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Audio By Carbonatix
For one brief shining moment last month, it looked like a Coloradan was going to win Survivor for the first time ever.
Steven Ramm, a 35-year-old rocket scientist from Denver, was one to watch from the very beginning of season 49 of the iconic reality show. Between his popularity among tribe mates, surprising physical prowess and endless inventory of space facts, he quickly became a fan favorite and a strong contender for sole survivor.
His grand gameplay became undeniable in episode eleven when, after twenty days of starving in the jungle, Ramm ran the entire perimeter of an island during a journey to earn a block-a-vote advantage. The next day, he won his second individual immunity challenge. Then, in episode twelve, he successfully used his block-a-vote before rival player Sophi Balerdi could steal it with her knowledge-is-power advantage.
Ramm had flawlessly set up his alliance to take control of the game by eliminating Balerdi. The jury members cheered as Ramm revealed his move, elated to finally see Balerdi’s power trio fall. But the vote didn’t go as planned.
When host Jeff Probst read the votes, there was just one cast against Balerdi and four against Ramm. Ramm’s allies had betrayed him, sending him home in the last elimination before the season finale.
“I was literally this close to winning the season,” Ramm says. “Everything was coming up Steven. I really felt like I could win and beat anyone.”
Ramm ultimately ended the season in sixth place. He fell short of the Colorado record for Survivor finishes held by Ken McNickle, who tied for second in season 33.
However, Ramm is arguably the best Coloradan to play the game since Ami Cusack in season nine. While no jury members voted for McNickle to win during his final tribal council, Ramm was considered a shoo-in for the million-dollar prize if he made it to the top three. He was even awarded the “Would Have Won” title in a fan survey by the popular Survivor Fact Checker account.
“My biggest blunder was not realizing the threat level that I was putting out there until it was too late,” Ramm says. “I thought I landed the biggest resume move in front of the jury by not letting the knowledge-is-power take my advantage. …In that moment, I thought, ‘If I survive this tribal council, I’m winning this game. The million dollars is mine.’ And I still believe that.”
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Now back home in the Mile High City, Ramm sat down with Westword to discuss his time in Fiji:
Westword: As a fan of Survivor yourself, was going on the show everything you hoped it would be?
Steven Ramm: I wrote down all the things I wanted to get out of the experience: I wanted to grow as a person, I wanted to conquer my imposter syndrome, I wanted to push myself, I wanted to make friends and, of course, I wanted to win. After the show, I was able to check everything off besides winning the million-dollar prize. It was everything I hoped it would be and then some. It was more challenging than I thought it was going to be in some ways, and it was easier in some ways, too.
Which parts were easier and which parts were harder than you expected?
The part that was easiest, which surprised me, was not eating. After about two or three days, you stopped feeling hungry. Your brain just stops sending the starvation signal. You still feel the effects; you feel weak, you get dizzy when you stand up, the brain fog is real. …But the eating part wasn’t too bad. I ended up doing a lot better in the physical stuff than I thought I would, because I’m not a CrossFit trainer, I’m not a big hiker. Maybe it was the Colorado altitude in my blood.
Some of the hardest parts were that everyone is a very, very good liar. I thought I was a better reader of character. …It was really challenging getting out of my own head. I wish I went into the game with the confidence that I have now. I grew a lot through the experience. Watching some of those early confessionals, I just didn’t carry myself very confidently.
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Looking back, would you change anything?
I wish I had gone to therapy in advance to know myself a little bit better. The players who really know themselves tend to play a better game because they’re very aware of how they come across. That’s such a big, important part of Survivor: threat-level management and knowing how others perceive you. I lost track of that perception as the game went on.
My biggest blunder was not realizing the threat level that I was putting out there until it was too late. I thought I landed the biggest resume move in front of the jury by not letting the knowledge-is-power take my advantage. …I was like, “I’m going to win the game.” In that moment, I thought, “If I survive this tribal council, I’m winning this game. The million dollars is mine.” And I still believe that. …I felt so confident. In that confessional, I was like, “I cast my block-a-vote for Savannah! I’ve got this in the bag, dude!” Where was this guy early in the game?
