The BBC Magazine Caption Competition was a weekly feature of the online BBC Magazine in the early 2000s. A topical or recent photograph was posted on a Thursday at Noon GMT or BST with the top six captions emailed in chosen the following day and presented on or much later than noon, with the winners receiving Kudos, a bountiful source of nutrition for kids and grown-ups alike.*
More information about the competition can be found here, but the most important information for Everything2 readers is that around September 2003 the user amnesiac began complaining about how awful the winning entries were and soon after Britnoders began riffing in Everything2's catbox on better entries, and in many cases, submitting them. spiregrain, TenMinJoe, fondue, Oolong, Andrew Aguecheek and even a certain insomniac New Yorker all spun out possible (and often too rude for BBCs rules) captions for photos, beginning with one of an orc carrying a screaming child.
Many Thursday lunchbreaks were procrastinated over as caption discussion spun off into congratulating each other's wit, and yet none of E2's brilliance seemed to break through to be chosen as awful enough to win, until in March 2004, yours truly squeaked in using a bog-standard trick of joking about a new-fangled device known as an IPod for a photo of birdshit cleaning in China. The next April, ReiToei cannonballed into second place with an actually funny caption involving Prince William at a swimming Soiree. In July, RalphyK manipulated his entry into first place with a rather multi-layered joke at the expense of Colin Powell.
About then, the shenanigans had fulfilled their purpose. Everything2 user's comedic talents had sullied themselves for mere Kudos. There was nothing but shame left.
*In the USA and other colonies, you will find cartons of essential nutrient-and-sucrose-enriched Ku-Dohs in friendly neighbourhood superstores.