Comments on: Christ, what an asshole.

Christ, what an asshole.

XQUZYPHYR — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:21:58 -0800

How to win the New Yorker caption contest every time. (Possibly NSFW, Previous contest discussion here, link via Feministe)

By: ZippityBuddha

ZippityBuddha — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:29:58 -0800

Excellent

By: macmac

macmac — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:31:56 -0800

christ, what an asshole.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:32:48 -0800

Well, they make as much sense with that as the caption as they do with anything else.

By: neustile

neustile — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:33:57 -0800

That is so awesome. Now I know why I haven't won it yet. :(

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:37:08 -0800

"I can't wait to post about this on my blog" would fit any of those as well.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:37:42 -0800

I like iconomy's better.

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:38:08 -0800

I would like to go on record here as hating the New Yorker caption contest with a cold, pure flame of utter hatred. It is as bad as, no, worse, even than a celebrity photo layout from the heinous days of Tina Brown, worse than the little advertising booklets with a few widely spaced cartoons and a lot of hard sell for vodka, worse than a completely inane 40 page profile of some millionaire lizard with the heart and soul of a corpse eating jackal. Yes, I do have to read it. I do. Every week or two, I have to read it. Although I skip the back page.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:40:34 -0800

The caption sums up The New Yorker in general. Anyone read the latest fiction piece in the Feb.6th issue, "The Deposition"? Lawyer walks along street and notices hot girl. Hot girl turns, sees him gawking, runs home. Soon after lawyer is stoped on street by police and accused of stalking, woman hits lawyer knocking him to the ground, woman and cop walk away. The End. "Christ, what an asshole".

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:41:47 -0800

That was funny.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:42:50 -0800

mygothlaundry: "I would like to go on record here as hating the New Yorker caption contest with a cold, pure flame of utter hatred. It is as bad as, no, worse, even than a celebrity photo layout from the heinous days of Tina Brown, worse than the little advertising booklets with a few widely spaced cartoons and a lot of hard sell for vodka, worse than a completely inane 40 page profile of some millionaire lizard with the heart and soul of a corpse eating jackal." Christ, what an asshole! Hey, it works!

By: js003

js003 — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:44:28 -0800

Also a good option: "Christ, what a pretentious guy."

By: Rothko

Rothko — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:52:47 -0800

This was *golf clap* funny. Cheers.

By: notmydesk

notmydesk — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:53:34 -0800

Am I alone in thinking that this really doesn't work? At all?

By: billysumday

billysumday — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:55:40 -0800

Anyone read the latest fiction piece in the Feb.6th issue, "The Deposition"? Lawyer walks along street and notices hot girl. Hot girl turns, sees him gawking, runs home. Soon after lawyer is stoped on street by police and accused of stalking, woman hits lawyer knocking him to the ground, woman and cop walk away. The End. That's all you got from that story? Man, I thought it was great.

By: mdn

mdn — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:02:21 -0800

I like iconomy's better, too. and it wouldn't really work for the one with the fish in the suitcase. oh, no I guess it would... anyway. yeah, the caption contest is annoying, and not usually funny. But then, a lot of the cartoons are not usually funny either. Sometimes I am not sure if I just don't get them, or if they are just not very funny. Like, that previous thread has someone explain why the chinese menus thru a fax is funny, but if I'd seen that I might have thought I just didn't get it because maybe there was some other reference that made it funny. but apparently all it's referencing is the ubiquity of chinese menus, which I'm perfectly familiar with (though it seems to be less universal than it was when I was a kid, but perhaps that's 'cause I grew up in manhattan and now live in brooklyn), and to me it still isn't really funny. Although, perhaps the problem to me is that getting spam from chinese restaurants seems kinda plausible and not at all something one would have to be 'in the know' to get, so maybe it'd be funnier to me if I had grown up somewhere where chinese menus were not a standard background noise so that it would make me think 'oh, how new york!' instead of 'okay... and?'

By: Gator

Gator — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:03:52 -0800

"I can't wait to post about this on my blog" Or, taking a page from Lore's book: "What did you expect?" "Needs more cowbell," or "Pwned!" But yeah, the blog one is the best. Kudos.

By: billysumday

billysumday — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:06:06 -0800

How not to win the New Yorker caption contest.

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:07:20 -0800

Christ, what an arsole.

By: jenovus

jenovus — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:18:01 -0800

Christ, what an arsole.

By: jenovus

jenovus — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:18:21 -0800

*, indeed. THANKS FOR NOTHING, PREVIEW BUTTON

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:23:37 -0800

HA HA!

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:25:00 -0800

I am also not a big fan of the caption contest. I thought the quizzes and Bruce McCall illustrations were better uses of the back page. The main problem I have with the caption contest is that the images are far too gimmicky. When you page through and look at the real (funny) cartoons, mostly the images are pretty subtle: people in a restuarant, at home, at a party. It's the type of person + the context + the caption that makes it funny. The contest cartoons are just trying too hard to look like a funny situation.

By: matteo

matteo — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:39:52 -0800

cool post, and I join the contest haters

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:42:26 -0800

One thing that pisses me off the most about the caption contest, and the New Yorker's cartoons in general is that the article about graphic novels pointed to New Yorker cartoons as being a more "artistic" and "grown up" use of the medium than graphic novels. Um, no.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:48:53 -0800

"This isn't funny" also works.

