Who is Cracker Guy, the local sensation who ‘brought Bellingham together?’ We found out

Either you were there, or you’re dead now – according to the fliers at least. You may have seen them around town, or online. Next to a picture of a man sitting at a table, they said “I’m going to eat 2 boxes of Lance crackers. Be here or die.”

In the days since Sunday’s one-man event at Waypoint Park, Cracker Guy has been everywhere, so we decided to try to track down Bellingham’s new snacker-in-chief.

After sending a query through Reddit, a response came in late Monday night from someone saying he knows Bellingham’s newest hero. This contact, who turned out to be Cracker Guy’s brother, made the connection with the legend himself. Here’s what we found out.

Who is Bellingham’s Cracker Guy?

Cracker Guy is a student at Whatcom Community College named Martin. He came up with the idea, more or less, because he was bored.

“I’ve lived in Bellingham for over a decade, and it’s kind of been a little bit boring recently, I’m not gonna lie,” Martin said, who asked that his last name be withheld for privacy. “I wanted to make it, I guess, fun.”

Martin modeled his stunt after a man who gained a following in late 2022 for eating an entire rotisserie chicken for 40 days in a row.

“And I was like, you know, what if I do something like that but just more, I guess, dumb,” Martin said.

So he decided on Lance brand crackers, which he likes to get from the dollar store. Martin and a friend hung fliers around town, but he was still surprised at how many people showed up. The highest estimate said as many as 300 people were in the crowd, another one put the number at 120.

“I thought maybe some of my friends, and maybe some random people who had seen it. But that’s really it,” Martin said.

Martin didn’t think he’d have any trouble finishing both boxes, but it turns out eating two boxes of crackers without any water isn’t as easy as it looks.

“Before I did it I didn’t think it was super impressive by just eating two boxes of crackers. But when I actually started doing it, I really regretted it. I was about to quit, because it was a lot, it was really gross.”

The dollar store enthusiast powered through, and paid the price the next day.

“My jaw was pretty sore, I’m not gonna lie,” he said. “It actually hurt the next day.”

The response to the stunt was even more surprising to Martin than the turnout. One Bellingham Reddit thread about the event has over 1,300 votes and nearly 200 comments. Two others reached to 700 vote mark. A local named Elana Boushell even posted a short film about the event on YouTube.

Martin said the reaction to the stunt left him “dumbfounded.”

“I didn’t know that me eating two boxes of crackers would gain that much amount of traction.”

Martin, who spends his free time making music, said he’d consider doing something similar in the future, but he’d pick something other than Lance crackers next time.

“I would want to actually think of something more original, but that could be in years. Maybe if Bellingham got boring again.”

But for now, Bellingham’s been saved from boredom.

This story was originally published March 27, 2024 at 11:55 AM.