Survivor 48
To start, give me your name, age, and occupation.My name is Shauhin Davari, 37 years old right now. And I am a college professor and head speech and debate coach at Orange Coast College.Was teaching something you always wanted to do?I was actually a lawyer for a while. I went to law school and graduated. Was practicing and was teaching night classes for fun and coaching the team, just because I used to compete on the team, and really enjoyed it. And then they opened up a full-time position. And I looked back at my life and realized, when I was in high school, I was training kids in soccer. And when I was in college, I was tutoring. And then when I was in law school, I was a TA and a tutor. And I realized, "Bro, you want to teach. That's the thing that lights you up. That's the thing that you're super excited about. " On top of I had an opportunity to coach the speech and debate team.That speech and debate team changed my life. Speech and debate absolutely changed who I was as a human being. So given the opportunity to go back and coach the very team that shaped who I am and give back to my speech and debate community. Give back to the school that helped me figure out who I was, it's pretty awesome. I have an older brother who's 10 years older than me, and I was very, very fortunate; I have the world's best older brother. And so for my whole life, I'd had someone being like, "Oh, don't do that. Do this. How about adjust this? Okay, you want to do that. This is how you do that. Okay, cool." This job allows me to be my older brother, my hero for a bunch of people. And so that's why.Talk to me more about speech and debate changing your life.I mean, [it] certainly trained me how to think critically about the world. It taught me how to see the other side and how changing your mind is actually a good thing. I think, especially right now, people like to be set in their ways, and changing your mind is seen as a bad thing. No, man! Changing your mind based on the evidence that becomes available to you, that's a beautiful thing. And on top of that, I also coach an acting event. A lot of what I do is coaching acting, and that's not what people think of when they think of speech and debate. But a full third of what we do on the performative. But there are performances, monologues, poetry, prose. These are actual performances that I coach as well. And I really enjoy performance. That's something that I did a ton of in high school, and I am performative in nature, and so I love my job. I'm very lucky.Well, let's talk about what brought you out to the great debate stage of Survivor. Why did you want to play?What brought me out here? Let's see. I'm out here for my community, and I'm out here for my mom, for sure. That's one of the reasons. The main reason I'm out here is because I fell in love with the show, and then got my mom obsessed with the show. I threw a vacation that was a Survivor-themed vacation where 12 people came. Not just family, but friends; we all played Survivor. I played Jeff, and over seven days, we had challenges, two or three challenges a day. We had Tribals and all of that shit. And my mom won the whole thing. And it was insane. And this was after I got my mom obsessed with the show. She watched all 40 seasons. She lost a bet to me, and so she had to watch every single episode. If I lost, I would have had to send her on a trip around the world. So the stakes were huge. I mean, you could have just put her on Amazing Race!Yes, that would be next for us. That'd be lovely. Jesse, give me a call. Me and my mom on Amazing Race. Could you imagine? Anyway, my mom fell in love with the show because it's it's a show about social dynamics. My mom was a hairstylist for 40 years, sat behind a chair. And as you know, hairstylists do very well on this show. Yam Yam, Kenzie, they tend to do really well, because they have to understand all different types of people. And my mom came here, didn't speak the language, had to learn the language. Sat behind a chair for 40 years and sacrificed her body so that I could have a better life. Her hands don't work super well. She's had three back surgeries. And so when she won our family Survivor, I made her a promise. I said, "I promise you I'm gonna go on that show, and I promise you I'm gonna win." So now I get to make good on my promise. So what was your history with watching the show? So, I watched the finale the very first season. I didn't really watch anything else again until February 22, 2020. The week before everything shut down, I was in Northern California visiting my friends, and we were like, "Hey, man, this pandemic thing is serious. So we should probably just hang out in the house." And he had just finished Season 18. And I was like, "Dude, you're watching Survivor? That show's still on the air?!" Threw on Season 19. I see Russell Hantz come on television, and there is not a more hateable person on planet Earth. And nothing will light my fire like a rival, a villain who I just want to see him get what's coming to him. And is there a better ending to a season than watching Russell get what's coming to him for that many episodes? Erik's monologue at the end that seals the deal for Natalie, that had me hooked. And so I then watched every single season. I've watched every episode. I've watched them multiple times. I got obsessed with the show, got my family obsessed with the show, and now I have a Survivor fantasy league with 40 people that I run my own rules.So how is that going to work for 48?The drafts gonna be a little weird. They can all pick the same