For the love of God, no more pear/pair...elf/health...gnome/home so-called 'puns', please! Nothing to do with this particular caption (I didn't want to pick on anyone in particular). But I find them mind-numbing. I know I'm in the minority, and I'll get a load of abuse, but I find it quite depressing when so many unoriginal old chestnuts score so highly. Proudly anonymous. (Although there WAS a great and very inventive pun in the paper today: Pulitzer Prize / Pull it surprise (it was a joke about Christmas crackers). Apologies for upsetting the applecart (no pun intended).
This topic would probably be better in the forum, but I understand you wish to maintain anonymity so I'll respond here.
First off, I 100% agree with your sentiment. Repetitive, obvious puns scoring highly when original creative captions often score poorly is depressing. But the problem is that caption.me is a game, and like any game, many people will take an easy option to score a point. As long as people keep voting for recurring puns, then people will keep writing them. You can't argue with the writers' logic, and you can't control voters' preferences (sadly ).
For those of us who prefer creative, original, and often subtle captions, the only solution is to VOTE for them (preferably in their youth as early votes greatly increase visibility). Regurgitated, often bleedingly obvious puns, will probably always get votes, but we can promote more inventive captions by voting for them whenever possible.
I am the [anon] who wrote the original comment. Yes, you're probably right. It's all about what's more important to you, really: "winning" or coming up with something original that gives you a real buzz (but might score only one). I've more than once come up with the same idea as a winning caption, but haven't bothered to submit it as it hasn't 'stretched' me. Where's the satisfaction? And I try to incorporate all the elements of the photo in question, so that the caption is really pertinent. I'm only human, and have an ego like we all do, but creativity and originality will always come first. And I'm grateful to Chris for providing us with this excellent outlet, whatever my reservations. I sometimes wish the photos weren't always quite so weird, though. What's wrong with a totally bland photo with very little material to work with. More of a challenge, when there's nothing to latch on to. As you say, this is a Forum topic, but yes, I'd rather stay anonymous...
It'd be great if there was a familiarity caption generator that declares to folk "You've used that one before. Please try again" like when you submit something that's similar to someone else"s caption but I figure it'd prove problematic.
I love originality and creativity but it's a bit like television, you've got to allow for repeats. Yes, it might get a bit monotonous but it depends if you're geared to submitting something original or whether you want to stick with the fold.
It'd be funny if users access their own familiarity caption generator and type in repetitive phrases that they don't want to see again so it filters their caption.me view so they only see the captions that don't contain this content. However if it's used in a different context, you might very well miss out on a good punchline!
Anyway this doesn't effect me in any regard as I have sweat shop kids typing up my captions. Let them do all the work, I'll take all the credit - that's how it should be in an ideal capitalist society.
Btw, they're actually sweat shop adults, I've fallen into that common trap that the only people in sweat caption typing shops are filled with kids because it supposedly makes people care more about their plight
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For the love of God, no more pear/pair...elf/health...gnome/home so-called 'puns', please! Nothing to do with this particular caption (I didn't want to pick on anyone in particular). But I find them mind-numbing. I know I'm in the minority, and I'll get a load of abuse, but I find it quite depressing when so many unoriginal old chestnuts score so highly. Proudly anonymous. (Although there WAS a great and very inventive pun in the paper today: Pulitzer Prize / Pull it surprise (it was a joke about Christmas crackers). Apologies for upsetting the applecart (no pun intended).
4:38pm
This topic would probably be better in the forum, but I understand you wish to maintain anonymity so I'll respond here.
).
First off, I 100% agree with your sentiment. Repetitive, obvious puns scoring highly when original creative captions often score poorly is depressing. But the problem is that caption.me is a game, and like any game, many people will take an easy option to score a point. As long as people keep voting for recurring puns, then people will keep writing them. You can't argue with the writers' logic, and you can't control voters' preferences (sadly
For those of us who prefer creative, original, and often subtle captions, the only solution is to VOTE for them (preferably in their youth as early votes greatly increase visibility). Regurgitated, often bleedingly obvious puns, will probably always get votes, but we can promote more inventive captions by voting for them whenever possible.
7:08pm
I am the [anon] who wrote the original comment. Yes, you're probably right. It's all about what's more important to you, really: "winning" or coming up with something original that gives you a real buzz (but might score only one). I've more than once come up with the same idea as a winning caption, but haven't bothered to submit it as it hasn't 'stretched' me. Where's the satisfaction? And I try to incorporate all the elements of the photo in question, so that the caption is really pertinent. I'm only human, and have an ego like we all do, but creativity and originality will always come first. And I'm grateful to Chris for providing us with this excellent outlet, whatever my reservations. I sometimes wish the photos weren't always quite so weird, though. What's wrong with a totally bland photo with very little material to work with. More of a challenge, when there's nothing to latch on to. As you say, this is a Forum topic, but yes, I'd rather stay anonymous...
7:30pm
It'd be great if there was a familiarity caption generator that declares to folk "You've used that one before. Please try again" like when you submit something that's similar to someone else"s caption but I figure it'd prove problematic.
I love originality and creativity but it's a bit like television, you've got to allow for repeats. Yes, it might get a bit monotonous but it depends if you're geared to submitting something original or whether you want to stick with the fold.
It'd be funny if users access their own familiarity caption generator and type in repetitive phrases that they don't want to see again so it filters their caption.me view so they only see the captions that don't contain this content. However if it's used in a different context, you might very well miss out on a good punchline!
Anyway this doesn't effect me in any regard as I have sweat shop kids typing up my captions. Let them do all the work, I'll take all the credit - that's how it should be in an ideal capitalist society.
Btw, they're actually sweat shop adults, I've fallen into that common trap that the only people in sweat caption typing shops are filled with kids because it supposedly makes people care more about their plight
10:05pm