Game Strategies in Big Brother
https://www.onlinebigbrother.com/big-brother-compendium/big-brother-strategies/
The long-lasting reality TV show “Big Brother” is currently on its twentieth season on CBS and I have been watching every second of it. “Big Brother” is a game show filmed 24/7 that lasts for about 3 months during the summer, where 16 houseguests live in one house together while cutoff completely from the outside world, meaning no phones, laptops, internet, paper, pens or television. Every week, all of the houseguests compete for the chance to be the Head of Household, who gets to name their choice of two other houseguests for eviction. Following the nomination ceremony, the two nominees, the HoH and 3 other houseguests selected at random draw compete to win the Power of Veto, which allows the veto winner to take themselves or someone else off the block from eviction. After the veto ceremony, the houseguests, excluding the HoH, vote to evict either nominee. Whoever has more votes is evicted from the game and sent home or to the jury house. This happens every week until there are only two houseguests left and they must go before their former houseguests in the jury and tell why they think they should win the game. The jurors then vote to decide who they want to win the half million dollar prize. The game itself is fairly simple, but the strategies and decision making required to be the “last man standing” at the end of the show are critical and must be meticulously planned. The article linked above lists and discusses all of the typical strategies that have been developed and implemented by houseguests in the past twenty seasons to help further them in the game. These strategies include lying, manipulation, joining secret alliances, floating, showmances, winning competitions, losing competitions, and back dooring.
As we learned about payoff matrices in class, I thought about the complexity of strategies in the show “Big Brother” and tried to imagine what a payoff matrix would look like for all of the players in the whole game. This is something that is beyond the scope of what we have learned so I started breaking the game down into smaller and smaller pieces until I could think of an aspect of the game that I could make a payoff matrix for: a showmance between two players. The showmance strategy is a strategy used between two players, where player 1 flirts with player 2 in order to manipulate player 2 him/her to play an emotional game, usually trying to keep player 1 safe. There are essentially two distinct plays to this strategy, being either manipulate, or be manipulated. Because the houseguests are in such a lonely and polarizing environment with no connection to the outside world, it is hard to tell when you are being manipulated, so it is not exactly a conscious decision, but a decision no less. So, if player 1 decides to manipulate and player 2 decides to be manipulated, then player 1 has a payoff of winning, w, and player 2 has a payoff of losing, l. Similarly, if player 2 decides to manipulate and player 2 decides to be manipulated, then player 2 has a payoff of w and player 1 has a payoff of l. Interestingly, if both players choose to manipulate, then both have a payoff of w because both will keep each other safe in the game. So the dominant strategy for both players of the showmance strategy is to manipulate. This example shows how important every chosen strategy and decision is in the show “Big Brother.”