Naomi

* Norway
* Cameroon

## *Survivor* Career

**Naomi** is a contestant from *Survivor: Cameroon* and *Survivor: Norway*.

## Profile

* Cameroon
* Norway

**Name:** Naomi

**Tribe Designation:** Bamenda

*Full interview can be found here.*

**Previous Seasons & Finishes:** *Cameroon*: 5th, 8th Juror

**Tell us about yourself. What makes you, *YOU*?** Hi!! I'm Naomi, I'm 16 years old and I was born in Maine and lived there until I moved to New York when I was about 8 years old, so I've spent about 8 years in both states! I'm a big fan of Survivor, I started watching it around 5 years ago when I was over at a friend's house and the finale of San Juan del Sur was on and I was extremely fascinated by it and so I eventually went back to watch the rest of the season, and the rest was history. I've watched almost all of the seasons, and favorite is definitely still SJDS because it was my first season I watched and it was a great season with a fantastic winner. I just finished up my sophomore year in high school, and right now, I'm currently interested in studying to become a Medical Assisting major in college mainly because I want to help other people when I'm older. I want to make the world a better place, even if it's only just a tiny amount. Even if the world is on fire, I'm still passionate enough to grab the fire extinguisher.

**Between Mind and Heart, which group do you personally think you fit into better?** I say that I would fit on the Heart tribe over Mind. I usually follow my heart rather than using my brain to think things out. Act first beg for forgiveness later. It's also safe to say that I play Survivor in the same fashion, I play with my emotions over my head. I love my friends and my allies that I would stay loyal to them for almost all the way through and it's as simple as that.

**Explain how your last time playing went for you:** Ahh! So Cameroon was the first Survivor that I played that wasn't within the people I knew, so it was a brand new experience meeting a whole new group of people! A lot of Cameroon consisted of me calling @GO ΔLL OF NORWΔY CΔST a furry, but I'm not wrong though. Right off the bat, I was put on the Bamenda tribe, the incest party tribe! The people on the tribe however were all people who were WAY older than me, I think all of them were over 20, I just remember being the only non-adult on that tribe, which automatically formed a barrier with some of the people of my tribe, and it wasn't until after the season that I found out that I would've been targeted for being the youngest member. I tried to play the game at my own pace, I never went to tribal at all during the pre-merge so there wasn't much of a need for me to strategize with people nor was I in any alliances before the merge. At the merger, everyone wanted to vote out Brittany, which was someone who I was on the same tribe with since day 1 and I didn't want to vote her out, so I talked with Abby, another person who I talked with a lot during the second swap, to see if we could turn the tides on Peter, and we did. We ended up voting him out unanimously while I threw a vote in case he played an idol. After that, it eventually lead to the Grey's Anatomy alliance being formed with me, Abby, and Brittany. The three of us even survived a few tribal councils despite being put in a minority after Gino's was voted out (This was mainly thanks to Annie and Infernox flipping to our side the next vote) and I eventually had to backstab Greys Anatomy in order to keep myself in the game. I started talking to Maxis more a few tribals into the merge, and I absolutely loved him! He sent me adorable Rilakkuma pictures everyday but I will admit that there were times that I was in a bad mood and got annoyed by them, but I absolutely still loved them!! I even sent some that I found back to him. After my original alliance members were voted out, I had turned to him and Travis, who I talked to a bit throughout the merge, and hoped to have a Final 3 with them. However, that idea was thrown away after I was pulled from the game. One of my higher points in the game was just meeting people in the season. IRL, and online to some degree, I have a lot of trouble with reaching out and talking to people, especially since I identify as N/B, and it's super awkward to talk to people about it, mainly IRL since people aren't as open to it as much as people on the internet. I officially came out as non-binary in 8th grade and a quite of few of my friends, or who I thought were my friends started talking to me less and eventually cut ties with me. Even online, when I'm meet people, it's what most people talk about. Some questions that I have been asked and I think about alot is "What's it like?", "How can someone be neither gender?", and simply just "Why?" I try to not let it bother me but a lot of times, it's very heart wrenching and I get super insecure by it and it makes me feel like I'm not a person at all because of it, which is why I was super grateful to meet these people, because they didn't care about it at all. Most of them asked what I went by and I told them and we would move on from there, some didn't even question it at all and just talked to me normally. It felt good that my gender identity was never used as the main focus of any conversation and it made me feel like a person, just like everyone else.

**What was your biggest takeaway from your last time playing?** My biggest takeaway is that ORG's are a lot harder than most people expect, I don't think there could be anything that would prepare me for a lot of emotional or mental struggles I've faced during Cameroon, both in and outside of the game itself, noted that the actual Survivor is much harder by like 500%. ORG's that I have played before, it was mainly with friends of mines or with people that I already knew, and going to this environment where I knew no one in the game, I struggled a lot to really "fit in" with everyone and I was unable to form any real bonds with anyone. I stuck with Brittany and Abby because of it as they were people who reached out to me during the tribe swap and they were my saving graces throughout most of the merge, however I ended up relying on them too much.

**What do you hope to accomplish with this second chance?** If I get casted again for this season, I want to improve on my game in Cameroon and redeem myself from the last time I played to show that I do have potential of winning this game. Back in Cameroon, I was very spotty with people in DMs and in my Confessional, I wasn't playing as hard as I could, and overall, I wasn't giving my 100% during the game due to many personal reasons.

**How would you describe the game you play in ORG’s?** I mentioned it earlier, but the two Orgs that I've played (not including Cameroon) were hosted by people within my friend group and I mainly played with people that I already knew or had been friends with for a while. The first Org that I played, there were 18 people and I started off with a tribe of 6. We lost 2 of the 3 challenges and I was in a good position and I was in a solid alliance of 3 with some friends I knew until the tribe swap and I ended up being put on a tribe with 3 people from one tribe and one other person from the third tribe where we both got voted out after each other. The second one I played, I made it to the merge but ended up getting voted out after two people played idols for themselves and I got sent home.
## Survivor

### Cameroon

#### Voting History

**^1** The vote ended with a 4-4-1 tie between Brittany and Wham. Per the rules, a second vote was held where the castaways involved in the tie would not vote and the remaining castaways could only vote for those involved in the tie, Naomi kept their vote the same.

## Trivia

* Naomi is the first openly Non-Binary castaway in the series.
* Naomi, along with Brittany and Ryo, are the first and only castaways to not go to Tribal Council during the pre-merge.
* Naomi, Infernox, and Ryo are the first, second, and third castaways to receive zero votes against them throughout the entirety of their season.
* They are the second castaway to be evacuated from the game, shortly following Ryo's evacuation.
* Naomi received 2 votes in the *Fan Favorite Poll* in *Cameroon*. They were eligible for voting again in *Norway*, where they received 1 vote.
* Naomi is the first returning player to make it to the merge on two different occasions.