cards against humanity - The Art of the Prank

November 17, 2017December 15, 2023

Canards For Humanity

In what has become an annual American holiday tradition, the creative team behind the party game Cards Against Humanity is pulling a satirical marketing stunt. (In 2014, we talked with ringleader Max Temkin about the “Box of Bullshit” and his reverence for Abbie Hoffman.) This time, their gimmick carries a fresh and righteous political charge.

“Cards Against Humanity is the undisputed champion of holiday promotions”
by Lindsey Quinn
The Hustle
November 16, 2017

The world”s raunchiest card game has purchased a plot of vacant land along the Mexico-US border and has hired an eminent domain lawyer to make it “as time-consuming and expensive as possible” for the Trump administration to build its proposed wall.

To fund their effort, CAH offered a package of “six surprises” for $15 “” all of which are now sold out.

Since the game was launched by 8 high school friends in 2011, it”s gained a reputation for pulling incredibly on-point PR stunts. Read more.

November 29, 2016December 15, 2023

Cards Against Humanity Digs a Black Friday Hole

The team at Cards Against Humanity has a history of irreverent Black Friday stunts – we chatted with spokesman Max Temkin about the “Box of Bullshit” in 2014. 2016’s celebration involved a lot of money, a large hole, and that was pretty much it.

“Cards Against Humanity Threw $100,000 Into a Giant Hole Over Thanksgiving Weekend”
by Ed Mazza
The Huffington Post
November 28, 2016

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Cards Against Humanity offered its own Black Friday special: Send them money, and they”ll use it to dig a hole.

“The holidays are here, and everything in America is going really well,” the company wrote on its Holiday Hole website. “To celebrate Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity is digging a tremendous hole in the earth.”

The website featured a live camera of the hole being dug as a ticker listed the donations as they came in, telethon-style.

The company raised just over $100,000, which was enough to keep the digging operation going until Sunday morning “• and from the videos posted online, it looks like they dug themselves quite a hole:

The FAQ on the website offers the company”s trademark humor:

Why aren”t you giving all this money to charity?
Why aren”t YOU giving all this money to charity? It”s your money.

Is the hole bad for the environment?
No, this was just a bunch of empty land. Now there”s a hole there. That”s life.

How am I supposed to feel about this?
You”re supposed to think it”s funny. You might not get it for a while, but some time next year you”ll chuckle quietly to yourself and remember all this business about the hole.

Cards Against Humanity is known for going against the flow on Black Friday.

Last year, they sold nothing at all “• for $5 a pop “• and earned more than $70,000. The year before that, they sold poop.

September 30, 2015December 15, 2023

The Squicky Side of International Development

JadedAid, a new party game derived in style and spirit from Cards Against Humanity, satirizes the international development industry in brutal and hilarious fashion.

Cards Against Humanitarians
by Iyla Lozofsky
Foreign Policy
September 28, 2015

Needless to say, this very serious industry has its very serious critics. But few are as creative (or as hilarious) as three young development professionals who, in the last few weeks, have chosen to express their discontent by self-publishing a satirical card game. JadedAid is modeled on the popular millennial game, Cards Against Humanity, in which players compete to select the funniest (or most vulgar) answers to a set of “fill-in-the-blank” questions. Just a week since its opening, the JadedAid KickStarter campaign has collected nearly twenty thousand dollars “” far ahead of its creators” targets “” and the game is well on its way to completion. As an example of the kind of decidedly un-pc satire the game provides, here is one possible combination of cards:

Some of the card ideas were developed by the game”s inventors, who, all in their thirties, have extensive experience in the technology and communication side of the development industry. But the vast majority of the suggestions (nearly 800 at last count) were submitted by friends, colleagues, and anonymous development workers. One of the game”s co-founders, Jessica Heinzelman, 36, attributes the game”s immediate appeal to the need for development workers to “let off some steam” by subjecting their experiences in the field to mockery. Continue reading “The Squicky Side of International Development”

December 4, 2014December 15, 2023

Valuable Life Lessons and Limited-Edition Boxes of Poo

Emerson Dameron chats with Cards Against Humanity’s Max Temkin:

bullshitcah Like numerous other small businesspeople, the braintrust behind the controversial party game Cards Against Humanity ran a money-saving special on “Black Friday,” the designated consumer orgy following Thanksgiving.

First, the company pulled its flagship game offline for the day, leaving any prospective buyers with plumper wallets. In case anyone remained dead set on exchanging scratch for CAH merch, it introduced an exclusive new item: the Box of Bullshit. It sold out within hours, despite the fact that it was, as its creators explained repeatedly throughout the day, precisely as advertised.

I checked in with Max Temkin, a Chicago-based designer and the most high-profile member of the Cards Against Humanity team, to see how it went.

How did you hatch the idea for the Box of Bullshit?

We all hate “Black Friday” and the ensuing media frenzy around it, which is a problem for us because holiday sales are pretty important for our company. I’ve always loved the Black Friday culture jamming that happens, like people who run up to a Best Buy moments before it opens and U-lock the doors shut. So it just seemed right for us to parody black friday by taking part in it in completely the wrong way. Continue reading “Valuable Life Lessons and Limited-Edition Boxes of Poo”