Cards Against Humanity sold literal bullshit, charged people $5 for nothing, dug a pointless hole for $100K, bought border land to block Trump's wall, then sued SpaceX when Elon Musk trespassed on it. People paid to be trolled every time.

Cards Against Humanity: A Decade of Trolling as Business Model (2012-Present)

THE SHORT VERSION

A card game created by eight high school friends from Chicago became one of the most successful consumer products of the 2010s — not through advertising (they’ve never bought any), but through an annual tradition of trolling their own customers on Black Friday. They’ve charged people $5 more on the day everyone else charges less. They’ve sold literal boxes of bull shit. They’ve sold nothing for $5 and made $71,145. They dug a pointless hole in the ground and raised $100,573 to keep digging it. They bought land on the US-Mexico border to complicate Trump’s wall. They threatened to destroy a Picasso. They bought an island and gave everyone one square foot. At every step, people paid money for the privilege of being trolled — and came back the next year for more.

THE COMPANY

Founding

Cards Against Humanity was created by eight friends from Highland Park High School near Chicago:

Max Temkin (departed 2020)
Josh Dillon
Daniel Dranove
Eli Halpern
Ben Hantoot
David Munk
David Pinsof
Eliot Weinstein

They started playing the game at New Year’s parties. Friends told them to share it. In 2008, they posted the cards online for free under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license — anyone could remix and share them, as long as they gave credit and didn’t sell them. Downloads hit the tens of thousands.

In 2010, they ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first printed production run. It was their only outside funding. Ever. They’ve turned down every investor, retailer, and licensing offer since.

Philosophy

The company has never paid for advertising. Growth was entirely viral — word of mouth, social sharing, and the annual Black Friday stunts that generated more press coverage than any ad buy could.

Max Temkin (before his departure): “I honestly don’t think people would gravitate to the game, talk about the cards, or feel ownership if we weren’t willing to share it with them. The game is about telling jokes and making people laugh. We want people to feel as if they’re a participant in putting that joke together — it’s in the spirit of comedy and of the game.”

Max Temkin’s Departure (2020)

In June 2020, employees accused Max Temkin of fostering a sexist and racist work culture at Cards Against Humanity. Temkin stepped down from the company.

THE STUNTS: COMPLETE CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY

2013 — The Anti-Sale ($5 MORE on Black Friday)

While every retailer in America was slashing prices, Cards Against Humanity raised the price of their game by $5 on Black Friday.

Result: The game maintained its best-selling status on Amazon and experienced a minor spike in sales during the promotion.

The lesson: People bought more when they were told they were being ripped off — because the act of overpaying was itself the joke, and participating in the joke was worth the $5.

2014 — Bullshit (Literal Boxes of Manure, $6 each)

The game and all expansions were removed from the online store. In their place: “Bullshit by Cards Against Humanity” — boxes containing a palm-sized, hardened lump of sterilized bull feces, priced at $6.

Part of a broader “Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa” promotion.

Result: All 30,000 boxes sold out in the first half hour.

The economics: They made only $0.20 per box after manufacturing and shipping. Net profit of approximately $6,000, which they donated to Heifer International (an organization that donates livestock to impoverished communities — because of course).

Key detail: People knew what they were buying. The product page said “Bullshit.” The FAQ confirmed it was actual bull feces. People bought it anyway. Thirty thousand of them.

2014 — The Island (“Hawaii 2”)

As part of the “Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa” promotion, Cards Against Humanity also purchased a six-acre island — Birch Island on Lake St. George in Maine — for approximately $200,000.

They renamed it “Hawaii 2.”

250,000 people who had paid $15 for the mystery gift package each received one square foot of the island and a certificate of “ownership.”

A portion of proceeds was donated to the Sunlight Foundation.

2015 — Selling Nothing for $5 (The “Give Us $5” Sale)

The entire online store was replaced with a single order form:

“Give Cards Against Humanity $5.”

That’s it. No product. No promise. No explanation. Just a button that charged you five dollars for absolutely nothing.

Result: 11,248 people gave them $5, for a total of $71,145.

The money was divided equally among the 17 CAH team members (~$4,185 each). Each employee was asked to report what they spent their share on. Many made charitable donations.

2015 — The Picasso Vote

As part of a separate “Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah” promotion ($15 for eight mystery gifts throughout December), Cards Against Humanity purchased “Tete de Faune” (Head of a Faun), an original 1962 Picasso linocut print valued at approximately $14,100.

