Daniel Xue came to Vista Del Mar, overlooking Ocean Beach, on Saturday afternoon ready to scream. Wearing a black shirt that read “psycho bunny” down the sleeves and a red durag, he stepped up to a line in the sand and stared a man in a referee’s jersey in the eyes. Then, he went wild, arms flexing into a Hulk-like pose as he belted out a scream that sounded like a soul leaving a body.
Xue was surrounded by over 100 other people who flocked to this scenic overlook for one purpose: to yell at the top of their lungs. The event, dubbed “Guttural Scream at the Sea,” was organized by Danielle Egan, a local mischief maker behind projects ranging from the Pursuit scavenger hunt to Advice Line to a fake NYC steakhouse. She also co-founded a startup called Outernet, which encourages people to spend more time off their devices.
“I felt like I needed a really good scream, and I think it’d be more fun with other people. There’s a lot of things to scream about in this day and age, so I figured we’d just get a lot of different people together and scream,” Egan said, after passing out stickers and small zines to attendees.
Danielle Egan, announces the winners of the guttural scream at the sea contest at Vista Del Mar overlooking Ocean Beach in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
A participant screams during the guttural scream contest portion of the event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
Attendees warm up their vocal chords before the guttural scream at the sea even at Vista Del Mar overlooking Ocean Beach in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
In addition to an opportunity for some seaside screaming, participants were encouraged to bring freshly-cut fruit to share.
Before the cathartic group scream, there was also a competitive round for individuals. The best scream – judged on volume, length and style – would be gifted a small megaphone (as if the winner needed it). After some group vocal warmups, people queued up to compete. The screams were uniformly uninhibited but diverse in nature, ranging from animalistic howls to monstrous shrieks and tortured yells.
“I would say [they were] primarily pretty guttural, we do say guttural scream at the sea,” Egan said. “But people also got a bit performance-based. Some of them were more lyrical than others, some were deep, some were higher pitched. I think people put a lot of personality into the screams.”
Devin Kasper screams during the guttural scream contest portion of the event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
Everyone seemed to have different inspirations for frying their vocal cords. Xue said he wanted to express “pure hatred, anger, every negative emotion that I’d ever felt.”
“I moved to the Bay Area, and then I got laid off three months in,” said Xue, describing his job in clinical manufacturing. “Now I’m stuck with rent that I can’t break without paying a break fee. I’m hella pissed off.”
Liz Gulli screams during the guttural scream contest portion of the event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
For Liz Gulli, who lives in the Sunset, her scream was “from the heart, from the gut.” She used to love yelling from the sidelines while in marching band, and rarely gets the opportunity these days except at concerts. “There’s more joy in my scream, I guess,” she said.
Kyana Van Houten, an executive director of an arts nonprofit who lives in Haight-Ashbury, earned second place for her scream, which clocked in at 6.78 seconds, reached 114.3 decibels and earned the highest style points of any contestant. Her scream had been a long time coming, a mix of existential angst and frustration, but like Gulli, it also had a layer of joy. Her strategy went out the window once it came time to let loose.
“I was thinking of going high to low, but I didn’t really get to the low part. I feel like you can plan ahead, but then when you get there and they say go, your brain shuts off and your body takes over and what comes out is meant to come out,” Van Houten said.
Kyana Van Houten, center, wins second place for her scream into the Pacific Ocean at the guttural scream at the sea event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
A participant screams during the guttural scream contest portion of the event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
Olivia Gugliemotto won first place with a scream that hit 121.9 decibels. For context, the world record for loudest scream is 129 decibels, held by Jill Drake from the United Kingdom (it should be noted that the human ear perceives volume to double for every 10 decibels).
“I have screamed at the ocean before. And I grew up screaming at Lake Erie, so I have a lot of practice,” she said. She thought she likely earned style points for clenching her fists in rage, but the key to her success was probably the array of different topics that inspired her scream.
“The world in general,” she said of her inspiration. “I live far away from my family. That makes me sad. Capitalism, the environment, genocide, a lot of things.”
Olivia Gugliemotto, the winner of the guttural scream at the sea event contest, performs an encore scream for the crowd at Vista del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
The youngest participant competes in the guttural scream contest portion of the event at Vista Del Mar in San Francisco, on Sept. 12, 2026. (Lizzy Myers/SFGATE)
After the competition came the group scream, an oscillating chorus of voices that ebbed and flowed over the course of around 60 seconds. Although many entries into the individual competition simmered with rage, the group scream felt more like an act of camaraderie: one hundred voices joining in unison, projected out over a shimmering sea before enjoying some fruit.
This article originally published at Guttural scream contest comes to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.