A Toledo, Ohio TV station reportedly fired seven staffers -- three of them on-air personalities -- for the ghastly crime of playing Cards Against Humanity in the office over the long New Year's weekend.
The station, WTOL- Channel 11, has not confirmed the reports, which first surfaced in the Toledo Blade.
“WTOL takes seriously its employment policies and our obligation to provide an environment in which all employees are treated with respect and dignity," the station said in a statement. It added that it did indeed "take personnel actions" but wouldn't comment on them.
The Blade said the fired on-air staffers were anchor/reporters Trevor Ault and Ali Bradley and meteorologist Kimberly Newman. The others were unnamed. While none have commented about the firings, Bradley posted a photo of an emoji-look-a-like dropping a mic, and fans on her Instagram page wrote that they would find a new news station to watch.
. A photo posted by Ali Bradley (@alibradleytv) on Jan 14, 2016 at 6:29pm PST
And Newman simply tweeted, "All I can say is THANK YOU. I've been so blessed to be your meteorologist for the past 4+years. For now, I'm Kimberly Newman, signing off xo."
All I can say is THANK YOU. I've been so blessed to be your meteorologist for the past 4+years. For now, I'm Kimberly Newman, signing off xo— Kimberly Newman (@KimberlyWXtv) January 13, 2016
Cards Against Humanity, or CAH to its legions of fans, is a self-described "party game for horrible people" that was initially funded by a Kickstarter campaign and has gone on to sell many, many, many copies (while its creators haven't said how many, it has consistently been featured atop of Amazon's best-selling games and toys lists where it has thousands of ratings from customers).
Styled after "Apples to Apples," an award-winning, family-friendly party game that instructs multiple players to match words or phrases on their cards with a common one, the ones included in Cards Against Humanity's ever-growing decks are far more mature.
This has to be the best starting hand I ever got in #cardsagainsthumaniy #epic #fun #thanksgiving #friends #happy A photo posted by Kelly Faria (@whatupkellyf) on Oct 13, 2014 at 3:27pm PDT
Still, it's just a game, and while we wouldn't play it at our grandmother's retirement community, it's a fun icebreaker among colleagues (minus the ones in HR who get offended at the game's off-color jokes).