Didn’t the Bacchanal Board pull together a new headliner awful fast?

It was keeping me up. All that drama around Fakemink, only for him not to appear, replaced by Waka Flocka Flame in the same night? And after we already had a last minute cancellation last year? Isn’t that unusual? Isn’t that bizarre? What was really going on?

I think I’ve found it. The pieces fall into place if you look closely. The truth is out there…

1. Bacchanal Board

The E-Board of Bacchanal are primarily juniors, likely hoping to score a big, impressive headliner for their final year. Whispers around campus say they may have intentionally cut back on this year’s event to save up for next year. Maybe their priority wasn’t organizing the best concert they could for 2026. Were they saving their budget for 2027?

2. Recent Reception

Bacchanal have been catching flak in recent years, haven’t they? It certainly came to more of a head this year. The bombardment of complaints about their overly “niche” taste in artists overwhelmed Sidechat for weeks. Two years ago, they even dedicated a post on @cubacchanal to all the “hate mail” from the populace. Coincidence? I think NOT! Bacchanal was facing trial in the court of public opinion, and, boy, were they losing badly. How far would they go to get a win with their audience?

3. Waka Flocka Flame

The people declared Waka their savior, much like Fakemink declared himself London’s Saviour, but give it some real consideration. How would people have reacted to Waka if he was announced a week and a half prior to Bacchanal? Wouldn’t his public endorsement of President Trump’s 2024 campaign have caused controversy? Waka hardly even played any of his own music. Would he really have been as well-received if he were announced as the original headline act?

4. Fakemink

Why would Fakemink cancel so last-minute? If he was really so upset about the backlash he’d been getting, why wouldn’t he have pulled out of performing earlier? He’s hardly known for his humility, so it’s unlikely an adverse reaction from campus-dwellers would have gotten to him. If anything, it would’ve made him stronger. At time of writing, his tour is taking him across North America, with a recent Instagram post clearly having originated on the continent, so it’s not as if it’s an issue of transportation as it was for our dearly departed (or, rather, failed to depart) Lancey Foux. Not to mention, Fakemink’s headliner announcement doesn’t appear in his tagged posts on his profile. (He has but three that do appear.) Was he ever going to perform?

5. Lancey Foux

And how about that Lancey Foux? Last year proved it was possible for an artist to drop out last minute. Did this give the E-Board an idea?

All the evidence can only point to one conclusion: we never had Fakemink at all.

Let’s run through this chain of events. First, the Bacchanal Board secured an artist whose politics have made him divisive in order to save funds for next year’s event (this being the leader of our Wakanal). Then, in a ploy to win back the student body, they claimed to have booked another artist entirely, all the while planning to stage a dramatic disaster and subsequent rescue at the 11th hour. If we were able to accept Lancey Foux dropping out day of, surely yet another cancellation wouldn’t be implausible, and who would take the time to question the headliner choice under such circumstances?

Fakemink may never have even been aware of his purported stint as the Bacchanal headliner. Whether his unpopular reception was intended by the E-Board or simply a fortunate quirk of fate is unknown, but it provided a most convenient smokescreen. Many students already hated him and would be glad to see him replaced, making this plot all the more effective in its execution.

The masterminds behind Bacchanal may have gotten away with it this time, but the eyes of the people will be upon them. Of course, that’s just a theory. Dear reader, do you believe? As for me, I want to. I want to believe…

The unsuspecting targets of the Bacchanal scheme via Bwarchives.