The cryptocurrency analysis platform Glassnode revealed in its latest report that the struggle between bulls and bears in the Bitcoin market has intensified significantly.
According to the report, while buying interest remains strong, a cautious atmosphere has begun to prevail across the market.
The negative turn in cumulative volume delta (CVD) data in the spot market indicates increased selling pressure and strengthening downward expectations. Despite this, high trading volumes on centralized exchanges show that market participation remains strong. This suggests that while there is pressure on prices, liquidity has not been completely withdrawn.
In the futures market, the increase in open positions indicates a rise in investor risk appetite, while the funding rate for long positions has significantly decreased. Furthermore, the sharp decline in CVD (Current Value Added Tax) in futures contracts suggests that investors are becoming more willing to open short positions, indicating weakening buyer power. These data reveal a strengthening bearish outlook in the futures markets.
The decrease in demand for downside hedging in the options market may have somewhat mitigated negative expectations in the short term. However, the narrowing of open positions suggests that investors are engaging in profit-taking, which could affect volatility in the coming period. The narrowing of volatility spreads indicates that the market is shifting from a risk-pricing approach to a more neutral one.
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On the other hand, ETFs stand out as one of the strongest supporting factors in the market. Increased net inflows and rising MVRV ratios in US spot Bitcoin ETFs indicate continued investor interest and increasing profitability. Rising trading volumes also reveal that investors are becoming more willing to access Bitcoin through regulated financial instruments.
On the liquidity side, the decrease in “hot money” and the narrowing of negative changes in realized market value indicate that longer-term investors are gaining weight in the market. The balanced distribution of supply between short-term and long-term investors, and the continued confidence of long-term investors, suggest that the fundamental structure of the market remains strong.
Overall, despite increasing selling pressure, the market is attempting to remain balanced thanks to ETF inflows and long-term investor support, but a cautious outlook prevails in the short term.
Maryland woman wins $50,000 lottery prize on her birthday
March 25 (UPI) — A Maryland woman celebrated her birthday by purchasing a Fast Play High Roller Jackpot lottery ticket that earned her a $50,000 prize.
Ripple will design, build and propose a new amendment to the XRP Ledger ecosystem for native post-quantum cryptography by 2028.
The plan addresses Google research showing future quantum computers could derive private keys from exposed public keys in nine minutes.
XRPL supports native key rotation, allowing users to move away from potentially vulnerable keys without changing their underlying accounts.
Ripple announced a multi-phase roadmap Monday to make the XRP Ledger quantum-resistant by 2028, responding to recent Google research demonstrating that future quantum computers may break current blockchain cryptography by 2032.
The company will begin active testing of quantum-resistant cryptography and a hybrid rollout that runs alongside existing systems in the first half of 2026, according to the roadmap. Ripple is collaborating with Project Eleven, an organization working on validator testing and early custody prototypes for post-quantum cryptography, to speed up development.
The roadmap includes a “Quantum-Day” contingency plan to enable secure migration to quantum-safe accounts if current cryptographic standards are compromised before the scheduled transition. According to the RippleX development team, the approach optimizes for preserving XRP Ledger’s current strengths while preparing for contingencies to minimize disruption if “Q-Day” arrives unexpectedly.
The urgency behind Ripple’s timeline stems from recent Google Quantum AI research showing that approximately 500,000 physical qubits would be required to solve ECDLP-256 cryptography, representing a roughly 20-fold reduction from earlier estimates. Google estimates such a quantum computer could derive a private key from an exposed public key in about nine minutes.
The quantum computing threat extends across the entire blockchain industry. Over 6.9 million Bitcoin—approximately one-third of the total supply—sits in wallets where public keys have been permanently exposed on the blockchain, making them susceptible to quantum attacks.
XRPL’s native key rotation capability contrasts with most other blockchains, including Ethereum, where any post-quantum migration would require users to manually move assets to entirely new accounts, according to Ripple.
XRP is up less than 1% on the day, recently trading at $1.43. Over the last week, it has gained by more than 7% amid a broader crypto market revival.
