Cards Against Humanity celebrated Black Friday by raising money to dig a “holiday hole” in the middle of unused land. That’s right – CAH held an event that turned donations into a hole in the ground. People paid $5 for three seconds-worth of digging.
The best part: the whole thing was livestreamed at HolidayHole.com, a website made specifically for the occasion. I can only imagine what it was like to watch the entire event from start to finish. Forget watching paint dry, let’s watch a machine dig into the ground for no reason whatsoever.
I can’t say this is a waste of time on account of $100,573 being accumulated through the donations of viewers, with the highest donation being $1,750. The digging process lasted for two days, from Nov. 25 to Nov. 27. And I definitely recommend reading the FAQ section on the website for this event if you want a good laugh. One user questioned why the money wasn’t be donated to charity, and it was answered with, “Why aren’t YOU giving all this money to charity? It’s your money.”
Why did CAH do it? Why did people watch? Who would donate to keep heavy machinery digging a pointless hole? I don’t think scooping dirt could ever be as humorous or senseless as this whole ordeal made it out to be.
I’m sure the reputation of the popular card game played a major role in helping the CAH team raise so much money. I doubt the turnout would be the same if another company did this; the CAH team is the only one who could get away with such shenanigans, as shown in previous years of bizarre Black Friday promotions.
Back in 2013, the team decided to hold what was called an “anti-sale” by raising the price of its game by $5. Oddly enough, the game remained best-selling on Amazon at the time and even sold a bit more than usual during the “anti-sale” period.
The following year just got weirder. In 2014, the team decided to sell boxes of sterilized bull feces for $6. Everything on the CAH online store was replaced with the option of buying “bullsh*t” boxes. The team sold over 30,000 boxes, which I certainly call bullsh*t.
In 2015, consumers were given the opportunity to pay $5 for nothing. It wasn’t donating $5 to a cause, it was literally buying nothing. Approximately 11,248 customers decided to take this opportunity and buy themselves nothing for the holidays, raising the CAH team about $70,000. I’m equally surprised and confused.
The CAH team certainly knows how to promote its card game by getting its fans to waste money.
I don’t know which is more odd: the idea that the company holds these bizarre Black Friday events, or that it is always succesful. People will never cease to amaze me, especially when it comes to seeing how far people will go to support these holiday events. We can only expect weirder Black Friday events next year by the CAH team.
