More than 100 participants gathered Saturday at a scenic overlook above San Francisco's Ocean Beach for an unusual form of emotional release: screaming at the Pacific. "Guttural Scream at the Sea," organized by local creative Danielle Egan, turned collective frustration into a competition, with points awarded for volume, duration, and style. After some vocal warmups, participants took turns unleashing their best howls, shrieks and primal yelps.
Olivia Gugliemotto took the top prize with a 121.9-decibel scream, coming surprisingly close to the 129-decibel world record. Kyana Van Houten placed second with a 6.78-second, 114.3-decibel blast, while Daniel Xue, who had recently been laid off after moving to the Bay Area, put plenty of personal frustration into his performance. The complaints behind the screams included money woes, romantic problems, environmental concerns, and being far from family.
The event ended with a roughly one-minute communal scream, followed by fresh fruit. Perhaps it was primal scream therapy on a grander scale, the collective frustrations of a city briefly hurled into the wind and surf, where the ocean could buffer and absorb them.