Shock tactics

BRITAIN: Don’t send these to your grandmother. The market for vulgar greetings cards is growing, with more than 2 million of them sold in Britain last year. The rude cards make frequent use of sexual taboo words and messages like “Happy Birthday, Wanker”.

According to the Greeting Card Association (GCA) of Great Britain, the UK greetings card industry is the largest in the world, worth over £1.3 billion a year. People in Britain send an average of 55 cards a year, compared with only 25 a year in the US.

“The success of rude cards reflects the average British person’s growing ease with loose, informal communication,” GCA general manager Sharon Little told The Guardian. Little says that rude cards have always existed. “Only in 2008, a wider group of people are more comfortable with them. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be buying the cards.”

"British people are growing more comfortable with loose, informal communication," says Sharon Little.

Professor Keith Allan, author of the 2006 book Forbidden Words , agrees that Britons today are less easily shocked by bad language. “As sex has become less taboo in society, so have sexual swearwords,” Allan explains. “People simply use them to make their language more vivid. Their words serve no other function but to make their messages stand out.”

Jon Link of Modern Toss , a media company that produces rude comic books, a TV show and greetings cards, says he is thinking of stopping the card range. “It’s depressing when you see a card with just a load of fucks on it,” Link comments. “It’s hard to know where all that will end.”