Fat Bear Week was marred with voting irregularities and cheating

I don’t know what has happened in the world to close out 2022, but this has become the season of cheating. Dudes are stuffing weights in fish, a man might have cheated at chess with a vibrating sex toy, and a whole bunch of poker fans are convinced there’s been cheating there too. The only sanctuary, the lone bastion of integrity we had in this world was the Alaskan Fat Bear contest. Until now.

It’s been revealed that some horrific, soulless individuals engaged in ballot stuffing and cheating in the finals of Fat Bear Week in an effort to name Holly, bear 435 as champion.

Katmai National Park claims it was able to easily identify the fraudulent votes, stripping them from Holly and correctly counting every legal vote cast — which mean that bear 747, a jumbo jet sized chonker, was named winner of the semi-final, and would go on to take the crown this year.

According to Katmai, over 9,000 votes for Holly came during the closing moments of voting, all linked to a small handful of IP addresses. It’s clear that a shadowy cabal of horrible individuals did not want the will of the people to be upheld, so they felt the need to cheat. It’s absolutely disgusting, and if I had my way they would be outed publicly, and forced to list their attempts to cheat during Fat Bear Week 2022 on all their social media profiles forever.

I have no problem with 747 winning Fat Beak Week, but this whole situation has cost me my faith in the system. It would feel so much better had my own perfect girl, Fat Bear 901 not lost in the finals to 747 by less than 9,000 votes — the same number that was allegedly added to the ballot box in the Holly semi-final. I will forever be wondering if 901 wasn’t robbed too, and I pray that this was not the case.

In the end, all I can do is have faith in the Fat Bear election officials. I need to know our democratic Fat Bear system has not been compromised — and to this end I have complete faith in Katmai officials to uphold their sacred duty of electing a new fat bear, fairly, and equitably — without influence from outside forces.

Congratulations to 747. As for 901, my main squeeze, my bear bae — it will be your time soon. Don’t let this loss get you down, or stop you from eating. You’ll need your strength to bounce back in 2023 and take the crown you deserve.