They then gave their 150,000 subscribers a vote:

Option A: Donate the Picasso to the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection. Option B: Laser-cut it into 150,000 tiny squares and send everyone their own scrap of a real Picasso.

Result: 71.3% voted to donate. 28.7% voted to cut.

Max Temkin: “The happy ending is being able to donate the Picasso to the museum.”

Note: The user’s brief says “Buyers voted to cut it. They cut it on livestream.” This is incorrect per the sourced record — the majority voted to save it, and it was donated. Worth noting as a correction.

2016 — The Holiday Hole ($100,573 to Dig a Pointless Hole)

The crown jewel. On Black Friday 2016, the Cards Against Humanity website was replaced with a livestream of a backhoe digging a hole in an empty field in Oregon, Illinois.

The premise: As long as people kept paying, they would keep digging. When the money stopped, the digging stopped.

Total raised: $100,573.

The FAQ was a masterpiece of deadpan nihilism:

Question	Answer
Why?	n/a (they just did it)
Where is the hole?	“America. And in our hearts.”
Is there a deeper meaning or purpose to the hole?	“This was just a bunch of empty land. Now there’s a hole there. That’s life.”
What do I get for contributing money to the hole?	“A deeper hole. What else are you going to buy, an iPod?”
Why aren’t YOU giving all this money to charity?	“It’s your money.”
What if you dig so deep you hit hot magma?	“At least then we’d feel something.”
Why should I find this funny?	“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.”

They eventually filled the hole back in (for insurance reasons).

The livestream got 3.6 million YouTube views in three days.

2017 — Cards Against Humanity Saves America (Border Land Purchase)

150,000+ people paid $15 each for a campaign called “Cards Against Humanity Saves America.” It sold out in hours.

Day One: Cards Against Humanity used the money to purchase a plot of vacant land on the US-Mexico border in Cameron County, Texas, and retained a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for Trump to build his border wall through their property.

The Strategy: Eminent domain law allows the government to seize private property — but the legal process is lengthy and costly, especially when the landowner is prepared to fight. CAH weaponized property rights against the wall.

Other “Days”:

Day Five: Funded 14 months of scientifically rigorous monthly public opinion polls called “Cards Against Humanity’s Pulse of the Nation”
Day Six: Purchased the naming rights to a minor league baseball stadium in Joliet, Illinois, renamed “The Cards Against Humanity Baseball Place”

2017 Side Stunt: The website was also briefly redirected to OriginalProngles.com, announcing the creators had exited the gaming industry in favor of snack food.

2018 — The 99% Off Sale

A new item dropped every 10 minutes, priced at 99% off its retail value. Items included:

Item	Original Price	Sale Price
$100 bill (actual cash)	$100	$1
Life-size Orlando Bloom cutout	$75	$0.75
Mahogany casket	$3,200	$32
2015 Ford Fiesta (used)	$9,750	$97.50
85-inch 4K Smart TV	$3,500	$35
Poncho toilet	$9	$0.09
Original Picasso-signed drawing	$6,000	$60
17th-century Italian halberd	—	—
Bill Pullman’s actual flight suit from Independence Day	—	—
500 pounds of dry garbanzo beans	—	—

2019 — The AI Challenge

Cards Against Humanity taught OpenAI’s GPT-2 neural network how to write Cards Against Humanity cards. They released an AI-generated expansion pack.

Note: This was 2019 — before GPT became a household name. They were trolling with AI before it was cool to troll with AI.

2020 — The Charity Donation

No stunt. They donated their entire $250,000 Black Friday budget to nonprofits suggested by their staff.

(2020 was, it should be noted, a year that did not require additional satire.)

2021 — “Cards Against Humanity Pays You $5”

Reversed the 2015 stunt. This time, CAH paid visitors for doing various tasks:

Getting the COVID-19 vaccine that day: $100
Various other tasks: $5-$10
One person received: $10,000

2022 — The CAPTCHA Sale (200% Off)

Launched a storage box called “Boks” with a 200% off promotion. To get a discount code, users had to solve multiple increasingly complex CAPTCHAs, including:

Identifying tanks
Identifying “assholes” (pictures of both actual animal anuses and public figures including Elon Musk)
Answering who rightfully won the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

With each code given out, the discount decreased by 0.01%.

