- Black Friday 2018 is upon us, and that means a new marketing stunt from Cards Against Humanity, which has repeatedly satirized the retail holiday.
- The company behind the popular card game launched 99percentoffsale.com, a website that sells items such as a $20 bill, a 17th-century spear, a life-size cutout of Orlando Bloom, and a mahogany casket for 99% off.
- The company’s cofounders have not been shy with their hatred of Black Friday and have pulled off incredibly successful pranks in the past to commemorate the holiday.
“Holy f— have we got some deals,” a new website from the makers of Cards Against Humanity reads. “Don’t be frightened by the deals. Just click and let the savings wash over you.”
While many of the items sold on 99percentoffsale.com could be seen as prank gifts – like a life-size cutout of Orlando Bloom, a portable sauna, or a medieval weapon – the site is also selling some pricey items: a marked-down used car, 85-inch smart TVs, and an engagement ring.
This has, of course, raised some questions on social media about the legitimacy of the sales (and whether the items exist in the first place), but the FAQs found at the bottom of the website insist the products are “actually available.”
Cards Against Humanity’s cofounder, Max Temkin, also confirmed the legitimacy of the deals in an email to Business Insider.
"We have most of these items in hand at the office here (and our office is filled with crazy stuff right now)," Max Temkin said in an email to Business Insider. "This is 100% real and possibly a very bad idea."
The items sold on the website are available in extremely limited quantities and, in some cases, are "one-off" items, Temkin said.
Every 10 minutes, a new product goes live on the website. Here are some of the items that have been sold so far for Black Friday:
A creepy geriatric medical doll.
A royal throne for important business.
For when you need to churn your own butter like they did back in the day.
Fly like an eagle with this guy.
A mask for your next Jason-inspired Halloween costume ... or for facial rejuvenation.
A really really huge disco ball for your next party.
A Mean Girls poster you can get for $8 here instead of $800 off eBay.
The original Coneheads cone head, apparently.
An emerald for whatever you need an emerald for.
Its main selling point is it's signed by Jimmy Carter
A Barack Obama bust.
An arcade game, "Big Bertha."
A golden dildo.
A crystal harp.
A really, really gigantic gummy worm.
Just 500 pounds of beans.
A cheese wheel.
A La-Z-Boy recliner straight out of Joey's living room in "Friends."
Gucci slippers, with goat hair.
An all-expenses-paid vacation to Fiji.
A stroller for both of your cats.
A home gym.
A mahogany casket if you're trying to save money for the afterlife.
An Applebee's gift card for $800 worth of $1 margaritas.
A portable sauna that looks like a big piece of luggage.
An actual used car with 25,000 miles on it.
A life-size Orlando Bloom cut-out, which is pretty expensive at face value.
The flight suit from "Independence Day," complete with helmet and boots.
A $100 bill sold for $1.
A Renaissance-age spear.
An engagement ring with a synthetic diamond.
An incredibly huge 85-inch 4K smart TV.
A hair-dryer attachment, but you need to buy your own hair dryer.
A poncho for when you need the facilities immediately.
A $20 bill.
An original Picasso-signed drawing.
The site's "Deal of the Day" is a Cards Against Humanity item: a 300-card "Absurd Box" expansion pack.
People have been running into issues getting their orders to process.
Some users, including at Business Insider, have reported issues with the website recognizing their shipping address as a legitimate place in the US (the website would not recognize BI's offices in New York or San Francisco as valid shipping addresses).
However, some who successfully landed a deal from the site have posted their email confirmations to Twitter.
Boom! pic.twitter.com/hTbD75oaOW
— Edgar Diaz de Leon (@EDiazdeLeon) November 23, 2018
Woah I actually got one! @CAH https://t.co/THshamrMa4 pic.twitter.com/0ksZAsNKvd
— bcterps (@bcterps) November 23, 2018
Cards Against Humanity has a long history of pulling similar pranks for Black Friday and other special occasions.
Here are some of the other stunts Cards Against Humanity has pulled off in the past:
- The company bought land along the US-Mexico border last year to get in the way of President Donald Trump's proposed wall.
- For Black Friday 2017, the company joked it was moving away from its popular card game to instead sell "Original Prongles" potato chips.
- They bought a pricey advertisement slot for Super Bowl 2017, and what they aired was just a potato with the word "advertisement" on it.
- For Black Friday 2016, they asked people to donate money to dig a giant hole - and they raised more than $100,000.
- The Nuisance Committee, a super PAC backed by Cards Against Humanity, funded two billboards that appeared in October 2016: one comparing Trump to a troll in the online game "Overwatch," and the other written in Arabic for the sake of "driving Trump nuts."
- Cards Against Humanity launched the OK Cookie Company in August 2016 that let you ship mean fortune cookies to your friends.
- For Black Friday 2015, the company made thousands of dollars from people paying $5 to get literally nothing in return.
- For Black Friday 2014, the company sold out of 30,000 boxes of bull poop.
For Black Friday deals on more popular items, you can follow Business Insider's full coverage here.