Last year we saw the dawn of a new era of bullshit with Cards Against Humanity’s Holiday Collection, 12 Days of Holiday Bullshit. This year they are back at their shenanigans with 10 Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa. The way it works is you send them $15 and Cards Against Humanity will send you ten mystery gifts of dubious usefulness. Since I like to question the unknowable and poke at inscrutable masters, I asked Max Temkin, one of the creators of CAH, a few questions about this years fun.
Also, just as a heads up, Cards is one of our favorite games ever, but it’s also a crude, offensive, miserable vat of bile and feces (in absolutely the best possible way), so little ones need not apply. But damn, if the game isn’t hilarious.
There are only a few hours left in their 10 Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa seasonal event, so once you’re done reading our interview with Max, go check it out!
Jess: Last year you guys did the 12 Days of Holiday Bullshit and you sold out almost immediately. This year you’re doing 10 Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa, how has that been going?
Max: The Ten Days Or Whatever of Kwanzaa is doing great! Last year we sold out 100,000 slots for Holiday Bullshit – this year we were more ambitious and opened up a quarter million slots for people. That’s a tough sell – we’re asking people for $15 and they have no idea what they’re getting in exchange. It’s going to be down to the wire to see if we sell out or not, but it’s looking good.
Jess: That’s a lot of Cards! With the 12 days of holiday bullshit you included a brain wracking puzzle that involved braille, time stamps, and a book puzzle. Are you doing something similar this year?
Max: Yes! This year we’ve partnered with professional puzzle master Mike Selinker to make an enormous, intricate puzzle that runs through all the elements of Holiday Bullshit. There’s also an enormous prize and adventure for the person or group who cracks it. This is the hardest puzzle I have ever personally seen – we’re basically trying to outsmart the entire internet.
Jess: Oh man, I can’t wait to give myself a headache trying to crack this years puzzle. For Black Friday you advertised that you were selling “literal feces, from an actual bull”. Is it really a protest against Black Friday or just your way of contributing to the madness of the shopping holiday? Max: I guess it’s a little bit of both. That’s the weird thing about capitalism – there’s no heresy in capitalism – it will subsume everything you can think of to throw at it and sell it back to you. Our Black Friday pranks are definitely intended as commentary, but commentary on capitalism has a nasty tendency to just become more capitalism. That’s really our generation’s dilemma in a nutshell, isn’t it?
Jess: How well did you doo? (pun intended)
Max: We made 30,000 boxes of Bullshit for $5.80/pc, and sold them for $6. So it was just a break-even joke for us.
A Surprised Jess: That is a lot of shit! The bull must be exhausted.
So, do you have any new expansions coming out soon? What can we expect?
Max: Yeah, we’re going to keep doing our weird thing. Some people are working on other side-projects – I just Kickstarted a new game called Slap .45. We’re opening a big co-working space here in Chicago. And I think you’ll see some new product categories from us in the near future.
Jess: If you became the first Emperor of the Moon, what would you rename it?
Max:
- Moon 7: The Force Awakens
- Shitty Earth Jr.
- Super Moon
- Lil’ Sun
- Fart Rock
- The Tidemaker 5000
- Noom
- Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet
- The Moon™ by Arby’s
- Lunar Lovegood
- Neil Armstrong’s Bitch
- ISIS
- Sailor Mars
- Sometimes-Hidin’ Sky Coward
- Winona
- Sky Kony 2012
- Gray Shit Marble
- The Hug Sphere
- Space Alcatraz
It was super cool of Max to take some time to chat with us. Hopefully you score a copy before the sales ends. I invested in the holiday crap last year and it was amazing. The puzzles are super hard and the cards you get are hysterical.
Thanks again Max, Lord Emperor of Winona!
