Cards Against Humanity. Scam or Not?

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/15711676205

Hi there, Let’s say that I am looking to finagle some income for myself, as in: I’m following links on the internet that promise jobs. Sometimes you come across posts like Cards Against Humanity is looking for Contributing Writers. I’m not going to make any accusations. I will simply explain why this kind of “Job Advertisement” gives me the creeps…

Facts

So these people make an implied promise to hire the best joke-writers for $40/hour on an “as needed – which is sometimes” basis, not much of a promise, really, but maybe enough to get an aspiring writers hopes up…

The ad encourages “particularly people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ+ community”

The submission form asks for name, email, age, place of residence, your “right to work” and 15 of you best ideas.

Here are my suspicions.

  1. The advertiser is likely under no legal obligation to give you credit or remuneration, if they were to like any of your 15 best ideas and use them in some version of the game… (The game is published using a CC license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
  2. They have absolutely no interest in you. They make you fill some personal info into the form (name, email, age, right to legally work in the US) to make you assume that they actually are looking to employ and even pay you.
  3. They reach out specifically to marginalized communities in order mine them for ideas, without intent of ever compensating them. Quite the opposite: Members of those communities will then be expected to give them money for a printed version of their own ideas.

Think about it!