In the Mission, a Bad Bunny Look-Alike Contest Becomes a Celebration of Identity

Bad Bunny fans and impersonators spilled out onto the sidewalk at Tacolicious in the San Francisco Mission District on Thursday night, in hopes of finding the Bay Area’s best Bad Bunny double. After all, the global superstar was once someone’s local grocery bagger.

The look-alike contest came just days before Bad Bunny is set to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, one of the most-watched musical performances of the year.

Thirty-four contestants paraded through the restaurant, each offering their best Bad Bunny strut as the audience cheered.

The crowd ultimately crowned Abdul Arroyave, a Colombian man who’s been paying tribute to Bad Bunny through his impersonations for years, as the winner. Arroyave, a professional singer, wore a Puerto Rican pava straw hat, crisp white pants and a red button-down shirt.

“I feel amazing now,” Arroyave said after winning $600 — a prize that was boosted by a $500 donation from fintech company Ramp. “Me siento super cabrón.”

Bad Bunny’s rise from a working-class upbringing to global superstardom has made him more than a chart-topping artist. For many fans, he represents possibility, authenticity and cultural pride.

“With everything happening in our country right now, he’s just been inspiring,” said contestant Benjamin Butrago, who is Puerto Rican. “He’s a good idol, a good person to have to look up to.”

As Super Bowl week brings large NFL-affiliated events to the Bay Area, the look-alike contest, organized by Mission Lotería and the Bay Area Mexican restaurant chain Tacolicious, tried a more neighborhood-scale approach.

Organizers promoted the contest with flyers posted around San Francisco and on social media, promising a cash prize, a Tacolicious gift card and, perhaps most importantly, bragging rights.

“It’s not that often that we get a global superstar that happens to be Latino that’s hosting the Super Bowl halftime show in our own area, so I felt like it was only appropriate,” said Mission Loteria founder Luis Angel Quiroz. Still, he said he was surprised by the turnout.

The event drew hundreds of fans, so packed that organizers expanded the party out onto the sidewalk, where a DJ played Bad Bunny’s most popular hits and the crowd danced along.

It also unfolded against a more political backdrop. In recent days, Bad Bunny has drawn renewed attention for speaking out at the Grammys against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, using his platform to criticize the federal crackdown and express solidarity with immigrant communities. In a neighborhood like the Mission, that stance has only deepened his resonance.

“They can’t take our joy away,” Quiroz said. “This is an example of a community coming together, being unafraid, and our joy is our resistance.”

So what makes a good Bad Bunny?

“It’s about having aura, personality and being able to embody the male and female gaze,” said contestant James Mavo, who wore Bad Bunny’s signature curly hair and tinted glasses.