By: notmydesk

notmydesk — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:52:22 -0800

I like the caption contests, and the New Yorker cartoons in general. They're hardly ever bust-a-gut funny, but they're generally very clever.

By: spock

spock — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:02:56 -0800

I think the appropriate caption for all of those would be: "I understand the best caption didn't win again."

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:03:06 -0800

I will second mygothlaundry's hatred. Mostly they're dull, occasionally cute, but often purile.

By: Peter H

Peter H — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:05:24 -0800

"Who drew this shit?"

By: chr1sb0y

chr1sb0y — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:08:44 -0800

ugh - i really dislike the caption contest. i even once started an AskMeFi thread with the question "Does everyone else hate the New Yorker caption contest?" (which was deleted - rightfully so- for being more of a chatty thing than a real question needing an answer.) but man... i laugh at many New Yorker cartoons, i have laughed at the winners of various similar contests over the years, but i have never, ever, ever laughed at any of the winners or entries in the New Yorker contest. it just seems like a huge waste of space. i miss the quizzes. those made me laugh every other issue at the least! phew - so glad to get that out of my system.

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:09:49 -0800

I like the caption contest, I even made the final three once -- but lost. It was heart-rending, now I drink myself into oblivion hounded by fading memories of miniscule glory. Oh yeah, and suck it, haters, as they are wont to say.

By: stenseng

stenseng — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:10:57 -0800

You know, every single one of these is funnier with the caption "Who farted?"

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:24:42 -0800

Or "Goddamn seagulls!"

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:30:32 -0800

When you page through and look at the real (funny) cartoons They have funny cartoons?! *rummages through stack of old New Yorkers in hopeless quest*

By: Gator

Gator — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:33:37 -0800

Or "Goddamn seagulls!" Hmmm. How about "Motherfucking ferrets!" Ferrets are inherently funny. Or penguins. Penguins!

By: stenseng

stenseng — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:35:13 -0800

Actually, "Who Farted?" is the funniest caption to any photo or one panel comic ever. AND it ALWAYS fits.

By: horsewithnoname

horsewithnoname — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:42:51 -0800

As long as I draw breath, I will always laugh at "Who farted?" This I swear.

By: RokkitNite

RokkitNite — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:55:58 -0800

Aw man - I just reread all those cartoons substituting 'Who farted?' as the caption. Goddammit, you're right! I laughed like a drain.

By: stenseng

stenseng — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:02:50 -0800

See, my buddy Adam and I discovered the rule of "Who Farted" years ago. It is the holy grail of comic captioning power, perhaps for no other reason than that, the less appropriate the caption is to the picture, the funnier and more surreal, and more fitting the caption becomes. And it all started with this picture:

By: Protocols of the Elders of Awesome

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:08:30 -0800

I'd be apathetic if I wasn't so lethargic.

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:12:28 -0800

No, the genius thing would be to combine the New Yorker caption contest with that Chewbacca weblog. I mean, who can't relate to "rrrrrrraawwwwwwwwuuuunnhhh!" when reading New Yorker cartoons?

By: QuietDesperation

QuietDesperation — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:58:37 -0800

I mourn Punch. Those were cartoons!

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:25:37 -0800

Yep. Pretty funny.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:31:58 -0800

Christ, what a wanker. I always wondered how the editors pitched the whole contest idea to the cartoonists: "Hey, so, uh, your caption is shit. Ain't getting published. No way. We couldn't come up with anything better, either, so how 'bout we pitch this to the plebs, and see what they come up with? Hope you didn't waste a lot of time working on this."

By: oncogenesis

oncogenesis — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:52:40 -0800

"I can see you've played knifey-spooney before."

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:57:51 -0800

"...You buried the horses, right?"

By: whir

whir — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:00:57 -0800

Personally I can't stand New Yorker cartoons, and the weird reverence some people hold them in has always baffled me. The caption contest is just a reminder of how cookie-cutter the rest of the cartoons are. I will admit that I like most of the reader-submitted captions better than the official ones, though. Another universal caption: "remember when minorities lived in New York City?" Seriously, over the past three years you can probably count the minorities depicted on one hand, with the exception of people who have to be for the punchline of some lame joke (eg, worker at a Chinese restaurant). I'm not suggesting they institute a quota system or anything, but it's a reminder of the unpleasant insularity of the magazine and its whitebread, upper-class worldview (as if we needed another one). /rant

By: Creosote

Creosote — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 18:03:27 -0800

Ah, this thread puts me in mind of the glory days of alt.shut.the.hell.up.geek.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:13:33 -0800

The anti-caption contest at Radosh.net has had me crying with laughter at times. It is the definitive palliative for Caption Contest Hatred.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 19:26:03 -0800

Actually, wouldn't the line "My wife is a slut" work quite well on many of those panels?

By: MrBadExample

MrBadExample — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:45:42 -0800

In a similar vein...[Salty language]

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 09:04:52 -0800

Hmmm.... universal caption: 'Awww, to hell with this motherfucker.'

By: MiltonRandKalman

MiltonRandKalman — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 14:26:40 -0800

Future Winners of the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest

By: canonis

canonis — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 08:49:33 -0800

Christ, what an asshole! :)