Have you been bubbling up your emotions this week? Do you have a burning desire to let it all out? Do you wish you had an outlet to just let loose?
Fear not, because such an outlet exists — for a limited time. Just Scream is a phone service that lets you do exactly that: just scream. Call +1-561-567-8431, wait for the beep, and scream (or sing, or rant) your heart out.
Just Scream was created by teacher, artist, and coder Chris Gollmar. Gollmar had prior produced similar voicemail and call-driven projects such as NOISE, where he told participants to ramble for two minutes, and Call-In Special, where people recorded whatever they wanted. The line is free to call, but you can donate to help pay for the service.
“Last fall I was looking for a creative project to work on in my spare time. I’ve done a few projects in this format, where I ask folks to call in and record something,” Gollmar told Mashable in an email. “I thought people would really respond to screaming because of the stress of the pandemic and US presidential election.”
Thus, Just Scream was born. The number launched Oct. 24 last year, less than two weeks before the presidential election. The number has received 55,000 calls, which Gollmar screens to put on the project’s website. Many are available to listen to here, and range from actual screams to baby coos to renditions of “The Circle of Life.”
Gollmar said there was a major increase in recordings the couple days before Thanksgiving and Christmas. Calls have been up since the new year, which Gollmar attributes to getting attention on TikTok.
“This project was really meant to reflect a single point in time”
Now, the line receives 3,000 to 4,000 calls a day, though not everyone leaves an actual recording.
Just Scream ends Jan. 21, the day after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Gollmar said this was purposeful. “This project was really meant to reflect a single point in time, that period between election and inauguration when—in addition to all the stress we’re already feeling because of the pandemic—there is heightened political anxiety in the US,” he said.
Don’t worry, though. While the number won’t be accepting new scream recordings, the site will exist in “more-or-less” in the same form it does now, Gollmar assured. Further, the line will remain open for people to record messages of hope. There’s already a collection of Hope calls on Just Scream’s site.
Eventually, Gollmar wants to figure out a way for others to explore and learn from the scream recordings, though he doesn’t know what that’ll look like yet. For now, he’ll keep listening to the backlog of screams — and we can keep screaming.