Students and visitors gathered on the Oviatt Lawn to scream away the stress from midterms, work and life in general Thursday, November 2.
A Facebook event simply titled “Screaming” has been circulating the last few months and has acquired over 2,500 responses. Mathew Jota Nuval, a Computer Science major and founder of “CSUN Memes for Critically Depressed Teens” created the event.
“I’ve found other colleges that do all these crazy events and I’m stressed from these midterms and I just want to scream,” Nuval said.
Nuval came prepared with Kripsy Kreme donuts and thanked attendees for coming out. Although the turnout was less than expected, students were thankful for the opportunity to vent.
“I feel like all colors and creeds can relate to screaming,” said Quinn Darrach.
Leslie Sigman found out about the event when her friend, a professor at CSUN, posted that she was interested in going.
“I’m interested in the social experiment, I wanted to check that off my bucket list,” Sigman said. “I wanted to see what this generation is doing now.”
Passerbys curious about the congregation of students stopped and talked to Nuval about the event. He encouraged them to join and bring their friends, or scream from wherever they would be at the scheduled start time. There was some discussion about whether to do the event inside the library, but the group decided against the idea in order to maximize scream time.
People began gathering around the Oviatt at 4 pm, and talked amongst themselves until the screaming began at 4:25 on the Oviatt Lawn.
As the blood curdling echo of screams rang out, a noticeable line of people in the Oviatt pressed against the windows, with some running out to get a better look. Some students were visibly concerned, but began laughing and filming when they realized it wasn’t an emergency but a scheduled event.
“I just saw the page on Facebook and I figured hey, I could miss class, nothing else to do,” said student Josh K.
The scream lasted around a minute, with attendees laughing and jumping across the lawn to unwind. Once everyone was out of breath, participants shook hands, exchanged names, and thanked each other for coming out.
“I feel a whole lot lighter today than I did earlier,” said Monique Leyva after the scream.
Nuval is hosting a similar event on the Oviatt Lawn on January 25th, 2018. “CSUN Naruto Run” follows the example of other colleges, and has already acquired 300+ responses.
