You just purchased a new card game, and now you are being marketed the “adult extension pack.” The pack does not add strategy, complexity, or deeper gameplay. It simply adds crude sex jokes and innuendo. While it may seem harmless, the practice of marketing erotica, drugs, and profanity as “adult” may be more harmful than we realize.
“Apples to Apples” has been a family table staple for over two decades. In the game, one player selects an adjective card, and the remaining players choose a noun card they believe best fits the category. The game is simple, social, and accessible to players of all ages. Then came “Cards Against Humanity” (“Cards”).
Marketed as “a party game for horrible people,” Cards follows a structure similar to “Apples to Apples,” but features crude humor about sex, drugs, and violence and extensive vulgar language.
One of Card’s co-creators, Max Temkin, started his career in politics. He began volunteering for Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in high school after hearing Obama speak at an anti-war rally. Temkin worked on a few Democratic campaigns and eventually circled back to his roots, working for the Obama for America presidential campaign. It was during this time that Temkin learned the design skills and campaign funding processes (Kickstarter) that would eventually build Cards Against Humanity. A Polygon article about Temkin’s life notes, “Temkin got into politics to try to bring about change. But in the end, that change didn’t come from politics. It came from games.”
Read the rest of the article at the Daily Wire.
