Comedy Website ClickHole to Become Independent and Employee-Owned in Partnership with Cards Against HumanityFEBRUARY 3RD, 2020 (CHICAGO) — Cards Against Humanity has purchased the comedy website ClickHole from G/O Media and reincorporated it as an independent, majority employee-owned company. The deal closed Tuesday February 3rd.
The Clickhole staff will own a substantial majority stake in the company, and Cards Against Humanity will own a minority stake. The purchase price has not been disclosed. The entire staff will move over.
“We are thrilled that Cards Against Humanity has made the very ill-advised financial decision to give us the funding we need to buy business supplies, such as staplers and TI-83 graphing calculators,” ClickHole said. “They are giving us the rare opportunity to work with total creative freedom and to run our business with zero oversight, which will undoubtedly result in us bankrupting our company. This can only end in disaster.”
“ClickHole is probably the funniest thing we’re aware of,” Cards Against Humanity community manager Jenn Bane said. “We have been huge fans of the site since it launched, and everyone in our company can recite at least a few ClickHole articles from memory”
With the acquisition comes ClickHole’s content archive, dating back to its founding in 2014. The Onion created the site at the same time it decided to stop its print edition and focus on web content. The site parodies social media and viral content on sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy.
“ClickHole is a big honking comedy website whose main goal is to create the funniest things possible,” ClickHole continued. “We believe in experimenting and trying new things in order to produce a unique type of content that you can’t find anywhere else, even on TV or at the opera. Our goal is to be more funny than the animals at the zoo, and if we can do that, we believe we can become the most powerful website in the world. We are also the only website in the world with Treasure, and we guard it jealously. It is our deeply held belief that protecting our Treasure is the key to creating a successful website.”
Cards Against Humanity and ClickHole will continue to operate as separate businesses. Cards Against Humanity will not play a role in day-to-day management of the site; however, the game company will supply ClickHole with cash to support operations.
“ClickHole has accumulated this once-in-a-generation team of comedy talent,” Cards co-creator Max Temkin said. “We’re not going to tell them how to run their business. Our goal is just to give them every creative tool that we have.”
The current ClickHole website is temporary, and the staff plans to relaunch the site and its story archive on a new platform.
“We are grateful that CAH is giving us the support we need to continue being the only website on the entire internet with Treasure,” ClickHole said. “ClickHole’s Treasure consists of gold, rubies, doubloons, diamonds, sapphires, and many other beautiful gems and precious metals. Nobody is allowed to touch our Treasure, but people are allowed to look at our Treasure. If you try to steal our Treasure, we will put a curse on you. Thank you for your cooperation. Long live ClickHole.”
“We don’t want to be a publisher and we’re not really thinking of this as an investment with a huge return,” Temkin said. “We just want ClickHole to be around for 100 years.”
About Cards Against Humanity
Cards Against Humanity is an independent game company based in Chicago. It is the best-reviewed, top-selling, and most-wished-for toy or game on Amazon.com. Today the company operates a coworking space for more than 100 independent artists in Chicago (named one of the Chicago’s coolest offices by Crain’s); a scholarship for women seeking college degrees in science; and a political super-PAC. They also own a private island in a lake in Maine which was purchased for comedic purposes. The Chicago Sun-Times said their business has “the sophistication of a lemonade stand.”
About ClickHole
ClickHole is a satirical publication that regularly breaks the internet with its incredible, life-changing viral content. Launched by The Onion in 2014, the site has amassed millions of loyal readers and has been hailed in the press as “literally the best website,” “the institutional voice of the internet,” and “the weirdest—and funniest—place on the internet.” ClickHole's five-person staff includes editor-in-chief Steve Etheridge, head writer Adam Levine, associate editor Jewel Galbraith, staff writer Jessye McGarry, and writer-at-large Jacy Catlin.