AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

July 17, 2020 11:57 AM

Iceland Invites the World to Scream It Out. You’ve been through a lot this year and it looks like you need the perfect place to let your frustrations out. Somewhere big, vast and untouched. It looks like you need Iceland. Record your scream and we’ll release it in Iceland’s beautiful, wide-open spaces. And when you’re ready, come let it out for real. You’ll feel better, we promise.
posted by sunset in snow country (36 comments total)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Iceland?
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:01 PM on July 17, 2020 [9 favorites]

Oh, sure, remind me that I'm trapped inside a sinking plague ship.
posted by aramaic at 12:07 PM on July 17, 2020 [6 favorites]

I'd love to do this but would get in trouble if people hear me screaming.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:17 PM on July 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

I had that thought, too. I also might not stop.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:20 PM on July 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

I saw a local version of coronavirus rage rooms on the news last night, but when I went to find it just now I learned that they're everywhere.
posted by rhizome at 12:21 PM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

And I would feel really bad if lovely Iceland would fill up with screams and just be screams everywhere, all the time.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:21 PM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

Everything I know about Iceland comes from Scandinavia and the World.

I feel I am better informed than your average American in this regard.

I will probably send them a scream.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:36 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I saw a local version of coronavirus rage rooms on the news last night, but when I went to find it just now I learned that they're everywhere.

Which is unfortunate because there is reason to think rage rooms are unhelpful at best and harmful at worst, though I can't find peer-reviewed studies on the subject.
posted by jedicus at 12:38 PM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

Nice post, but the title breaks the formatting of the home page.
posted by sjswitzer at 12:44 PM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

Kirkjufell!
posted by clavdivs at 12:53 PM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

Isn't this what Metal and Punk are for?
posted by kmartino at 1:07 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

okay since we're talking about iceland things that help stave off panic in our troubled times, i feel compelled to link to what would have been iceland's eurovision song if eurovision had happened this year.

the song is about is the newborn baby of a couple of the band members and omg anyone who would write this song is automatically a great parent
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:09 PM on July 17, 2020 [11 favorites]

I saw this commercial last night and burst into tears so apparently I am in dire need of a good scream.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:26 PM on July 17, 2020 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I watched the video and it made me laugh and then I almost started crying so I guess I'm not doing great.

I feel like the first few months post covid I was all about routine and healthy habits and everywhere I looked people were talking about mental health and checking in on each other. It feels like we're not talking about it as much anymore-- is that because people are feeling better now that lockdowns are easing up or is it because we're all collectively slipping too deep into depression to talk about it anymore?

Anyway, I can't think of anywhere I could go scream where someone wouldn't hear me so I'm going to go for an angry run instead.
posted by geegollygosh at 1:30 PM on July 17, 2020 [8 favorites]

that scene from Network
posted by smcameron at 2:16 PM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

The idea that the Icelandic tourism board has placed speakers out in the countryside which will emit screams at random times is so spectacularly irksome to the actual people who go to these sites or live nearby that I’ve talked to people who just refuse to believe this is real.

I listened to a radio discussion this morning with a marketing person who completely ignored the part that makes people angry, the screaming boxes, and just talked as if Icelanders were annoyed that this wasn’t a traditional advertising campaign. The other pro-screaming box talking point is apparently that people dislike that this campaign was created by an international advertising firm.

Everybody likes the ads, no one cares who made them, what people don’t like is having your hike or stroll ruined by a goddamn screaming box that’s been put there as an advertising stunt.
posted by Kattullus at 3:03 PM on July 17, 2020 [14 favorites]

Yeah, locals being annoyed by this makes a lot of sense. I think the marketing folks or whomever is hired to actually implement the details should just consider this ad campaign a type of placebo where they claim they’re going to air all the screams out into the wilderness but of course absolutely in no way do it. We screamers won’t know the difference and you delightful folks in Iceland will not have to be tormented by the screams of foreign strangers. Potentially both groups will get to sleep better at night. I would call that a win win.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:13 PM on July 17, 2020 [10 favorites]

Record your scream and we’ll release it in Iceland’s beautiful, wide-open spaces.

