Every night, when the clock strikes 10, the windows of student dormitories in Uppsala, Sweden, open and an entire neighborhood screams. This phenomenon is called the "Flogsta Scream" and is one of the strangest but beloved traditions of Swedish student life.
It's an unusual ritual, which takes place almost every night in the Flogsta area of Uppsala, in which people lean out of their apartment windows at exactly the same time and scream.
The screams last from a few seconds to ten minutes and are never the same.
How did the phenomenon start?
The origins of the cry are not entirely clear. Some argue that it all started in the 1970s or 1980s by physics students at Uppsala who were trying to relieve stress and anxiety during exam season, while others claim that the cry began as an informal tribute to another student who committed suicide.
Flogsta's scream became world famous in 2014, when it was posted on Reddit and then spread via MTV's website.
Although the tradition originally began as a way to relieve stress and anxiety, for many students today it is simply a fun, almost ritualistic, moment of social bonding.
As former Flogsta resident Arvid Cederholm describes it: “I don’t remember it happening every night, but if someone started it, the others would join in. It was more of a fun thing than a stressful one.”
For a young student living alone for the first time in a new city and away from his family, “Flogsta’s Cry” can be more than a game. It is a symbolic integration into the community.
The tradition continues to this day and has spread to other Swedish universities.
Other screams outside Sweden
The “scream” is not limited to Uppsala. In Lappkärrsberget, near Stockholm University, the “Lappkärr Cry” takes place every Tuesday. In the Delphi neighborhood of Lund, students scream at 11 p.m. in a tradition called the “Delphi Roar” or “Elvavrålet,” which translates to “the eleventh hour thunder.”
However, the shouting soon mistakenly transformed from a local custom into a Swedish tradition. Many believed that if you shouted out a window in any city in Sweden, someone would answer you. Of course, this is not the case in all cities in the Scandinavian country.
In other words, someone can't show up, for example, in the center of Gothenburg, start shouting and not expect any similar reaction from the people there. That would just annoy the Swedes who live there... (A2 Televizion)
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