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Ben Collins, CEO of the Onion, confirmed to Variety details of the company’s new plan to assume control of Infowars under a deal with Gregory Milligan, who was appointed by a bankruptcy court to manage the Infowars site.
Under the terms of the agreement, The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, would pay $81,000 a month to license the infowars.com domain name and associated intellectual property including its name, as first reported by the New York Times. The deal would run for six months, with an option to renew for another six months.
In November 2024, the Onion gleefully revealed its winning bankruptcy-auction bid for Infowars, which was sued into bankruptcy (as was Jones) after the families of victims in the Sandy Hook mass shooting in Connecticut won a judgment in 2022 against Jones in a defamation suit. Jones had repeatedly lied and posited baseless conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre. (During the defamation trial in Texas in 2022, Jones testified that he now believes the Sandy Hook shooting was “100% real.”)
Now, under the new deal with the court-appointed administrator, the Onion said that in the coming weeks (and pending court approval) it will launch a new digital platform and comedy network at Infowars.com, led by creative director Tim Heidecker and head of programming Mia DiPasquale. The effort “is designed to create a home for emerging and established comedic voices while expanding The Onion’s role as a modern satire institution,” according to the company.
“A lot of institutions and people gave up on doing the right thing over the last two years. Despite an insane amount of threats and bullshit, we persevered,” Collins said in a statement. “Eight years, almost to the day, after the Sandy Hook parents first filed suit against Alex Jones, they’ll finally get some justice, and even some money. You will get a new home for funny things on the internet, a tote bag with a good logo on it and a great newspaper made by human beings in your real-life mailbox.”
Heidecker, whose credits include “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” on Adult Swim, commented: “There are a lot of talented people making great work with very little support. This is a chance to build a place for ambitious, specific, internet-native comedy and to make something genuinely new out of a very broken piece of media history.”
The Onion said the plan was developed with the support of Sandy Hook families. “The Sandy Hook families took on Alex Jones to stop him from inflicting the same harm on others. For years, he used his corrupt business platform to torment and harass them for profit,” said Chris Mattel, partner at Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder and attorney for the Sandy Hook families who won a $1.4 billion verdict against Jones and Infowars in Connecticut. “When InfoWars finally goes dark, the machinery of lies that Jones built will become a force for social good, thanks to the families’ courage and The Onion’s vision, persistence and stewardship.”
Alex Jones has not commented on the Onion’s new plan to take over Infowars.
In April 2024, New York-based G/O Media sold The Onion to Jeff Lawson, co-founder and former CEO of Twilio and a longtime fan of the satire site. Lawson hired Lawson, a former NBC News reporter covering disinformation, extremism and the internet, to run the company.
On Monday, The Onion shared a fake message from the fictional CEO of Global Tetrahedron, “Bryce P. Tetraeder.”
“With this new InfoWars, we will democratize psychological torture, welcoming brutal and sadistic ideas from everyone, even the very stupidest among us. It will be like the Manhattan Project, only instead of a bomb, we will be building a website,” Tetraeder’s post said. “The InfoWars of tomorrow will converge into a swirling vortex of content about content, talent acquiring talent, rings of concentric media mergers processing all human artistry into one endlessly digestible slurry. This will be a dank, sunless place, one where panic and capital feed on each other like twins in the womb of a hulking, unknowable monster — a monster known by many names, but which I like to call modern-day America.”
Share on PinterestThe FDA issued a voluntary recall of more than 3 million bottles of eye drops sold at major retailers like Walgreens and CVS. Hitoshi Nishimura/Getty Images
More than 3.1 million bottles of over-the-counter eye drops are being recalled due to concerns about sterility.
While no illnesses have been reported, experts say recalls like this can erode public trust in medicine.
A 2023 outbreak linked to eye drops resulted in more than 80 infections and four deaths in the United States.
A California-based pharmaceutical company is recalling more than 3.1 million bottles of eye drops due to concerns about sterility.
According to a report by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), K.C. Pharmaceuticals is conducting a voluntary recall of the products distributed through major national retailers, including Walgreens, Kroger, and CVS.
