No idea why my font is so large.
Also,
@Jeff Probst asked me if I was doing a schtick, and I wanted to clarify that. The answer is in short, no. At least it isn't anything close to what I normally try to do. When I applied to play, I said I wanted to be really in character, and I was kind of warned to not do that because it would weird out some of the people that were brand new to playing these kind of games. I didn't really understand what that meant until night 1, then it immediately rang true. I felt little culture shocked because I didn't realize what to expect with the interpersonal dynamics of this series before playing. People were talking about personal stuff right from the get go such as where their from, etc, which isn't even allowed in most games I play because the player pool is so small and people get recycled. If you talk about that kind of stuff, people will realize who you are almost immediately, and it is no longer anonymous so it is no longer a fair fight for everyone involved. Because of this, and because games became much more stale to me over 10 years ago after playing a number of them, I always liked to invent a new character or play as someone else and imagine what they would do as a challenge in order to see if I could succeed while sticking to whatever limitation I had from a social or strategic perspective based on what I decided I would at the beginning of the game and as the character I was playing would evolve. The huge difference is that most games I play these days (which is not many, probably play 1 every year or every other year) are PM only based, so it's relatively easy for me to get into character and play a persona when you're only sending 1, 2, or 3 messages max a day to everyone else. I was not prepared whatsoever with how the instant messaging system works in this game, and I realized quickly that I could not even try to speak like John would in every message or act like I lived where he did, etc, without doing an impossible amount of research to prepare myself for any social situation. And honestly, that didn't seem to appealing to try to do. I dunno. I still use some lingo that I would never use in real life, but for the most part, playing myself in the conversations. I wanted to try to play up the wrestler character of John in public posts, and I may still try to do that as the game continues. But I'm not used to some things that have happened here. For example, when the host says "sign in", everyone waits around and completes the challenge after it is posted without saying they are here. Little things like that kind of take away some of what I was planning to do since I can't be the only person to sign in. Also, there's no shared board that we can all post in, another thing that I had planned to do. Need to clarify that I am not criticizing any of that not being available. This 100% feels more like a simulation of the real show, and I am enjoying it tremendously. People are bonding much more than I expected they would simply because of how quickly people can interact. I played instant message games on AIM when I was super young, but they weren't anonymous like this. I also don't remember people being as invested as they are here. Maybe because I was a teenager and too immature? No idea. It's most likely the casting and credit goes to the hosts for putting this all together.
Anyways, tldr, hope it is not disappointing that I am more or less playing as myself, but I am having a blast.
