Let's Win the New Yorker Caption Contest

"I told you we should have bought the three seater."

"I was thinking of buying an XBox One, but then I heard that the PVR functionality is crap. So I considered a PS4, but then I heard about the upgraded consoles that Microsoft and Sony are coming out with in a few months and thought I'd hold off a bit. Or do you think that I should buy an HTPC instead?"

"Can you adjust the Vertical Hold?"

'Where's Keith?'

"Is this 4K or only HD?"

"I told you that you should've used the wrist strap on the Wiimote."

"My penis is the size of a man's arm."

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/160808_contest-690.jpg

The rankings overall for that contest, with the whale crushing the guy on the desert island were lower than usual. I don't think that's because less funny people entered the contest. I think it's due to the difficulty of captioning the particular image.

has any ilxor ever won? has any caption posted here ever been finalist?

Ahem

Well, the same one i posted

Was it that swimming pool one? I forget the name.

Six bullets/ nine lives cat mouse one iirc

Ah, right. Golden.

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/170213_contest-690.jpg

Tempting but I've a new suit I'm trying to fit into

suit/fig leaf I spose

Who's 'mom'?

Show's yer pie.

Actually its a shepherd's pie

The shitty new yorker cartoon captions tumblr is killing it with this one

http://68.media.tumblr.com/36fea9606d1e176e3d27c65ac86125f4/tumblr_ol0kp0o5zs1qfvz38o1_400.png

https://twitter.com/delrayser/status/828711097729445888

Yep

xp I've never seen that tumblr, thank you for this amazing gift.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/eef073a0cf2d8c8d730d1f8edf14b46f/tumblr_ojmj9xKyd01qfvz38o1_400.png

an engaging takedown of NYer cartoons on noah berlatsky's site:
http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2012/10/new-yorker-cartoons-a-legacy-of-mediocrity/

takedown is in principle a noble project but needed a LOT more hard work than that guy put in

when truman capote worked as an office boy at the new yorker, one of his jobs was taking proposed cartoons out of the envelope and carrying them to the cartoon editor's office

when TC quit they discovered vast numbers of cartoons slipped behind some furniture in his office, which he had hidden there in his secret role as unofficial pre-editor of cartoons (so that the actual editor wouldn't look at them and approve them)

What an assholee..

ha!

mark you're right of course. i didn't mind that it's a takedown on technical/artistic merits rather than a journalistic expose (though that would have been great too) but yes i would have liked more explanation about what constitutes a bad "line" (for example). however i find it.. what.. salutary - in french i want to say "roboratif" - to be reminded of the essential frivolousness that lurks as girders beneath the new yorker's project

--and which, in so-called comedy particularly, masquerades as Great Truth

it's an unavoidable consequence of (non-ideological) structural pressures i think

i: mag come out weekly (4793 issues and counting)
ii: the cartoon sit within articles w/o being illustrations of them or in any way connected

over the long haul the selection effect is going to be away from the world-shattering undermining of all the readers' verities, bcz they need the reader to (a) carry on reading the article being interrupted by the cartoon and (b) buy the new yorker again next week (primarily for the articles)

also i like roz chast's drawing style that guy can fuck off

basically my theory is that the quiddities and agonies of the new yorker reader afre a direct consquence of

… AND MANIFESTATION OF week-on-week sub-editorial decisions under pressure abt the mag's page furniture

point off for like tired notch-notch, wink-wink routines

Everything is terrible but my cousin’s 9-year old daughter Alice has been quietly and masterfully slaying the @NewYorker’s caption contest and it’s pure delight. pic.twitter.com/Lhzmq7Pnsb

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) April 4, 2018

if your picture is a subway sandwich replacing a subway train, there's not much work the caption needs to do.

Let's Win the New Yorker Caption Contest

https://i.imgur.com/tIae9Vk.jpg?1

"i dont care what google maps says"

"Are you finished with that beer?"

"All I'm saying is if it's global warming why is my beer still cold?"

too good to win, per uszh

also right in the wheelhouse of our one-size-fits-all ringer: "This is normal."

Guest Comic By Steve Bannon Entitled 'The Rising Floodwaters Of Immigration'

the new one-size-fits-all is "I’ve thought this through and talked to colleagues — and I’ve re-considered"

http://i65.tinypic.com/aad8w3.jpg

"i continue to be unhappy regarding the state of the subway system"

"Did you know that there's a bear hidden in the Toblerone logo?"

"Let me know if you see anything that people believe doesn't exist. Like Donald Trump's sense of humility."

“Holy shit, do you see that?! It says ‘W A R P’ on the snow”

yes he slept over and no its not any of your business anymore

I've always thought of the SkiFree monster as a metaphor for the inevitability of death.