More than 100 people climbed the bluff at Vista Del Mar above San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Saturday afternoon for one purpose: to scream, together, at the Pacific Ocean.
The gathering, called "Guttural Scream at the Sea," was organized by local resident Danielle Egan, who told SFGate she simply wanted a good scream and figured it would be more fun with company. "There's a lot of things to scream about in this day and age," she said, "so I figured we'd just get a lot of different people together and scream." A flyer for the event listed a few of those things outright: rent, artificial intelligence, and unspecified "anger," alongside the simple fact that screaming "feels good."
Judged on Volume, Length and Style
Before the group scream, organizers ran an individual contest judged on volume, length and style, with a small megaphone going to the winner. Olivia Gugliemotto took first place with a scream that hit 121.9 decibels — within shouting distance of the roughly 129-decibel world record for loudest human shout. She told reporters her scream was aimed at "the world in general," citing distance from family, "capitalism, the environment, genocide, a lot of things." Second place went to Kyana Van Houten, whose 6.78-second, 114.3-decibel entry earned the highest marks for style.
Attendees were asked to bring fresh-cut fruit to share before the main event, turning the bluff into an impromptu picnic ahead of the collective yell. The event drew coverage from UPI's Odd News wire and quickly circulated on social media, joining a small but recurring genre of organized public screaming events that have popped up in cities on both coasts in recent years as informal, no-cost stress relief.
Egan, who has organized other offbeat Bay Area meetups under the banner of a group called Outernet, gave no indication the scream would become an annual fixture, but said the turnout suggested plenty of San Franciscans were ready to let something out.
