For times of satire and political incorrectness: a #1 box of inhumanity and publicity.

I just noticed that the #1 item in the Toys & Games category at Amazon is a card game called Cards Against Humanity. One customer reviewer describes an actual round of the game:

1. The Judge plays a Black Card that says: "Life for the Native Americans was forever changed after the white man introduced them to ____________."
2. All players (exc. the Judge) choose a White Card.
3. After everyone has chosen their White Card, the Judge reviews the responses: "Smallpox Blankets", "Drinking Alone", "A Can of Whoop-Ass", and "Take-Backsies"
(Before you read these and think I'm an awful person, these are actual White Cards that I have seen played on the aforementioned Black Card)
4. The Judge chooses "Drinking Alone" and the player who picked this White Card wins the round.

Masses of people seem to be finding this kind of overt anti-humanitarianism hilarious. Take note. Take note political commentators — you who think the general public will gasp at "schlonged."

Now, Cards Against Humanity is made in China and the company seems to be managing its PR by doing some conspicuously nice things for its workers. The Guardian reports on its "eight sensible gifts for Hanukah" program that funded a paid week off for all of its factory workers. 150,000 customers bought what was a series of unknown items the first 3 of which turned out to be socks, which are indeed sensible. (Socks is the answer Meade gives if you ask him what he wants for Christmas.) You'd think at least one paid week of vacation would already be part of the labor deal, but this company wins smiles and publicity for doing this.

Cards Against Humanity also leveraged favorable publicity from a program called "Give Cards Against Humanity $5," which raised in $71,145 in donations that were distributed to the U.S. employees, whose obligation to say how they spent it made it possible for The Guardian to end its article with cutesy details:

Maria... spent $732 on three bottles of scotch whisky, $800 on a TV, saved $1500 and donated $1153 to the pet charity PAWS. Tom spent $1500 on a custom suit of armour, $589 on a sword, and $125 on swordplay lessons, before donating $1971 to the International Wolf Center in Minnesota. Karlee donated $1027 to Planned Parenthood, and spent $3410 on lubricant, cleaning spray and a 24-karat gold vibrator.

The serious journal Foreign Policy published "Cards Against Humanity Is All For Chinese Workers/The irreverent card game maker claims to have sent Chinese factory workers on a paid vacation." Foreign Policy makes its story about what it properly calls a "publicity campaign." It describes the companies PR mailer, which included "thank-you notes from workers and photos from the vacations that they took." FP put the word "claims" in the headline but not the word "purported" before "thank-you notes."

"This vacation I took my son to the river bank to catch fish, and we also climbed a 600-meter-tall mountain,” wrote one worker, adding that Cards Against Humanity is a “very interesting a card game, but I do not know how to play!” 

On first read, I saw that as an implicit criticism of Americans. We sit inside playing a boxed game and the Chinese worker knows the importance of taking his son on a vigorous, nature-loving trek. On second read, I see it that way too, but with the worker a fictional character in a deliberate satire.

[A] U.S. company that goes out of its way to treat Chinese workers well can also make for effective publicity, despite consumer skittishness towards products made in China. Many are attuned to working conditions in China.... “This doesn’t undo the ways that all of us profit from unfair working conditions around the world,” read an enclosed note in the mailing campaign from Cards Against Humanity, “but it’s a step in the right direction.”