The recall was initiated on March 3 and classified by the FDA on March 31. The FDA safety alert reflects both uncertainty and caution, according to experts.
“We don’t know if they really were contaminated. If they were, we don’t know what type of microbe. We don’t know any of that. All we know is that the manufacturer said there’s an issue with sterility in these products,” said Gary Novack, PhD, a clinical professor in the UC Davis Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science and a consultant in ophthalmic product development.
There have been no reported injuries or illnesses related to the recalled products, which include:
Sterile Eye Drops AC
Eye Drops Advanced Relief
Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops
Ultra Lubricating Eye Drops
Sterile Eye Drops Original Formula
Sterile Eye Drops Redness Lubricant
Sterile Eye Drops Soothing Tears
Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops
Consumers are urged to discontinue use and discard these products.
The FDA classified the recall as a “Class II” recall, meaning that “using the drug may cause temporary health consequences, but the probability of a serious health issue is remote,” an FDA representative told Healthline. The rationale for the recall is listed as “lack of assurance of sterility.”
That designation does not mean there is proof of contamination, but rather that there has been a potential lapse in the manufacturing process that could compromise sterility.
Retailers are working to address the recall and guide customers on the next steps. Healthline reached out to a number of them.
Walgreens and Kroger did not respond by the time of publication, but a representative for CVS said, “We’re committed to ensuring the products we offer are safe, work as intended, comply with regulations, and satisfy customers’ needs. While the four recalled items sold by CVS were discontinued nearly a year ago, we’re fully cooperating with the voluntary recall.”
The CVS representative added that customers who purchased these products may return them for a refund.
Although no illnesses have been reported due to the recall, experts say that widespread recalls do other kinds of damage.
“It’s always concerning any time we have a recall of clinical products,” said Sylvia Groth, MD, executive medical director, Department of Ophthalmology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and associate professor of Ophthalmology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“These events erode patient trust in over-the-counter medications. I am concerned that when I prescribe or recommend a treatment, it can be undermined by a recall,” she said.
Prescription eye drops are not part of the current recall, and anyone using these medications should feel safe and confident continuing their course.
“They’re not at risk,” said Novack. “We don’t want patients to stop using their prescription eye drops for glaucoma, dry eye, or infection. It doesn’t apply to them.”
Novack, who wrote about the outbreak in the journal Ophthalmology, called the incident a “perfect storm,” made possible by multiple points of failure.
He pointed to multiple points of failure, including:
The manufacturer sold a product that didn’t comply with federal regulations; the facility was contaminated with the antibiotic-resistant bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA temporarily paused inspections of domestic and foreign manufacturing sites, potentially allowing lapses in manufacturing safety to go undetected.
If you’ve purchased one of the recalled products listed above and concerned about an potential eye infection look for the following signs and symptoms:
discharge from the eye
pain or discomfort
redness or inflammation
blurry vision
However, these symptoms are often nonspecific, meaning they can be caused by a number of issues, including allergies, Groth said.
“Patients can get very bad allergies, especially this time of year, that can mimic an infection in the eye. If it is actually an allergy-based reaction, that can be bothersome and irritating, but not something that needs any additional treatment or antibiotics,” she noted.
She added that it’s important to track symptom progression, and if they aren’t improving, it may be time to see a doctor.
People who wear contacts should be especially mindful of symptoms.
“In general, I’m always more worried about my contact lens population than an otherwise healthy person using artificial tears. If you’re a contact lens wearer, you’re at higher risk because you can have small, unrecognized abrasions or small ulcers that are present, and contact lenses can hold bacteria on them that other patients don’t have in their eyes,” Groth said.
Here are some best practices when applying eye drops:
Wash your hands.
Avoid touching your eye or eyelashes with the tip of the bottle.
Discard single-use products immediately after use.
Look for reputable brand names or get a doctor’s recommendation.
You can now use LinkedIn to test out some of the latest AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and other companies without having to worry about token limits or paying for an extra subscription. The professional network is experimenting with a new feature that allows people to test AI platforms’ latest offerings within LinkedIn.
