Startups

A Drexel dev built an app that lets you pie the presidential candidates

It is somewhat satisfying.

Users can toss pies and other objects at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Photo by Roberto Torres)

Have you ever wanted to chuck a pie directly at Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton (or both) during this election season? With the Angry Voter 2016 app, now you can. Well, kind of.
Angry Voter 2016 allows users to throw virtual pies, snowballs and water balloons at images of both candidates. A counter shows how many times each candidate was hit.


Drexel senior Mansoor Siddiqui developed the app, which Marc Kramer, the St. Joseph University professor of entrepreneurship who runs Angel Venture Fair, dreamed up. Siddiqui’s been programming since he was 11 years old and runs an education startup called Project One. He said this is his first “standalone, personal project app.” 
The free app is available for iOS and Android.
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Angry Voter 2016 is meant to provide a humorous release for voters during the stressful election season.
“[People] watch the debates and feel pretty tense, and they look for funny moments like Ken Bone at the last debate,” Siddiqui said. “It lets them vent frustration in harmless way.”
The app took about a week-and-a-half to develop and met initial resistance from the Apple Store, Siddiqui said.
Siddiqui said the Apple Store told him the app was defamatory, but he made the argument that using the candidates’ real photos was remaining truthful to reality. (We weren’t able to independently confirm this with Apple.)
Post-election, Siddiqui said he hopes to add updates to the app showing a final tally of the votes and outlining voters’ frustrations.
“Once everyone vents, it may open the path for conversations … about issues,” he said, “instead of yelling at each other about who’s the worst candidate.”
Siddiqui said he may also use the same model and apply it to different situations like local elections or personal disputes where users can personalize the app with their own photos.
Our take? The app is fairly simplistic and not as satisfying as throwing a real pie (have y’all tried that before?). Some suggestions to up that satisfaction level: bigger impact from the objects, more interactive options and funnier reactions from the candidates. But the idea is cute and silly and, with a few improvements, may accomplish that short-term stress-relief. Better than a stress ball, maybe.

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