Cards Against Humanity made its boldest statement yet against the perils of consumerism on Black Friday by, well, giving out the best deals on the Internet. The adult card game’s 99 Percent Off sale offered insane deals for limited quantities of — and sometimes one-of-a-kind — items at absolutely outrageous prices.
The daylong sale was a gimmick more than anything, one that continues a now-annual tradition of offering something strange on Black Friday to mock the concept of the shopping bonanza in the first place. But if you managed to hang around and type fast enough when the timer hit zero and the item(s) actually became available, you got some pretty amazing deals.
There were some extremely rare movie props, luxury items and some outright nonsense available on 99PercentOffSale.com, which was an offshoot of the Cards Against Humanity site. A timer counted down a preview image of what you’re buying, and a guy in a red morph suit somehow interacts with it on a loop until it’s sold.
It looked a little something like this:
The items for sale were a good mix of completely insane, actually valuable and weirdly useful. This Picasso lithograph, for example, would have made a lovely gift at a great price for someone who loves art.
One of the best parts of the deal is that you had to answer a question to prove you’re not a robot before getting to the actual transaction.
For the Picasso lithograph, for example, you just had to know when Picasso died. That’s 1973, by the way, which seems a lot more recent than you’d think. But other questions weren’t so easy.
An $800 Applebees gift card for $8 dollars required you to know the exact calorie count of the Quesadilla Burger, which is, amazingly, exactly what it sounds like. The answer is well north of 1,000 calories, but those seeking the exact number for a chance to buy a bunch of them with the gift card actually crashed the Applebees nutritional website.
As is typical of a game whose the makers are significantly funnier than the friends you have who insist you play it, the concept of actually buying some of these things for extremely cheap was funnier than actually following through and finding a place for them.
There are more than a few examples of this throughout the sale.
Some of these things would be cool to own, though. How about some weird arcade nostalgia for super cheap?
Some of the things for sale were just downright weird. And paired with a person in a morph suit, the image of them repeating on loop as the clock slowly ticked down became downright unsettling.
Some of the items were actually super valuable. Engagement rings, huge TVs and even large stones were all to be had for super cheap if you could enter your credit card information in there quickly enough.
You could also buy live ants! If you had a use for such creatures.
One of the more, uh, interesting items for sale was a sex toy made of precious metals.
The signed picture of Richard Nixon made some waves online, but don’t sleep on the guitar autographed by Jimmy Carter.
And in case you’re skeptical that anything was for sale at all, people flooded social media with confirmation emails when they actually managed to purchase something.
https://twitter.com/thenickguy/status/1066056017019117570
The item in question here was an absolute steal if you have a use for it.
This one is a bit unwieldy but, hey, what a deal.
Same here.
One no-brainer deal was a $100 bill for a dollar. That’s some serious value right there.
Some of these things are so weird, though, even CAH seems bewildered about how they’ll actually get them shipped out to those lucky enough to actually have acquired them.
https://twitter.com/elaineinspired/status/1066121006035558401
I don’t even know how you could eat this, honestly.
The best vacation deal in the history of Black Friday was definitely this trip to Fiji.
There was also a pretty epic trip to Alaska that was great, too. Meanwhile, the movie memorabilia ranged from “hey that’s kind of cool” to “gross.”
In this case, I guess the answer is both of those things.
CAH themselves said that “death is the ultimate savings” but this was actually an excellent deal if you’re in the market for a casket.
The final item for sale was the morph suit of the people who showed off the items all day. Listed for a retail price of $99,999, the $999 price tag seems steep until you realized that buying it would ultimately be a donation to a Chicago food bank. It’s a pretty nice gesture and a way to feel better about watching a stupid deals site all day.
The question they asked to prove you’re not a robot, of course, was about the calorie count of an item on the Applebees menu. It’s a fitting end to a promotion that changed the internet for at least one day. And if you won that enormous inflatable eagle, well, good luck finding a place for it.