It’s called Crosscheck, and it’s rolling out now to anyone with a LinkedIn Premium subscription in the United States. The feature is meant to be a kind of “blind taste test” for AI models, according to the company’s Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan. Users start with a prompt and get two answers, each of which is provided by a different model. It’s only after choosing which model you like better that you can see the underlying models behind each.
Srinivasan says that Crosscheck is still an “early product” from LinkedIn Labs and that “there’s work to do to make it faster and add more models and question types.” But it already seems to support a fairly wide range of models. In my initial tests of the feature I saw multiple answers generated by Anthropic models, as well as those from Google, MoonshotAI, Mistral and Amazon. Crosscheck will also have its own leaderboard that tracks how people in different industries are rating the various models.
After you choose an answer you like better, LinkedIn will show which model provided each answer. (LinkedIn Screenshot)
Crosscheck only supports text-based prompts, so you can’t generate images, upload files or use some of the more advanced tools that would be available natively on the AI platforms themselves. But there are no limits on the number of text-based chats you can have, so you don’t have to worry about token limits or signing up for a pricey subscription if you find a model that’s helpful.
LinkedIn is, however, sharing data back to the respective AI companies who will presumably use information gleaned from LinkedIn usage to improve their products. “Anonymized data is shared with model builders to help them understand how their models are performing amongst different occupations,” the company explains. “No personally identifiable information is shared with model builders.”
While Crosscheck is initially only available to LinkedIn Premium subscribers in the United States, the company plans to expand the the feature to more countries and free users “soon.”
It’s happening. Ubisoft has scheduled a livestream for April 23 at 12PM ET to discuss the long-awaited Assassin’s Creed Black Flag remake. The showcase will be available to watch on the company’s YouTube and Twitch pages.
We don’t know anything about how the game will play or look, as Ubisoft has only dropped some promotional art featuring protagonist Edward Kenway lounging on a boat. The livestream should feature a trailer that will answer many burning questions.
We don’t have that long to find out. Maybe the livestream will also give us some information about that upcoming mainline franchise entry, which is currently being developed under the moniker Codename Hexe. Ubisoft has promised it will be a “unique, darker, narrative-driven Assassin’s Creed experience.”
Institutional activity targeting the Hyperliquid ecosystem in the cryptocurrency market continues to attract attention. Most recently, a large-scale transaction in $HYPE tokens by Paradigm, a leading investment firm, stood out.
According to on-chain data, Paradigm has unlocked approximately 2.14 million $HYPE tokens. This amount has a current market value of approximately $88 million. While this transaction does not represent a direct sale, investors are closely watching the possibility that the unstacked assets may be released into the market.
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On the other hand, another notable development on the Hyperliquid side in recent months has been the wallet activity associated with Multicoin Capital. Previous on-chain analyses suggested that Multicoin may have sold a significant amount of Ethereum ($ETH) and shifted its holdings towards the $HYPE token. According to the data, the relevant wallet clusters and known Multicoin addresses made approximately $240 million worth of $HYPE purchases through Galaxy Digital, while sending approximately $230 million worth of $ETH to Galaxy.
Singer D4vd could be facing the death penalty after being charged Monday with first-degree murder by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office in connection with the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose dismembered body was discovered inside an abandoned Tesla in the Hollywood Hills last year.
L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced at a press conference Monday that the 21-year-old singer, whose real name is David Burke, faces a first-degree murder charge with special circumstances, including lying in wait; committing the crime for financial gain; and murdering a witness. He was also charged with a second count involving lewd acts with a child, as well as dismemberment of the 15-year-old girl’s body.
“These charges include the most serious charges that a D.A.’s office can bring,” Hochman said.
In September, a severely decomposed body was discovered at a Los Angeles impound lot inside a vehicle registered to Burke in Hempstead, Texas. Police said the remains were placed inside a bag in the Tesla’s front trunk.
