For reasons I can no longer remember, but that probably had something to do with needing another vector through which I could scream my frustrations and disappointments in being forced to exist as a human being in the physical world, I started submitting captions to The New Yorker in 2016. Not every week — only when the caption seemed glaringly obvious to me. I started posting my entries to my Instagram not long after.

I’ve never submitted any of these with the intention of winning. Very few of the captions I’ve come up with are in the right style or voice for The New Yorker. I alluded to this a while back, when I turned one of my favorite submissions as a stand-alone blog post. (That post was about how I’d unlocked a new “universal New Yorker caption,” “Almost positive you’re in the wrong panel, my guy.”) I mean, let’s be real, actual New Yorker captions usually aren’t that funny. It’s more like: The average New Yorker caption makes you think, “Yes, I recognize this as humor. This is, structurally, a punchline, and I understand the social/cultural context that makes it a ‘punchline’ and not just a non sequitur.” 

That’s just not my style, and sitting here trying to explain “my style” is a deeply dumb prospect I’m not interested in indulging, because it’s altogether too indulgent. The important part is, people who follow me on Insta have been asking me to sort of *~*anthologize*~* these captions for ages, and now I’m doing it. 

These are displayed here in reverse chronological order, going all the way back to early 2016 (where, if I may say so, there’s some pretty good stuff that hardly anyone saw the first time around, because I was barely on Instagram in those days). I’ll be adding to this whole gallery thing over time, as I continue submitting. Go nuts. Follow @laruminator on Instagram if you’re feeling it.