Five years ago, I knew almost none of you. Most of the people on this distribution list didn’t know any of the others. Had it not been for CT, it’s extremely likely that we still wouldn’t know one another. Whether that’s ultimately a good thing or a bad thing I’ll leave up to you to decide. Personally, I think it’s a pretty good thing. In that time, I’ve met quite a few people that I now think of as good friends, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. Just think of all the events and occurences that have happened as a direct result of — or even peripherally because of — our involvement in a silly, but rather addicting, website. Bonds of friendship have been forged, relationships have formed, marriages have even taken place, all because we have gotten to know each other through the medium of putting funny quips to randomly-generated images on a computer.

In the early days of CT, we felt like we were all getting away with something, a bunch of subversives making each other laugh by poking fun at televised images of actors, advertising and infomercials. The group dynamic was one of conspiratiorial iconoclasm, deflating pomposity and slaughtering sacred cows wherever they were found. We could — and did — say anything, knowing that the only criterion was that it be funny.

Inevitably, the forum grew bigger as more and more people found out about it, and newer arrivals began to put their own stamp on the humor found on CT. We began to make connections, to contact each other through email and other means. There were ups and downs as the site — and we ourselves — evolved. Some of the low points included (and may still include) frozen screengrabs, deadlyringer, Cap Nazis, public squabbling in and out of the gallery, banner ads, pop-up ads and the recent weird code errors that keep showing up on every CT page. We lost a good friend, a funny capper and very talented cartoonist, when Jeff Myers, aka Widget, died a few years ago.

But there have been definite high points as well: real-life capper get-togethers in San Francisco, New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, LA, Seattle and Las Vegas, just to mention a few, have been great fun for those involved. A number of romances have bloomed through people getting to know one another online, courtesy of capping, and there have even been a few marriages that resulted. The establishment of the now-ubiquitous cap galleries, where archived caps are saved for posterity, is common. Old-time cappers credit GuloGulo with first discovering how to archive caps and with setting up the very first cap gallery, and major kudos to him for doing so. All web-managers with galleries owe him a debt of thanks, whether they acknowledge that or not.

Perhaps that’s the future of our community — and make no mistake, it IS a community — to continue to branch off and discover or create new capping venues for ourselves. We have established egroups and regular communication channels, real-life gatherings and other online enterprises far removed from just the capping experience (The Commune, for instance). But capping is still the common denominator. Of course, ultimately, we owe it all to Joel and Mike and the ‘bots, and the online phenomenon known as Caption This!, and that’s the purpose of my message today, to acknowledge that. I, for one, am proud to be a part of such an intelligent, diverse and above all *funny* group of people. Thanks to all of you, for everything.