Broken-Hearted? McKinney Helps You 'Shred Your Ex' for Valentine's Day
Watch Their Photo Be Destroyed Over a Digital Fire
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Valentine's Day is, as we all know, no fun for the broken-hearted. Or indeed those still raging at an ex. So agency McKinney has come up with a way to fuel the fire of revenge: Shred Your Ex.
Here's how it works: you simply instagram or tweet to @ShredYourEx a picture of your ex with the hashtag #ShredYourEx. You can then go to ShredYourEx.tv to watch a live feed of your photo printing directly into a paper shredder above a digital fire. McKinney tells us: "When it's over, the shreds will help keep puppies and kittens warm at a local animal shelter."
There's an interesting technical explanation behind this helping hand for the heartbroken. McKinney explains: "In order to take Instagram and Twitter information from the Web directly to a printer, we hacked the printer API, which uses the Common Unix Printing System (or CUPS). A thin PHP wrapper checks Instagram and Twitter user information for three things: mention of the @ShredYourEx handle, the hashtag #ShredYourEx and one image. If a post contains all three, ShredYourEx sends the image directly to the printer."
ShredYourEx went live this morning and will end at midnight EST on Saturday, Feb. 14. Only one shred in a 24-hour-period per handle or username -- so be judicious in who you decide to decimate.
The project is part of McKinney's Ten Percent program, which encourages employees to devote 10% of their work time to new ideas at the intersection of creativity and technology.