Cards Against Humanity is an American adult card-based party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements, using words or phrases typically deemed offensive, risqué, or politically incorrect, printed on playing cards. It has been compared to the card game Apples to Apples (1999).
The game originated with a Kickstarter campaign in 2011. The game's title refers to the phrase "crimes against humanity", reflecting its politically incorrect content.
Development Cards Against Humanity was created by a group of eight Highland Park High School alumni. Heavily influenced by the popular Apples to Apples card game, it was initially named Cardenfreude (a pun on the German concept Schadenfreude) and involved a group of players writing out the most abstract and, often, humorous response to the topic question. The name was later changed to Cards Against Humanity, with the answers pre-written on the white cards known today. Co-creator Ben Hantoot cited experiences with various games such as Magic: The Gathering, Balderdash, and charades as inspiration, also noting that Mad Libs was "the most direct influence" for the game.
The game was financed with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign and influenced by a previous crowd-funded campaign for a book on the design of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. The campaign started on December 1, 2010; it met its goal of US$4,000 () in two weeks. The campaign ended on January 30, 2011, and raised over $15,000 (), just over 400% of its original goal. With this additional money raised towards the game, the creators added fifty more cards to the game itself.
Gameplay
To start the game, each player draws 10 white cards.
According to the rule book provided with the game, the person who most recently defecated (a primitive form of randomization) begins as the "Card Czar" (or "Card Tsar") and plays a black card, face up. The Card Czar then reads the question or fill-in-the-blanks phrase on the black card out loud.
The other players answer the question or fill in the blanks by each passing one white card (or however many required by the black card), face down, to the Card Czar.
The Card Czar shuffles all of the answers and shares each card combination with the group. For full effect, the Card Czar should usually re-read the black card before presenting each answer. The Card Czar then picks the funniest play, and whoever submitted it gets one "Awesome Point". After the round, a new player becomes the Card Czar, and everyone draws back up to 10 white cards.
The part of speech of a white card is a noun or gerund, including both single words and phrase constructions. Black cards are either fill-in-the-blank statements or questions. Both white and black cards break these rules on rare occasions.
The rules do not state how to win the game, but a popular way to win for most players is whoever has the most black cards or points at the end of the game (black cards are obtained by whoever is funniest at the end of a round). Another way to end off the session of Cards Against Humanity is to end off with the Haiku card since it can help get rid of the "bad" white cards.
The rules in Cards Against Humanity are flexible and can be altered with the many house rules (which are listed in the rules) that players can incorporate (e.g. winning cards are chosen democratically, ability to trade points for cards, points given by ranks, etc.). The official rules include additional provisions for gambling previously won "Awesome Points" for the right to play additional white cards during a round.
Release and sales
After six months of development, Cards Against Humanity was officially released in May 2011. A month later, it became the number one game on Amazon. Since its release, the game has gradually become more popular and has seen a rise of sales throughout the years. The Chicago Sun-Times estimated that CAH earned at least $12 million in profit, and according to the company, customers have downloaded the PDF file 1.5 million times in the year since they began tracking the numbers.
In October 2011, the game was exhibited as part of the "Big Games" area of the annual IndieCade games festival in Culver City, where the release of a first expansion was announced. In November 2011, the expansion was released. It sold out in three days. The first expansion contained 100 new cards and 12 blank cards.
The base game cards are licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 license and can be downloaded at their website.
Black Friday promotions Since 2013, the creators of Cards Against Humanity have held satirical promotions on Black Friday. In 2013, an "anti-sale" was held in which the game's cost was raised by $5. Despite its higher price, the game maintained its best-selling status on Amazon and experienced a minor spike in sales during that period.
In 2014, to "help you experience the ultimate savings on Cards Against Humanity", the game and its expansions were removed from the online store and replaced by "Bullshit" boxes containing sterilized bull feces, sold at $6 each. Over 30,000 boxes were sold.
In 2015, the game's online store was replaced by an order form with an offer to "Give Cards Against Humanity $5" and receive nothing in return. The offer was justified by claiming that "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?", and that what the money would be used for would be announced "soon". 11,248 customers spent $71,145 on the offer during the campaign. The money was divided equally among the Cards Against Humanity team members, who were asked to report back what they spent their money on. Many of them made donations to charities.
For 2016, the creators began to live stream the excavation of a "Holiday Hole", located in Oregon, Illinois, and stated that they would continue to dig the hole as long as they continue to receive donations. The creators did not state any reason for the hole nor any planned use of the money and explicitly ruled out charity in a FAQ by asking the reader, "Why aren't YOU giving all this money to charity? It's your money." $100,573 was collected. Later in the week, the hole was filled back in and reseeded.
