Contests may vary by image type (photo or drawing), caption format (description of a situation or a dialogue), as well as judging criteria.
Caption contests are mainly arranged as an amusement, and they can be organized under different conditions (between separate individuals, in public events, mass media, etc.
It is considered that the origins of caption contests are related to the increase of popularity of cartoons and comics as well as widespread use of illustrations and the rise of photojournalism in printed media at the end of the 19th century.
available information, the first caption contests in printed media appeared in the U.S. press of the late 19th century (such as Life magazine[2] which was published from year 1883 to 1936).
[3] In the beginning of the 20th century, at least in the U.S. press (for example, The San Francisco Call,[4] The Daily News,[5] The Bridgeport Telegram[6]) caption contests were already quite popular.
For example, in Soviet Union one of the first caption contests was published in daily newspaper Izvestia Sunday supplement Nedelya (The Week) at the beginning of the 1960s.
[16] Also concerning the New Yorker caption contest, several scientific studies have been carried out: researchers from University of New Mexico, Department of Anthropology, in 2010 have compared humour ability in males and females in context of this competition;[17] members of The New Yorker editorial board and University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business in 2011 analysed several thousand entries of this contest to study the concept of humour.
[20] In a children's novel Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell its character Uncle Parker has won a trip to the Caribbean in a caption contest.
The rest of the family immediately enter similar competitions in an attempt to better his prize but, much of the time, beating the others to an entry form is a victory in itself.
[citation needed] In season two of the HBO series Bored to Death, George (played by Ted Danson) struggles to caption a New Yorker cartoon, which portrays a police duck interacting with a suicidal bear.