Now Malcolm is not a Fan Favorite. He returned last May without his Survivor appearance having aired. But he might have won Player of the season if Lisa did not have such a large, pre-existing Twitter following. Yes, she encouraged them to vote and she narrowly won.
Well, they couldn’t call it “Fans vs a Weird collection of past contestants many of whom were a bit weird on their season “
I believe that the Favorites are just people that the producers picked because they thought they would generate interest.