The dismembered body was later identified as the missing Inland Empire teen. A decomposed head and torso were found in a cadaver bag inside the Tesla, according to court documents; additional dismembered body parts were discovered in a second bag inside the vehicle.
Rivas had been missing since April 24, 2024 — nearly 18 months before her remains were discovered at Hollywood Tow on Sept. 8. She was identified after the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner noted a tattoo on her right index finger reading “Shhh…,” prompting her mother to contact the office.
Burke was named a suspect by Los Angeles homicide detectives in November. He was arrested in Hollywood on Thursday on a probable cause warrant and is being held without bail. It remains unclear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
“The determination on whether or not the district attorney’s office will seek the death penalty will be made at a later time,” Hochman said.
The Hollywood Reporter was unable to reach Burke’s attorneys at Berk Brettler LLP on Monday. Last week, following his arrest, the singer’s attorneys said they “will vigorously defend David’s innocence,” in a statement.
Burke was in the midst of a string of dates on the d4vd Withered 2025 World Tour when Hernandez’s body was identified in a car registered in his name. A Seattle concert scheduled that day was canceled, and the remaining tour dates were soon scrapped.
As d4vd, Burke broke out on TikTok and SoundCloud in 2022, leading to a rapid rise that included opening for SZA and performing at Coachella ahead of his debut album. He amassed more than 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify and signed with Darkroom/Interscope.
His debut album, Withered, released in April 2025, notably featured vocals largely recorded on an iPhone in his sister’s closet, as he told The Hollywood Reporter last year.
Out in Fiji, Benjamin “Coach” Wade was a popular pre-game winner pick among the press — a calmer, more introspective version of the Dragon Slayer who seemed poised for a deep run on Survivor 50. That calm didn’t last. In his exclusive exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter below, Coach explains where the game slipped away, how old instincts crept back in and why he believes he may never be meant to win Survivor.
***
Before the first Tribal Council of season 50, a lot of us in the press had you pegged as a potential winner. You were my winner pick. In pregame, you were really introspective and seemed like Coach 2.0, but we saw the Dragon Slayer come back pretty quickly. What changed from that pregame zen to that traditional Dragon Slayer game that we ended up seeing?
I’ll tell you. I had amassed an enormous army of real connections with people, real conversations. You can’t name a single person out there that didn’t want to play with me. Kamilla, Charlie, Mike — who very easily could have been Final Four. I set that spot to be the nucleus of every single beach that I was on. And even when we merged, Emily came up to me and we had a really good conversation. I had one commodity coming into that game, and that’s my word. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. People misconstrue my honor and integrity. It’s not about getting through the game without lying because that’s impossible. I tried to do it in Tocantins and failed. It’s more about I’m going to vote the way I say I’m going to vote.
You can’t find a single time where I went into a vote saying, “This is what I’m going to do.” And then I did something different. That’s my commodity. When Ozzy tried to erode that commodity, I stood up for myself. But I was at the nucleus of everything and had this huge army that was systematically being picked off, unbeknownst to anybody knowing that it was the group that I was assembling. So that kind of unraveled me a little bit. What really happened was when we went to the “Blood Moon,” I made a huge mistake in forgetting that Colby didn’t have a vote. Colby and Joe asked me to throw a challenge before the merge, that last one. They said, “We got to get Colby’s vote back and we got to get out Aubrey or maybe Tiffany.” I said, “That goes against what I think as a competitor, so I can’t do that.” In hindsight, maybe we should have, but I forgot that Colby didn’t have a vote.
So we’re up there on the pegs (of last week’s challenge) and I couldn’t go longer. Dee turns around and looks at me and says, “Coach, I got you. ” I said, “Dee, are you sure?” She was like, “Yeah, I got you, Coach.” So I stepped off. Then in the moment where Colby says, “Coach, we’re screwed.” I said, “No, we’re not, man. We still got the votes. It’s you, me and Cirie.” He was like, “Coach, I don’t have a vote.” I say the F-bomb. You can see it on TV. They bleep it out. That’s the moment I realized I made a huge mistake, so it really derailed me because I then went and played very messy with Dee and scrambled and didn’t want Colby to go home.