people. And by the way, just to plug my league real quick, it is better than every other league. Because, most other leagues, it's done by Week 4. Someone on your tribe goes home, and you're screwed. The winner pick is done, and you're done. [With mine], you get to add one at the merge. But the key is, the points you gain the last three weeks become the amount you can wager Jeopardy-style on the ranking. So everybody's in it all the way to the very end. It makes it an interesting league, and it tests actual Survivor knowledge. It's not just you pick it at the beginning and you tune out based on some nonsense, useless pregame interview. No offense.None taken!It's a cooler way to, I think, play that Survivor game that we all love. And so what comes with that is, every Wednesday night, I got 20 people that come over to my house, or my brother's house, or my friend Jimmy's house, and we all watch Survivor together. It's the thing that brings my community together. And it's cool, man. We make food, and we hang out, and we shoot the shit, and then we throw on the show. And if it's not Survivor night, It's movie night. So it's awesome, man. I'm very, very blessed with my community. It's awesome. The Probstie is the trophy. The trophy is this big. And if you win, you get your name on the trophy. Does Jeff know about the Probstie? I don't think so. I mean, I'm gonna have to tell him.You know how they have a little bowler on the top of bowling trophies? You need a golden Jeff on top of the Probstie.That would be awesome.Give me one winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most.Okay, look, Adam Klein's love of his mother is something that I certainly understand. I mean, I love my mom in the way that he, for sure, loved his mom. So I definitely identify with him from that standpoint. But from a gameplay standpoint, Yam Yam is probably the person that I identify with the most. You have the beard to match!Exactly. And [he's] a dude who can't hide. I can't f–king hide. There's no way. There's nowhere I'm going. I can't hide. So he couldn't hide, and he figured out a way. And so, I studied his gameplay a lot. Non-winner, I think I said this last year, but I think Jonathan Penner is probably the person that I identify with the most as a non-winner. Just because he was viewed with a level of skepticism that didn't befit what was earned. He was viewed as non-trustworthy when he was arguably the most trustworthy person out there. He was saying things like, "No, I'm not gonna do a Final Three with you. Because if I do that, then someone else is going to hear that, and then I'm screwed. And I'm not going to lie to everybody. I'm going to tell you the truth." And that's what cost him his game. And I think that that happens to me sometimes, that instead of telling the lie that everybody tells, I just tell you, "Okay, wait, wait, no, I'm going to tell my truth and hopefully explain it enough and serve it to you in such a way that you don't hate me for it."
You wrote in your bio that you wanted to be "Penner with a new era twist." What does that mean? Do you think that frank honesty lends well to the new era?I went back and did an analysis of all of Penner's seasons right before I came out here. So the thing that I think Penner did that I have to avoid–and it's definitely a tendency of mine–is when given any opportunity to drive, he drives. And even in opportunities where he didn't have an opportunity to drive, he couldn't help himself. He had to drive anyway. I do that sometimes. I'm a "logic bully." I know the right call. Sometimes it just drives me nuts. The person won't agree, and what that ends up leading to is a soft agreement, which is someone being like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure," and then turning around and being like, "Dude, screw this guy. I'm out of here." And that is definitely what happened to him as well. And I need to avoid that fate by being more Socratic, asking people to get them there, instead of telling people to get them there.So you talk about last year. Let's be upfront about what you went through in 2024 on Season 46, because not everyone might know that this is not the first time we've met.So last year, obviously, as the alternate, you're in a very weird space. Because you're doing something that you desperately want to do and certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity. But also, I knew, seeing the cast of 46, seeing those [nine] dudes, none of those dudes are dropping out. They're all fit as a fiddle, like, "I know, okay, cool. I'm really unlikely to play. But I have six days or five days, I'm gonna play my ass off. I'm gonna play as hard as I can." And so I absolutely did go back and watch the pregame interviews from 46. And you see, they're all like, "He's smiling too much. He is staring at me." And it's like, "Yeah, man! I wanted you to talk about me!" And I got exactly what I wanted. Did I think that many of them would talk about me? No.You were the talk of the town!That's crazy. I did not see coming. But that also tells me something. I don't need to do that much, and I'm still gonna be talked about. If I did nothing, I still would have been talked about at least a little bit, I think. But I did a lot, and so that ended up leading to a little bit more of an overcorrection. Yo, that's literally the story of my life. I am Icarus. I fly too close to the sun. I know that that is my issue. I over-correct and course-correct. If I'm driving down the highway and I hit a little bump, I'm going over the other bump too. That's the way that I've lived