Heads Up: Caption It Contests Returning to Haunt Jaunts for a Limited Time

If you’re new here, or if you’ve never been here, then you may not be familiar with a fun contest I used to run every month: the Caption It contest.

I’d find a photo from Pixabay or similar and encourage people to submit either a caption or a flash story explaining it. The winner would get their choice of one of the following gift cards: $10 Amazon, $10 Starbucks, or $15 Target or $15 iTunes.

I took a hiatus from Caption It contests in 2016.

Believe it or not (it always floors me), there are still Jaunters who were there for that. (Heck, those diehards have been here even way before that, which humbles me more than I can properly express.)

Anyway, sometimes they let me know when they submit their entries for other contests that they miss the Caption Its and would love to see them return. (You know who you are –and I heard you!)

Well, the time has come. Caption It is coming back, but with a twist!

The All New Caption It

I didn’t have the Skeleton Crew in my repertoire a few years back like I do now. We’ve had some fun photo shoots over the last couple of years. They want in on the fun too! (They’re not fooling me. They’re a bunch of spotlight hogging divas!)

Fine. Who I am to argue with the Crew? (Trust me. It’s not a good idea. They have bony fingers and feet that they’re not afraid to poke and kick me with!)

I also didn’t have the “Like” button on posts like I do now. Or, rather, on comments. (Well, I didn’t use to have them on either. But in the last year or so I do thanks to new WordPress features and plugins.)

So here’s how it will work:

• I post a pic of the Skeleton Crew doing who knows what.
• You submit a caption.

But here’s where the “with a twist” part comes in.

The Captions & The Winners

I’ll post the photos on HJ’s social media sites too (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). You can leave comments anywhere you want –there or on the post here.

Since posts here finally have a great “like” feature at our disposal now too, why not use it?

The caption with the most likes will win –the Popular Vote, at least.

There could be more than one winner. The Skeleton Crew and I might fancy another caption and award it as a winner too.

Speaking of winners and prizes…

The Prizes

Skeletons in our closet? Well, yes. But along with those we’ve also got a lot of merch.

Ding dong bonehead me got the bright idea to make up a ton of T-shirts and notebooks back in 2017 when I attended the Scarefest as a vendor. Oh Lord. Too much stuff. Now it’s all just sitting around. (In my defense, I figured I’d also be selling it on the site and attending other cons, but have I? Nope. Another one of my bright, ambitious “one day” ideas that fizzled.)

Anyway, you’ll have your choice of a ton of things, from T-shirts and hats to notebooks and USB drives. (That we still have left over from all the ones USB Memory Direct gave us. We offered them as prizes for the Sweetest Day, Guess the Black Sheet of the Family and #ItsASkullturalThing Spot the Difference giveaways, but still have some to spare!)

But you never know what else we might throw in too. Maybe a gift card? Maybe other fun stuff we find? Maybe something from the Skareporium or Paranormal Gift Shop?

Don’t know. That’s something we’ll all find out together.

But for now, here’s a taste of some of our merch you’ll have to choose from:

One Last Note About Entering

I know some of you savvier types out there might be wondering how this is going to work if there are captions all over the place.

I’m not quite sure myself yet.

Ideally I’d like to have all comments in one place (on the post). However, experience with past contests –and the world being what it is these days– people want to enter with ease, not having to click through to other places or hunt things down. I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible for anyone whose muse is moved to compose a caption.

However, I also want to make it as participatory as possible too. Let you all share the posts and ask friends and family to vote for you, tag people on your social media to vote for your caption, etc. If you want.

If all that gets too out of hand (because I can see how it might), I may take it back to the old days where I bear the burden of deciding which caption is best.

Which makes me shiver. That was brutal. Too many good captions to chose from. It was hard picking one!

That’s why I thought “likes” might help with the decision making. However, I can see where that might also pose a problem so…

We’ll see how the first one or two goes and make adjustments from there.

Start Date?

TBA. Maybe by the end of this month if I get my act together.

If not, August for sure.

But it is coming back. Sooner rather than later!