Prior to Black Friday in 2017, a brand of potato chips known as "Original Prongles" (a parody of Pringles) were spotted in multiple Target stores, with packaging featuring a pig mascot and the slogan "Once You Pop... That's Great!". On Black Friday, the Cards Against Humanity website was redirected to OriginalProngles.com, which announced that the creators of Cards Against Humanity had exited the gaming industry in favor of snack food, with a commitment to "bold flavors and bold thinking". In a FoxNews.com interview, Max Temkin and Josh Dillon (who referred to themselves as Prongles' "chief flavor officers") stated that Prongles and its pig mascot were inspired by US president Donald Trump, adding that "if you love President Donald J. Trump, we guarantee you will love the tangy onion and thick cream flavors of Original Prongles. That's why we promise to Make America CRUNCH Again™!"
In 2018, the creators held a "99 Percent Off Sale", selling random items (such as a used 2015 Ford Fiesta, medieval weapons, and even cash) for 99% off, with a new item every 10 minutes. The creators stated that the promotion was "100% real and possibly a very bad idea."
In 2019, the creators held Black Friday A.I. Challenge, pitting the company's writers against a machine learning algorithm, producing two themed card packs: the Human Pack and the A.I. Pack. If the Human Pack sold more, the writers would get a $5,000 bonus and if the A.I. won, the writers would be fired. The Human Pack ultimately sold over $1,000 more than the A.I. Pack.
For 2020, in lieu of doing a prank, Cards Against Humanity donated the $250,000 set aside for a Black Friday promotion to five charities: the Equal Justice Initiative, the New Georgia Project, National Low Income Housing Coalition, Brave Space Alliance, and the Laughing At My Nightmare COVID-19 Relief Fund.
In 2021, the creators held a "Cards Against Humanity Pays You $5 Sale", in which the creators would pay $5 and up to site visitors for doing various tasks, ranging from asking Hellmann's to bring back "Clam-O-Naise", to donating teeth, to helping the creators figure out what program they saw Patrick Fischler in (Nash Bridges). Some tasks, like getting the COVID-19 vaccine that day, would reward $100, while other tasks, like guessing how many jelly beans have been put inside a 1993 Cadillac Allanté, would reward $10,000 to one person.
In 2022, Cards Against Humanity launched a new storage box, known as "Bōks", by kicking off a 200% off sale at 3:00 P.M. EST on Black Friday. To receive a discount code, a user would have to solve multiple increasingly complex CAPTCHAs, including identifying tanks (military tanks, fish tanks, Shark Tank, tank tops, etc.), identifying "assholes" (including actual animal anuses as well as public figures like Elon Musk), and answering who rightfully won the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. With each individual code given out, the discount would decrease by .01%. Other items, including an "Ultimate Expansion" version of Bōks filled with almost 2,000 cards and a miniature version of the base game, were released.
In 2023, the company launched Yowza!, a parody of Twitter/X advertising itself as a social network with "no hate, lies, or crypto enthusiasts." No matter what the user types or attempts to upload, the only thing that comes out is the word "yowza". The site rewarded the first 10,000 people to refer another user $4.20. The 2,500 users with the most referrals by the end of Black Friday won a free copy of the board game Head Trip, while the top 420 would win $69, and the user with the most referrals, @spark, won $69,420. The site offers Yowza Black, a paid service that allows a user to post "awooga", and a store to buy followers, likes, ringtones, the ability to say "shazam", and more.
In 2024, the creators sold Diamond Potato, a potato decorated with real VVS-clarity lab-grown diamonds valued at over $1,000, for $69.99. Thousands of diamond potatoes were offered, selling out in less than 30 minutes.
In 2025, Cards Against Humanity held another "99 Percent Off Sale".
Expansions and additional products The base set of Cards Against Humanity came initially with 550 cards, though this has increased to 600 as of version 2.0's release in 2017. Six 100-card expansions were made over the years, before being repackaged into two 300-card expansions, known as the "Red Box" and "Blue Box", in 2016. More 300-card boxes have been released since then, such as the "Green Box", "Absurd Box", and "Everything Box". Various themed card packs, usually with around 30 cards, have also been released, with some as limited time releases. Various international versions have released, as well.
A storage box, known as "The Bigger, Blacker Box", was released in 2013. As more cards came in, the company released an even larger box in 2016, along with a 69-inch () box, entitled "Please do not buy this product.", that was hidden on the store page. The original storage box contained a special card hidden inside the packaging, entitled "The biggest, blackest dick.", with silver letters. The expanded release contained more hidden cards, along with unique algorithmically generated cards. Both products were discontinued by 2021, with "Bōks" replacing them in 2022.
On July 28, 2015, Cards Against Humanity announced a design-themed expansion pack, featuring 30 cards that were created by famous designers riffing on comedian George Carlin's "seven dirty words". All proceeds were donated to the Chicago Design Museum.