If a human scream is broadcast from a speaker into the isolated Icelandic wilderness, but no one is around to hear it, did it happen?
The simple act of screaming is having a bit of a renaissance in 2020, with a seemingly unending cycle of bad news leaving people feeling a little more stressed than usual.
Screaming - that is, releasing a long, loud, piercing cry as way of expressing extreme emotion or pain - emerged into public discourse recently after a Japanese amusement park encouraged visitors to "scream inside your heart" while on one of their roller-coasters, so as to help minimise the spread of COVID-19.
Naturally, the idea of screaming inside one's heart struck a chord of resonance with social media users everywhere - even inspiring a tourism campaign in Iceland.
A new app and website from Promote Iceland, a government tourism initiative, uses present-day stress as a way of highlighting all that Iceland has to offer - that is, in a hypothetical future at which travel is once again safe.
Forming part of a campaign called Looks Like You Need Iceland, the app encourages users from around the world to unleash their pandemic frustrations as a scream, with the promise that all screams will be broadcast from speakers in the Icelandic wilderness.
"It's all fun and screams, until a hoard of Viking ghosts get woken from the dead, and go on a zombie raid of the townsfolk," one social media user responded.
Others were concerned about shocking Iceland's fauna.
One concerned Twitter user wrote: "Imagine being a wild animal chillin in your home with your family and then out of nowhere humans take over and just start screaming, and it had absolutely nothing to do with you n you can no longer go about your day without hearing screams echoing everywhere you turn."
Still, for many it was just what the doctor had ordered.
"This is the app I’ve been waiting for," someone responded to news of the app. "Thank you."
You can learn more about the campaign below:
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