Over 100 Mercer students gathered on the Cruz Plaza lawn at midnight Monday morning to scream as finals week began.
A graphic shared on Instagram from the campus meme account @mercer_yikyaks. (via Instagram)
Although originally a grassroots campaign started on YikYak by student Maya Henry, campus Instagram meme pages started getting the word out to more of the Mercer community.
A senior attendee, Amelia Rivers, said she wanted to scream to let out some stress ahead of finals week.
"It's been a stressful semester, it's been a stressful week," she said. "I feel like there's a lot of merit in some big group cathartic activities, such as screaming. Also, senior year, so let's have some fun."
Caroline Cooke, a senior, also attended.
"I don't get to scream a lot," she said. "I'm a voice major, so it's not encouraged. I thought, why not?"
Seconds before midnight, the crowd counted down and began screaming promptly at midnight and continued for about a full minute.
One student could be heard yelling amongst the screams, "I hate finals! I hate everything! Everything about this is trash! I hate it!"
After the scream, the student, sophomore Micah Leggett, said that it was a good way to "let loose."
"There was no forethought about a speech I was gonna give before it," he said. "I was just like, I'm gonna come here, just have fun."
However, one thing rings true for both Leggett and many other students in attendance: finals start bright and early at 9 a.m.
Mary Helene Hall ‘23 is a journalism and women’s and gender studies student who has worked for The Cluster throughout her time at Mercer. She has held internships at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and AL.com, where she covered a variety of topics including politics, crime and culture.
