Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Cards Against Humanity trolls the world making $71,000 after charging $5 for absolutely nothing on Black Friday

'On Black Friday, everybody is selling something. We’re the only company to offer the superior Black Friday experience of buying nothing'

Emma Henderson
Saturday 28 November 2015 12:47 GMT
Comments
A white card and a black card from Cards Against Humanity
A white card and a black card from Cards Against Humanity (Flickr/tom_bullock)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The popular game Cards Against Humanity (CAH) collected $71,000 (£42,2000) after asking people to pay them $5 on Black Friday, for nothing in return.

CAH, which calls itself "a party game for horrible people" had a message on its website stating: "This Black Friday Only! Give Cards Against humanity $5."

Below, was a box to tick stating: "I understand I am paying Cards Against Humanity $5 and receiving nothing in return."

The company tweeted: “On Black Friday, everybody is selling something. We’re the only company to offer the superior Black Friday experience of buying nothing.

"The greatest Black Friday gift of all is buying nothing. We’re offering that for the rock-bottom price of $5. How can you afford NOT to seize this incredible opportunity?"

Before switching back to its normal site at midnight local time, the tally had reached $71,080 in sales.

On the website, the company explained "11,248 people gave us $5, and 1,199 people gave us more than $5. One enthusiastic fan gave us $100. In the end we made a windfall profit of $71,145.

"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."

Below the statement is a list of items that each CAH team member has supposedly bought. However, it is more likely this is another satirical ploy and the money will be donated to charity as in previous years.

The idea, which was aimed at the company's clientele, did so well that some "customers" carried on the charade and tweeted about their Black Friday “delivery”.

This is not the first time the company has done something out of the ordinary on Black Friday. Previous years have seen just as creative business strategies.

In 2013, instead of reducing the price for the product, CAH increased it by $5 on Black Friday. The company made it very clear that they were doing this for Black Friday only. Apparently it saw sales spike.

2014 saw CAH remove its usual card game and instead sell boxes of “actual bullshit” from a ranch in Texas. The company reportedly sold 30,000 of these boxes for $6, making a profit of $6,000 which was donated to charity.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in