This Week's Photo Winner

The Pulitzer for Best Meme Goes to...

Jan 10, 2026

We’re Always Playing in the Gap

The gap between what’s said and what’s done. Between what’s being depicted and the language used to depict it — our “baby talk” experiment will demonstrate that gap, big time. Or the gap between setting and characters — the classic fish-out-of-water gap.

That’s where emotion occurs. Emotion does NOT occur when you write: “Cold fear shook Tom to the very core!” You can’t dictate emotion, but you can create the circumstances that trigger emotion within the reader. In our photo game the picture shows one thing, an image… on the reverse side, the message is the message… and the reader becomes obsessed with determining the meaning and relationship between those two elements. Very few people exist who can allow things to be things without assigning a special meaning to them:

Alice didn’t return my smile: Alice hates me.

Dogs growl at Robert: Dogs can judge a person’s character. Robert must be despicable.

Our job as writers is to creation the right conditions, then let the reader jump to the intended conclusion. Let the reader decide. In the photo game, our goal is to experiment with the full spectrum of emotions, not just shock or sadness, but love and absurdity.

This Week’s Front Runners Are:

It’s nuts how good you people are getting at this. I took half my day sifting through these. You’ve moved so far beyond the murder/shock/abortion territory, and your subtlety makes my heart ache. Let’s be realistic: There should be a Pulitzer Prize for memes. If so, here’s the short list:

Brandan: “You’re a student. This has to stop.”

Frank Restaneo III: “Not good girls.”

BulletProofofConcept: “One fucked your husband, Miss Bennett.”

Blue Carmela: “Home Ec wrecks”

Kerri Rickard: “1977 Menengitis outbreak in the dorms.” 1

Mariya Cadena: “Should've stayed in your lane.” 2

Bryan Wiler: “God, did she scream.”3

Kimberly: "11. The limit was 11."

Evan Noren: “For the Milk Carton.”

Kimberly: “To the grave.”

Bree LeMaire: “It hurts now, to see her so fucking happy.”4

kp Buk: “As ‘out’ as she ever got.”

Martina Courtney: “What can I do?”

Chris Morn: “Patient Zero. See hand.”5

Kitty: “My mom still uses it.”6

Maegan Heil: “I wanted to tell her.”

Li: “See that window?”7

And the Winner is…

Maegan Heil: “I wanted to tell her.”

Just for this round, I’m throwing in a second winner:

Bree LeMaire: “It hurts now, to see her so fucking happy.”8

As is our custom, please let me know how you’d like the book inscribed, and where to mail the package. Send the info via The Cult, or post it below in Comments, and I’ll delete it as soon as I see it up.