Then I was like, “Frick, Colby just went home. So all right, let me be calm and cool. Let me reconnect with the people.” Then we get into the Dee vote and it’s a very simple one. I said, “All right, let’s go. Let’s vote Dee.” It was just a group of us. It was not me running the show. Then we said, “Well, who’s going to go second?” I think it was me, Jonathan and Joe having a conversation. The three of us agreed we needed to have Tiffany out because she’s Dee’s best friend. So we came up with that decision and then it was like, “who’s going to vote for who? How are we going to split the votes?”
You’re talking about all returning players. You’re going to go into a vote and not split it? If you have the numbers, that’s Survivor 101. And they refused to do it. I couldn’t believe it. So I started getting agitated because again, it was based on fear. I had already made some mistakes. I saw people leaving that were in my greater alliance and I thought, I cannot go home tonight. We could have been sitting here last week and you would’ve been saying, “Well, why didn’t you fight harder to convince people to split the votes?” I would’ve said, “Nobody wanted to split the votes, so I just put my tail between my legs.” That’s not me.
The other thing is that I am a performer. There’s this time, 10-12 days in, where I start thinking, “I have to make sure that I take this to the next level and that what I say does not end up on the cutting room floor.” So I think that there’s a little bit of that.
I’m a big believer in destiny. I’m not a religious man, but I’m deeply spiritual. I don’t think that I’m meant to win Survivor because I think that it would go so to my head. My ego would be getting so big — bigger than it already is — that it would be to the detriment of who I am as a character and the impact that I have on people. It doesn’t surprise me that you guys said that [I was a potential winner], but I’m very comfortable with what happened. I did not compromise myself. I think the farther I went in the game, maybe I would’ve had to betray people and change my votes up and compromise that part of my game.
Chrissy Hofbeck and Benjamin “Coach” Wade on Survivor 50.
After the challenge, you were told to lay low by Chrissy. How much did you actually buy into her advice and in hindsight — was she right?
I think there’s a middle ground. It started with Rizo the episode before. It does show that I have grown. I better have grown as a man — but in Tocantins I would’ve been like, “You’re not telling me what to do.” But I took the advice. I thought it was sound advice for the time. I know that I’ve been aggressive. I know that in order to get the vote split, I had to really throw my weight around. And then it was like, “okay, now let me be calm and let me sit here and let me let the chips fall.” I didn’t spend the whole day in the hammock, but I felt like it was sound advice and it coming from a good place, so I took it.
You were aligned with Ozzy. Did you have a sense that he hadn’t fully let that early Fight for Supplies issue go?
Hats off to him for playing the most strategic game he’s ever played. So congratulations, not coming in the same way that he’s always come in. Cirie, Stephenie, Joe, Jonathan — you could go over most people. They’re coming in the same way they came in last time. Ozzy has evolved strategically and good for him. But I knew that at the end of the day, he and I were not going to be sitting at the finals together. And it was really a matter of who was going to get to the other one first because I imagined him coming down to six, and then cutting him at six.
If you’re curious about my boot order, I was thinking it was going to be Stephenie, Cirie, after Ozzy, whittling it down like that. And then me, Jonathan and Chrissy at the final three. But it was inevitable. Ozzy and I have never had the luxury of starting on the same beach together. So we’re never going to have that day one alliance and that day one trust.
When Cirie came back from Exile, it looked like she shifted the vote onto you and Chrissy. Was that the turning point or were you already in trouble?
I think that was still part of the plan going into tribal, maybe not 100 percent but maybe 50/50 or 60/40 against me. Then Deven’s idol definitely tipped it 10 percent one way. But I did not think I was in trouble. I think Cirie came back and it was interesting because she and I had a talk on the hammock and she said, “Coach, I don’t know what it means for you to be an alliance, but I’ll tell you that for me to be in an alliance, it means that I will fight for you. I fought for you with the Colby vote and I will fight for you until my last dying breath out here.” That level of emotional deception is what made her dangerous in the moment. Hats off to her.
