On Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity created a campaign where they sold absolutely nothing for $5.
Cards Against Humanity is company that produces a card game by the same name. The tagline for the game states that it is “a party game for horrible people.”
To play Cards Against Humanity, one person asks a question found on a black card while everyone else gives in a white card that they believe best works as an answer. Some of the answer cards include: “Winking at old people,” “My collection of high-tech sex toys,” and other much more racy cards. Some of the question cards include: “What is that smell?,” “What is Batman’s guilty pleasure?,” and “What ended my last relationship?”
Some combinations can be absolutely hilarious, which is the backbone of the game and why people all over the world enjoy playing.
Although Cards Against Humanity is said to be “for horrible people,” the company has become known for its charitable contributions. They donate to charities constantly and have even started a $500,000 scholarship program for women looking to get science degrees .
For Black Friday 2014, Cards Against Humanity sold boxes filled with feces for $6 per box. They advertised honestly, saying that they were selling “bulls**t.” According to Max Temkin, co-creator of the game, the boxes of poop sold out in less than two hours.
“We all really hate Black Friday, it’s just kind of a horrible day,” Temkin explained to TIME . “It comes after this day where you’re supposed to be thankful for what you have, and then it’s just this whole huge media spectacle of people fighting each other to save $50 on a TV.”
All the profits from the poop stunt of Black Friday 2014 went to a charity called Heifer International .
Heifer’s mission is “to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth.”
Cards Against Humanity did not start their creative Black Friday protests in 2014, either. In fact, in 2013, the company charged $5 extra for their game during Black Friday.
Naturally, this year, when Cards Against Humanity advertised nothing for $5 per purchase, no one expected to get anything. The only thing people expected is that the money would be given to a good cause.
The company received over $70,000 from the promotion. So, what did the company actually spend the 2015 Black Friday proceeds on?
In a statement released by the co-creators of Cards Against Humanity, it was stated that the employees of the company simply split it amongst themselves.
“Cards Against Humanity is known for our charitable fundraising – since 2012 we’ve raised nearly $4 million for organizations we love like Worldbuilders, the Sunlight Foundation, the EFF, DonorsChoose.org, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Chicago Design Museum. We even started a $500,000 full-ride scholarship for women getting degrees in science.
There’s been a lot of speculation about how we would spend the money from Black Friday, and we’re happy to announce that this time, we kept it all.”
From there, the statement held every single employee accountable for what they bought.
Sure, some people splurged on a Playstation 4, comics and video games. One person bought a Legolas Lothlorien Long Bow and another paid for her divorce attorney, but the vast majority of employees still donated part or most of their share to their favorite charities.
Planned Parenthood , Wilderness Society , The National Alliance on Mental Illness , PAWS Chicago , Intonation Music Workshop , Living Beyond Breast Cancer , American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network are just a fraction of the charities that received donations from Cards Against Humanity employees.
The creators of Cards Against Humanity have taken a day of rabid shopping and turned it into a day of giving.
What do you think next year’s stunt will be?
[ Photo By Custom Cards Against Humanity ]