A few weeks ago, the Stanford Flipside created a Stanford-themed version of Cards Against Humanity, titled “Cardinal Against Humanity,” and released it to freshman dorms. The cards contain the original game’s raunchy humor, but with a Stanford spin, with cards like “Hennessey’s chiseled body” or “Sex noises from the RF apartment.”
Why use Cards Against Humanity as their inspiration?
“We played it before at Flipside parties and had a lot of fun,” said the managing editor of the Flipside, Corbin Foucart ’15. “The idea was that we could make a specific game to Stanford, because people tend to make their own cards anyway.”
The idea of creating a full Stanford-themed game came about last year, with the bulk of the work being done in winter quarter. Flipside president Amelia Greenfield ’15 explained that it was a collaborative process, with last year’s staff weeding out cards that were too redundant or too vulgar.
They printed out 30 copies of the final product and distributed them to freshman dorms.
“We figured a lot of freshmen are really excited about being a part of the traditions at Stanford, and we wanted to use the game as partially a recruitment for the Flipside, but also just to build a community in their dorms,” Greenfield said.
One point of contention was that some cards were inside jokes between upperclassmen and weren’t as humorous to freshmen. Normally, freshmen aren’t as versed in things like special fees or specific types of housing, so some didn’t find cards of that nature as amusing.
“I think that’s to be expected, though,” said Shubha Raghvendra ’16, the Twain Peer Health Educator (PHE). “As freshmen, you don’t have as much familiarity with Stanford, so you wouldn’t understand those jokes. But they’ll get funnier and funnier as time goes on.”
“I played the game with my RAs, and we would just ask them to explain cards we didn’t understand,” Burbank resident Litawn Gan ’18 said. “But it was really nice for bringing the dorm together. Sharing those Stanford-specific inside jokes made more of a community feeling.”
Greenfield and Foucart emphasized that the Flipside was “blown away” with the positive reaction the game has garnered thus far.
“It’s that kind of thing that made me fall in love with Stanford in the first place,” FroSoCo resident Carolyn Kravitz ’18 said.
Contact Leela Srinivasan at leelas ‘at’ stanford.edu.