my life, and that's benefited me in some ways. Because I'm very willing to listen to feedback; I am very in tune. And that is, I think, the thing that surprises people about me. When they do come to me with feedback, sometimes they expect a negative response. And my response is always, "Oh, okay. What did I do wrong? How do I fix it? I won't do that anymore." I learn real fast.What has the past year been like for you, especially having to ramp back up to come out here again?There's a reaction that you have to the first time you sit down in a confessional. The reaction the first time you sit down, there's an ampedness that happens. And for some people, that's good, and for some people, that's bad. For me, I need the amp in order to perform at my best. I have to be on that razor's edge. And so, yesterday was a little off for me. I just felt a little off because I'd been there before. I knew kind of what to expect. And so, for me, that necessarily didn't necessarily help me so much. Obviously, knowing the boat ride's gonna suck, and knowing like, "Okay, cool. I don't need to do as much. I'm still gonna be noticed. There's only [18] people here, so you're gonna get noticed." And they didn't cast a single other beard! They couldn't give me one other beard to hide behind. They said, "If you paid attention to any pre-game press from 46, you're gonna know this is the dude. Because he's the only dude with a beard that's out here, and he wasn't on 47."Did you ever think about shaving?I considered it. I considered it for a while. But if I can't get past that, I'm not gonna win the title anyway. So if I can't get past, "Oh, you were the alternate last time." It's like, "Yeah, man, okay! I was the alternate." I'm not gonna hide it. That's not useful. It's just not that big a deal. And I think after everybody sits through this, they'll realize, having done this before, not that big a deal. What matters more to their game is my personality. And I can help them, man. I know that I can be a really good asset to a solid alliance. Give me your biggest superpower and your biggest piece of kryptonite when it comes to this game.Kryptonite, I talked about already. The fact that I'm a logic bully, that's certainly my kryptonite. I tend to push a little too hard and then get a weak agreement, and that's it. As far as my biggest strength, I think I'm a surprising level of empathetic. I think that people are surprised that I recognize where they're coming from and their experience in a way that they would not have expected. I can put myself in somebody else's emotional shoes very easily. And that helps me in my job; I understand my students and where they're coming from. And having that empathetic approach is also something that was new. That's something that happened kind of after the pandemic, more understanding as a professor, more willing to go out of my way for my students. And so that helps me out here, man. Being able to put myself in their shoes and understand, "Okay, what are their motivations? Why are they really out here?" Because not everybody's out here to win. ome people are out here to get famous. Some people out here to flex on camera. Some people are out here for all kinds of different reasons. Some people are out here to play on 50. I'm out here to win the title of Sole Survivor. That's why I'm out here, take that title.I think what's so helpful about speech and debate is the ability to see things from multiple perspectives. I feel like that's going to be so essential in a game that's all about taking differing POVs and trying to fit it to the move that's best for you.I can make an argument for anyone. That's the goal. That's one of the things I try and teach my students. It's not that you believe that, but can you make the good argument? What's the best argument for it? I remember in my college class having to debate the merits of Prop 8. Remember this, in California? Gnarly. And we're in a college class, and it's gonna be voted on, and so I had to debate yes on Prop 8, which was making gay marriage against the constitution of California. That's an unenviable position, especially for someone who's pro-gay marriage and pro-gays.And so, light bulb, make all marriage illegal! "Marriage as a whole should be illegal." Oh, okay, cool. That includes gay marriage. So figuring out, having the state involved, making those types of arguments, being able to see even the bad, how do I make that a good thing? How do I get all the way around that bad to get to the good thing? That's gonna be essential out here. Even if I'm a huge threat, how do I convince the person that I'm not the target? Dude, let me be the threat, but I'm not the target! The target and the threat. Those are two different things. Q showed us that last season.What's your favorite moment in Survivor history?It's just a silly one. I mean, Ozzy having the opportunity to bid on an item for 420. Ozzy being like, "420" to the camera is an all-time great moment. Guzzling the soft serve right out of the machine. It's awesome. That's an awesome moment in Survivor history. This is [another] weird, awesome moment. But the upside-down U. Before you knew that there was gonna be a fire-making challenge that saved Ben, the upside-down U is an all-time greatest moment ever. Just like, "Oh, here's the dude who had it. No one's had it closer than that." And for all of it to just come crashing down, that's epic.Related: Everything to Know About Survivor 48
Next, check out our interview with Survivor 48 contestant Joe Hunter.
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