This is the top-selling item on Amazon, and yet I ain’t never heard of it.
Cards Against Humanity is a good card game for bad people (again, where have I been)? It’s speaking to me, and yet I do not hear.
In an age of political correctness and group think, Cards Against Humanity is anti-everything, attitudinal and uber-cynical. Its millions of fans are unapologetic and their minds are in the gutter. In other words, refreshing!
These are the players who are voting for Donald Trump for President in 2016. Not for nothing that The Donald is the ultimate player.
The objective: Actually, I’m not quite sure what the objective is, but here’s how Wikipedia sorts it out (and rather well, although I still don’t quite get it):
To start the game, each player draws ten White Cards.
The person who most recently pooped begins as the Card Czar and plays a Black Card. The Card Czar reads the question or fill-in-the-blank phrase on the Black Card out loud.
Everyone else answers the question or fills in the blank by passing one White 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 ten White Cards.
Uh, OK. Yet I think this game is actually about being totally immersed in the present and enjoying the current moment, rather than thinking of The Big Picture. The opposite of what humanity actually does. So right, it’s against humanity.
I didn’t have time to read all 24,715 customer reviews, but I did like what I’ve seen so far:
This from mykie:
If you aren’t a horrible person already, you will soon be. You will play Cards Against Humanity, and as others have said, you will be shocked, appalled, and worst of all, you will learn and adapt. You’ll reach for your smartphone and search for terms you’ve drawn such as “The Übermensch”, “Heteronormativity”, and “The Three-Fifths Compromise”. You will commit these and many other newly-learned words to memory.
And that’s where it all comes crashing down.
It’s not all enthusiasm, though. Take it from this rather existential, cold-hard look at the game, from Gregory M Blackford:
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the game but after the shock value has worn off it just becomes an adult Apples to Apples.
Other things I’ve noticed:
The game doesn’t have the desired effect with high brow sense of humor people. It seems like half of the cards are poop/sexual in nature which is fine but could cause quick burnout with your play group depending on their humor. What ends up happening (in my experience) is that people who have played the game more than once start to go for the deeper more obscure combinations that are funny to most but never win against the brute force of cards such as “pooping back and forth. forever.”
I’ve come across another group who, unfortunately, went with the most shocking or dirty card to them even if it didn’t make sense in the context of the black card played. This could be an undesired consequence of a few experienced people playing with completely new people. Just laying it out there so you wont be surprised when it happens to you.
Thanks for head’s up! And the poop down. People who prefer pooping prefer Cards Against Humanity.
From what I’ve seen on Google Images, the game is not for the prudish, virginal or Christian. If you don’t know what Ubermensch or Heteronormativity means, you may have a hard time (make that difficult time) with fisting and balls-deep.
Also, you’ve been warned: One of the answer cards is entitled “Aushwitz.” Still, Cards Against Humanity should not be confused with crimes against humanity. Riddle me this: how tolerant is your sense of humor? This game will test you, and push the buttons of the most liberal supporters of the First Amendment. Can you truly laugh at anything? And can you still say, “I may not agree, but I will agree that they have a right to say it.” Doesn’t seem like there is too much of that going on anymore, at least not on the Internet.
Because it’s the digital age, and because our attention spans have been worn down to the width and content of a playing card, there are online templates that allow you to create your own cards and, like Facebook, share your own worst thoughts. Cards Against Humanity is a Pandora’s Box of possibilites. Like social media, you write to brand and market yourself, but your “friends” are acutally reading between the lines and, despite their thumbs pointing up, they’re ultimately not seeing you the way you want them to see you.
As a culture, we get the games we deserve. Aren’t we lucky that we’re so deserving, especially these days?
Game on!