about me is that I got that dog in me, right? I’m gonna compete when it comes time to compete. And I was like, ‘We got to come out, we got to show out, we got to have a good time.’”
On the day of the event, Nuss gathered 10 hometown friends and 10 college friends in his apartment complex’s parking lot to compete. They were split into two opposing tribes, the Red Tribe and the Blue Tribe, and began competing at 1 p.m.
They competed in multiple challenges and tribal councils which lasted until 11 p.m. While most of the competitors came into the event thinking it would be fun time to spend with friends, Madison Ligh, a third-year studying communication, noted it quickly became very serious.
“I think it was 100% more intense than anyone expected,” Ligh said. “I think we all were imagining a themed party with different games, but it was really a full on ‘Survivor’ season. You compete in the challenges, but then you have alliances on top of that, and it just makes everything much more anxious and stressful. A lot of us started to think, ‘Oh, I actually want to win this.’”
After the success of season one, Nuss decided to do it all again in a second season. Inspired by the “Survivor” season: “Fans vs. Favorites,” Nuss assembled 10 friends who competed in season one and 10 friends who were new to the competition to battle it out.
Segmiller, Sellers and Ligh all returned to compete in season two, while Pardal joined the production team as a camerawoman.
Going into season two, Nuss and the competitors said they came in with new ideas and strategies based on what unfolded in season one. For Nuss, that meant more cameras. For competitors, that meant more strategizing and intensity for the game.
Trying to keep the participants a secret to minimize any pre-game strategizing, Ligh described the seriousness that Nuss took while reaching out to his cast. She also noted the secrecy was not completely successful.
“It was so official, like, ‘Are you interested in playing?’” said Ligh. “And it said, ‘Do not talk to anyone about it.’ It was so serious. It got me excited — I was like, ‘This is so funny.’’ And the next thing I know, someone says something to me about it. And I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, everybody’s definitely planning right now.’”
Sellers also noted that Nuss’s desire for secrecy was quickly gone as participants felt the desire to perform well in season two.
“Everyone kind of figured out that in the second season, you can’t just go in expecting to have fun, or you’re out in the first round,” Sellers said. “So we went from everyone showing up for Ben’s birthday to everyone showing up with a game plan. You came in with new allies, predetermined alliances.”
The seriousness even ended up causing some friendship tensions, with friends turning on friends and major blindsides. Segmiller noted that although there was backstabbing, there were also many new friendships created as well.
All participants highlighted how positive the experience was. Pardal praised Nuss for the work he put into the project.
“I don’t think anyone else could’ve put this together at all,” Pardal said. “Ben has the perfect brain for this. It really was a great time in both seasons for everyone involved, and we couldn’t have done this without him.”
New episodes of season two are published to Nuss’s YouTube channel, “Jeff Probst’s Son,” every Wednesday. There is even potential for more seasons in the future.
“There may or may not be a season three in the works. That’s all I’ll say,” Nuss said.