I did send her a text message and she said, “Well, Coach, you got to know that Dee actually said to me that you were going for me for the Colby vote.” Then he said, “But Dee later came back and said that she was lying about that.” It’s like a resting snake. They’re not really dangerous and she really has done some things, but she hasn’t been the strategic mastermind in this game. And in fact, I was sitting there thinking, “Is Cirie overrated?” Then she does something like that and shifts the whole game and you think, “yeah, she is dangerous.”
Coach and Jonathan Young.
You got a pretty memorable sendoff with the Tai Chi, rock formation, the haikus. You even got a song. What was it like for you watching your final episode back, even though you went home?
They’ve really honored me over the years. I have nothing but gratitude for the producers. I’ve got nothing but joyful times and memories, even the bad times. The fact that they don’t have to show any of that stuff. It’s all icing on the cake. They didn’t have to show the nicknames. Now it’s gone viral. And I’m literally having thousands of requests. I’m running this limited nicknaming ceremony on my website and we’ve almost sold out. It’s crazy. And as I said to the producer that did that episode, “You didn’t have to show that. And so thank you for giving me honor all the time in this edit.” Sometimes it’s including eye roll. Sometimes Tiffany’s finally getting airtime by slagging me off and reaming me a new one.
A lot of people should be thanking me because attached to me, good or bad, they’re getting the airtime. I just feel humbled and blessed and honored they have continued to put me up as one of the memorable characters. Five years from now, 18 of these contestants from season 50 will not even be remembered. But they will think of 50. And whether they love me or hate me, they will remember me being attached to this season.
Coach, you’ve always approached Survivor with a sense of mythology and a personal narrative. What story do you think the season ultimately told about you?
That I can be wise, that I can be a big character, I can be eclectic. I think the biggest thing is that I can be joyful, because they really showed my happy side. I’m singing and dancing almost the whole time. I think that that’s the biggest takeaway; but that I can be stupid and that I can have holes in me because I’m older and I’m vulnerable. They can show all of the above. It’s why in the words of the great man himself, “There’s never been a Coach, there will never be another Coach.”
The joyful part really shows where I’m at in life. I have this amazing family. I’ve got a great job, a great career. My kids’ artwork is hanging up behind me. The meaning of life is not what it was 15 years ago. It’s shifted and is different. It’s to have a relationship with the creator of the universe. It’s to have a relationship with the creator of the universe. That’s first and foremost. There’s a spot inside of our soul that will not be filled up with anything other than that, whatever that looks like to you. Number two is to find your soulmate and crush life’s obstacles together and leave a generational legacy through your children. And number three is to keep the magic inside of us that we’ve been born with.
It’s joy, kindness and love. The world wants to beat it out of us, especially when we’re men. And it beat it out of me for a while, but I see it in my kids every day and I protect it in my kids every day. If we give that to everybody that we meet – joy, kindness, and love – the world’s going to change. And in my corner of the world, I do that every day and it has been changed. Whether I’m at the high school or I’m radiating light through these kids that are coming through my program and they in turn are radiating light to the student body, or where I’m conducting the symphony, where I’m coaching soccer. It’s there. It’s a ripple effect and we can all do it. We just have to let go of our ego and our pride.
To close us out, do you have a haiku, quote or a song that sums up your Survivor 50 experience?
I’ll give you a haiku and then I’ll give you a quote. So Walter Savage Landor once said that, “It’s easy to look down on others, but to look down on yourself is the true difficult task.” And I think that’s apropos. It’s easy for people to talk smack online. But when you look at yourself and your introspective and say, “This is not who I want to be, ” then that’s the difficult task and something that I think I’ve done over the survivor journey. A haiku, “Bitter at this time. My heart is downtrodden now. Resilience will come.”
Coach, always a pleasure to talk to you. I look forward to seeing you at the finale in L.A. next month.
You too, brother. I appreciate you.
***
Survivor airs new episodes on Wednesdays at 8pm on CBS and Paramount+.