2024 — Suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX ($15 Million Lawsuit)

Remember that border land from 2017? SpaceX allegedly trespassed on it.

In September 2024, Cards Against Humanity filed a $15 million civil lawsuit against SpaceX in Cameron County, Texas. The suit alleged that over the previous six months, SpaceX had:

Cleared the property of all vegetation
Dumped “an enormous mound” of gravel on it
Parked SpaceX contractor vehicles on the land
Stored construction equipment there without permission

CAH’s website framing: SpaceX had “fked”** their land near the border.

October 2025 — Settlement

SpaceX settled the lawsuit just weeks before a jury trial was scheduled to begin on November 3. Terms were undisclosed.

Instead of a multimillion-dollar payout to the 150,000 original participants, they received something better: “a new mini-pack of exclusive cards all about Elon Musk.”

On the Holiday Hole

“What do I get for contributing money to the hole?” — “A deeper hole. What else are you going to buy, an iPod?”

“Why aren’t YOU giving all this money to charity?” — “It’s your money.”

“What if you dig so deep you hit hot magma?” — “At least then we’d feel something.”

“Where is the hole?” — “America. And in our hearts.”

On the Business Model

“I honestly don’t think people would gravitate to the game, talk about the cards, or feel ownership if we weren’t willing to share it with them.” — Max Temkin

On the Picasso

“The happy ending is being able to donate the Picasso to the museum.” — Max Temkin

WHY IT MATTERS: TROLLING AS VIABLE BUSINESS MODEL

Cards Against Humanity proved several things that shouldn’t be true but are:

People will pay more to be trolled than to get a discount. The 2013 anti-sale ($5 more) increased sales. The 2015 nothing sale ($5 for nothing) made $71K. The Holiday Hole ($100K for a hole) generated 3.6M YouTube views. Every stunt was free advertising that money couldn’t buy.
Honesty is the most disruptive marketing strategy. They told you the bullshit was bullshit. They told you the nothing was nothing. They told you the hole served no purpose. They never lied about what they were doing. The honesty was the product.
Consumer irrationality can be weaponized against itself — and people will thank you for it. Every stunt was a mirror held up to Black Friday consumerism. “You’ll buy anything” isn’t an insult when the thing you’re buying is the demonstration that you’ll buy anything. It’s performance art you paid admission to.
You can build a $100M+ company with zero advertising spend if your product IS the conversation. The Creative Commons license, the refusal of outside investment, the annual stunts — all of it created a sense of participation and ownership that no ad campaign could replicate.
Trolling scales. From a card game at a New Year’s party to suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $15 million over land they bought as a border wall troll — the trajectory is a straight line. The stunts got bigger because the audience grew, and the audience grew because the stunts got bigger.
The SpaceX lawsuit is the final proof. A 2017 political stunt to troll the border wall became, seven years later, a real property rights case against the world’s richest man. The troll generated a legitimate legal claim. The joke became leverage. That’s the endgame of weaponized irony — sometimes it stops being ironic.

SOURCE URLS

Overview / Company Profile

“They sold nothing for $5 and made $71K” — The 2015 sale as proof that consumerism is a reflex, not a decision.
"$100,000 to dig a hole to nowhere" — The Holiday Hole as the purest distillation of internet-age spending. The FAQ alone is a social media goldmine.
“30,000 people bought literal bullshit in 30 minutes” — The 2014 sale as a consumer psychology case study. They TOLD you it was shit.
“They bought border land to troll Trump, then SpaceX trespassed on it” — The seven-year arc from political stunt to $15M lawsuit. The joke became real.
“They’ve never bought a single ad” — The anti-marketing marketing strategy. Every stunt IS the ad. The trolling IS the brand.
“People will pay to be trolled” — The grand unified theory of Cards Against Humanity. Why? Because participating in the joke is the product. The experience of being scammed — openly, honestly, with full disclosure — is worth more than the thing you could have bought instead.

CORRECTION NOTE

The user’s brief states the Picasso was “voted to be cut” and “they cut it on livestream.” Per sourced reporting, 71.3% voted to save it, and it was donated to the Art Institute of Chicago. The vote went the other way from what the brief describes. This should be verified before publication — but all major sources (Vice, Newsweek, Adweek, Artnet, Slate) confirm the donation outcome.

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