But will they have electronic dance music in the background?
posted by pwnguin at 3:22 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Huh. If some ad company tried this in rural parts of the US, people would probably just shoot at the screaming boxes.
posted by selfmedicating at 4:28 PM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

Tried this with my kid and one of his friends. It was cathartic.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:48 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

i mean okay screaming boxes in the wilderness are clearly a bad idea. nevertheless, it's kind of hilarious that at a time when american tourists can't visit iceland, iceland has nevertheless found a way to provide a high-proof distilled version of what it's like to have american tourists around.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:03 PM on July 17, 2020 [18 favorites]

like the only way it could be better is if it were also somehow possible to sell sweaters and stuffed puffin toys to the screaming boxes in the wilderness.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:08 PM on July 17, 2020 [6 favorites]

Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon: A screaming comes across the Iceland...
posted by hippybear at 6:36 PM on July 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

@pwnguin; “ But will they have electronic dance music in the background?”

I raise; 1 hour remix of nothing but Jimmy Barnes screaming.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:23 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

The idea that the Icelandic tourism board has placed speakers out in the countryside which will emit screams at random times is...

...so spectacularly brilliant that I can barely speak but to think of it. Similar speakers should be bolted to the median of all the highways in the US, and also in any location which has both a cross and a flag within 10ft of each other. The system will select a random speaker to play the latest submitted scream, and once a center point is selected every other speaker within one mile will emit the same scream.

Maybe say no speaker can play a sound within five minutes of having played a sound, just to reduce the level of mass suicides that may result. Not eliminate, mind, merely reduce.
posted by aramaic at 7:32 PM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

In Iceland everyone can hear you scream
posted by kinnakeet at 12:44 AM on July 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

a high-proof distilled version of what it's like to have american tourists around
Too true. Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon, flagged as fantastic.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:05 AM on July 18, 2020

thanks, I hate it
posted by myotahapea at 3:14 AM on July 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

what people don’t like is having your hike or stroll ruined by a goddamn screaming box

Since a screaming box is what it's like inside my head all the time, I think everyone should get to share the experience.

Plus, I've always though that what wildness needs is more random screaming.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:36 AM on July 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

Everybody likes the ads, no one cares who made them, what people don’t like is having your hike or stroll ruined by a goddamn screaming box that’s been put there as an advertising stunt.

I live and report in Iceland, and can confirm that this is universally regarded by the locals as a horrible idea and no one has anyone idea why IBI came up with this scheme. But as we can't even convince tourists to stay away from the Death Beach, I doubt our objections to wilderness scream boxes are going to be listened to, either.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 12:35 PM on July 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

I had not actually entertained the idea that the speakers were real.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:57 PM on July 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

It may be that I've been missing a lot of sleep lately (that and the continual screaming inside my head), but my first thought when I saw this was that those screaming boxes will really piss off the elves.
posted by Fuchsoid at 4:54 PM on July 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I feel like the first few months post covid I was all about routine and healthy habits and everywhere I looked people were talking about mental health and checking in on each other. It feels like we're not talking about it as much anymore-- is that because people are feeling better now that lockdowns are easing up or is it because we're all collectively slipping too deep into depression to talk about it anymore?

In my circles we never even did the former, and we're definitely all neck-deep in the latter now.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:40 PM on July 19, 2020

And I would feel really bad if lovely Iceland would fill up with screams and just be screams everywhere, all the time.

What about the fact that it's Icelandic for "hello?" /s
posted by rhizome at 12:48 PM on July 19, 2020

But as we can't even convince tourists to stay away from the Death Beach

I visited at the start of this year (NYE watching the fireworks over Akureyri), and initially thought people must have been exaggerating the insanity of some tourists.

Kind of got disabused of that notion by seeing people at the diamond and black sand beaches. Walk past a load of multi-lingual and pictogram signs detailing the dangers of surprise waves, and how people have died. Then seeing people posing right at the water's edge.
posted by MattWPBS at 3:29 PM on July 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm confused. Have I missed something or did we really just get through a thread about Iceland and surprisingly therapeutic screaming without anyone referencing Björk - It's oh so quiet?
posted by Eleven at 6:56 AM on July 21, 2020