If I came in with that level of confidence early on, could I have done more damage? Played a different game? I wish I would’ve taken charge a bit more, and made a better case to convince my allies why it made sense to keep me.
Let’s talk about that blindside by your allies. Even as just a viewer, I felt betrayed when Sage and Kristina flipped on you.
I’ve had a lot of conversations with Sage and Kristina, and there are no hard feelings for the blindside. It’s a game, and I’m glad I could go out with a bang. At first, it didn’t really make sense to me. But the more I think about it, Savannah and I were considered two of the biggest threats at that time in the game. Savannah was immune; she couldn’t be voted out. So I guess I was the next big thing. I thought that we had this great trio going, but I can’t fault them for seeing the game differently and maximizing their odds of winning.
I guess in hindsight, it made sense for Sage and Kristina, but I didn’t see that in the moment. In the moment, I did feel pretty hurt, very confused, but also just really proud of everything that I had done.
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In your conversations with Sage and Kristina, have they expressed any regret? Kristina was the next one out and Sage ended up third in the final three. It seems like they might’ve had better luck with you in the game.
They stand by what they did. Knowing what they knew in the moment and feeling how they felt, I don’t think they would’ve changed anything. I respect it. They felt that maybe they could sway the jury if they were sitting next to Savannah or Rizo because they played different games.
It’s so crazy because I feel like I was literally this close to winning the season. If I had made it to five, I mean, who knows? There’s so much that happens at the fifth and fourth vote-outs. Maybe I would’ve lost in five, maybe I would’ve gotten voted out at five without an advantage if I didn’t win immunity. But I felt like everything was coming up Steven. I really felt like I could win and beat anyone.
What’s it been like to watch everything back on TV?
It was surreal. …The experience that we have is not always the same story that’s told. There are eighteen contestants and everybody thinks they’re the main character of the story. There were all these different threads and moments that I remembered as being so funny, so awesome, and thinking, “This is going to make great television.” And a lot of them didn’t make the edit.
The craziest moment for me was watching myself do the journey. When I was running it, it felt like forever. I was so tunnel visioned, in the zone, very gassed, both mentally and physically. It was like this fever dream. I knew I was climbing up all these rocks, I knew I was scaling up these different areas and I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of it until I watched it back.
I talked to some of the folks from production afterwards. They have test runners that test out all the challenges, and they said they almost scrapped it because they felt it was too dangerous, but they decided to go for it. An hour and fifteen minutes was the average run time [for the test runners], and I did it in thirty minutes. …Some of the test runners I met were like, “You made us look bad!” [The crew] had a hard time keeping up with me. They had a couple of people who were trying to run with me, but they couldn’t keep up, and so they had to switch to drone footage for the majority of it.
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Were you surprised by anything that didn’t make the edit?
Pre-merge, a lot of the Hina dynamics weren’t really shown. …I formed an alliance with Jason and MC, and we called it “Sandy Cheeks.” It wasn’t made clear how big a part Jason was in that alliance because Jason ended up getting voted out. …MC and I had positioned ourselves so well in the Hina tribe. I was in an alliance with every person, and MC and I were in the middle. We were secret number ones, we were trying to do this Kyle and Kamilla thing because season 48 was airing right before we went out there. Nobody knew that we had this really secret relationship until the show aired.
Post-merge, Sage, Jawan and I were a lot tighter than the edit showed. That was my core alliance after MC was voted out. Sage told me about the Alex vote. She and I agreed for me to vote incorrectly so people wouldn’t suspect that Sage and I were working together so closely. I wish they would’ve shown a little bit more of Sage and I strategizing because I was super involved with the strategizing and coming up with plans.
We had one plan that spectacularly blew up with the Jawan blindside. It would’ve made me look like a bit of a dumb-dumb, but those are some of the funniest Survivor moments. …When I voted incorrectly for blue Sophi, knowing that Alex was going home, I said in the voting booth, “This is step one of Operation Space Jam: Pretend I don’t know what’s going on so we can set up a big blindside next time.” Then at the next vote, Sage, Jawan and I, we thought that we had Savannah dead to rights. We did not know that yellow Sophie had flipped. So I go into the voting booth and I’m like, “Step two: Vote out the biggest threat in the game.” I was so cocky.
