Editor’s note: Due to a slow web editor, today’s installment was posted after Day 1 results were released. Here is the line up nevertheless. Tune in Wednesday morning for the Day 2 breakdown.
It’s the most fattastic time of the year: Fat Bear Week! Welcome to Day 1. Let’s get the ball rolling!
Match 1: 128jr “Biggie” vs 609 “Bean”
Two chubby junior champs go digitally head-to-head in the first match of Fat Bear Week! 128jr “Biggie” won this year’s Fat Bear Week Jr. contest, and 609 “Bean” is a former Fat Bear Week Jr. winner from 2022. 609 Bean is newly emancipated this summer, after spending not two, not three, but four summers under the care of her mother or auntie. Her upbringing alone is a unique story, but 609 in her subadulthood is here to show us that she is, in fact, no longer a Bean-ie baby. She caught the first fish on the lip this season (like her mother before her and her mother before her) awll by hershelf and she appears to be an expert snorkeler to boot. She was even seen being courted by and then mating with 151 Walker, a well-established beefcake of a bear. She may be freshly independent, but she’s massively mastering the bear necessities.
Up against 609 is the notorious B.I.G.gie. 128jr Biggie shares a life experience with 609; they both lost a sibling in their first year as cubs. Biggie’s sibling (“Smalls”) tragically died on camera last summer, days after being attacked by a boar. Ugh, it was a whole family saga and it put members of the bear cam community (me) into a legit depression. But Biggie’s survival is a legend in the making, and the Biggie we see today is living large and in charge, at least as much as she can as a yearling. She may be little, but she’s gangsta. And if you don’t know, now you know. ?
Match 2: 503 “The Prince of Katmai” vs 901
These are not unbiased updates. It is pawsitively unfair that they stacked my boi 503 against the buxom babe that is 901. 901 is so fat she looks like an AI generated fat bear. Technology could literally not draw her fatter. A child could make a ball out of playdough and call it her portrait. When seated, there is approximately no space between her stomach and the ground. She spends all the time at the beach, like an actual Bearbie grrl. (Why yes that’s my bear cam username). A Nice Guy™ like 503 probably doesn’t stand a chance, so this might be my only opportunity this week to campaign for him.
503: *Looks at clock, takes a breath* Okay, here’s the CliffsNotes. Abandoned as a cub, 503 was adopted by 435 Holly (“the Queen”), who raised her as one of her own. Because he was just a cub but given a number like a subadult, people call him Cubadult. Not me. I call him by his other name, The Prince of Katmai. Not just because he was adopted into royalty, but because of his charm, his benevolence. He got 32 Chunk (a literal scarface) to play. He displaced 856 (top bear for decades; speculated to be his dad) without violence. Even when attacked by others he pushes them back, and then he walks away. Most boars achieve dominance through brute strength and aggression, but The Prince is, by and large, far and wide – gentle. He has grown into his gigantic genes and in a matter of years I predict he will not only be a Fat Bear Week winner amongst the humans, but the King of Katmai amongst the bears.
May the fattest bear win. Voting is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. AKST at www.fatbearweek.org!