What were some of the funny moments we missed?
I bashed my face in the first immunity challenge that we had as a tribe, going through the mud. They didn’t show it, but I almost Bruce-d myself. Bruce hit his head on the same exact thing, diving in under the mud, and he had to be removed from the game. I was going under and I pulled my head up just a little bit too early. I thought I had cleared the net, but I hadn’t, and I went straight into the wood. …So, I had cuts on my face for the first quarter of the game and they never explained it.
There was another moment when we took the boat out of Hina and they had a camera crew following us. The wake got pretty rough at one point and their boat capsized. This guy with the camera falls in the water. They have rescue divers there, but he’s being weighed down. I was like, “Should we help? Should we jump in?” And the crew was like, “We’re not here. Pretend we’re not here. We’ll handle this.” The guy handed us the camera because he didn’t want it to get wet and damaged, but meanwhile, he’s drowning. They’re so passionate about what they do. This guy was about to die to save this camera. It’s rough out there.
For all the water challenges, I’d take out my hearing aids so I wouldn’t damage them. In one challenge, when we had to carry the big bamboo cage…we’re carrying it, it’s so heavy, then all of a sudden, everyone stopped moving. I was like, “What’s going on guys? We’re behind!” …I’m looking around and nobody’s helping and I’m turning red. [What happened was] we received a penalty, so we had to pause for ten seconds. But I literally did not hear Jeff yelling that. So I was trying to go, and apparently Jeff was yelling, “Steven! You fucking have a penalty! Get it together! Stop!” And I couldn’t hear it. That was a funny moment that they didn’t show for obvious reasons.
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It’s weird to hear about Jeff yelling and cursing. He gets some flak online for being too soft on contestants in the New Era.
It didn’t feel like he was soft on us. When you’re out there starving, struggling, it certainly never feels like anyone’s being too nice or too kind. …He cares so much about the show and he’s so passionate about it. You can tell it’s his life’s work. He wants it to be extremely fair, extremely well run. He’s firm. I never felt like he was mean or tough, but he was firm. He would throw hard questions our way. He didn’t pull any punches. He’s an incredible host.
Do you prefer the New Era or the Old Era of Survivor?
Oh my gosh. This is a very controversial question. You’re trying to get me roasted online again. They both have their own charms. I’m not going to pick one or the other. There are seasons in the Old Era that are awesome, but I think the New Era gets a lot of hate sometimes that isn’t deserved.
Here’s what I will say: I wish that we got a chance to play more days just because I was loving being out there. So 39 days rather than 26 would have been awesome. …I lean more towards the Old Era format because I love the sequences of camp life. I love that there’s more time for relationships to blossom and grow and develop. My favorite part about Survivor is watching the social relationships, people lying to someone’s face. I really like the New Era, but I kind of miss when it was a little simpler, when there were fewer advantages out there. I don’t know if you necessarily need a block-a-vote to orchestrate stuff like that.
And I wish that New Era had a little bit of rice so that people can think more clearly. It might make for more interesting strategic gameplay. Maybe that’s why the old school gameplay had some of those bigger moments.
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What’s your Mount Rushmore of Survivor players?
If we’re talking about my personal top four, it’d probably be: Rupert, Tony played an awesome game, I love Boston Rob, and Parvati, obviously. And Sandra. And Tyson.
Your six-headed Mount Rushmore.
Yes. Plus an honorable mention for Christian Hubicki.
Would you ever play Survivor again?
One hundred percent, yes. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I want to do it again so bad. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I’ve done a lot of really fun stuff. I got to fly on NASA’s vomit comet — so I got to feel what it’s like to be an astronaut without going to space — and this somehow topped that. I felt like a little kid again. I had this wonder that I hadn’t felt since I was in elementary school. …It’s like you’re at a summer camp with some of the most impressive people you’ve ever met. It’s exhilarating. I would love to play again.
And if I ever get an opportunity to play Survivor again, it’ll be really fun because I’ll be coming in with no imposter syndrome, just ready to hit the ground running…rather than working through some personal stuff on national TV.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
