Divergent Scream

Submission 2,129

Part of a series on Shailene Woodley. [View Related Entries]

About

The Divergent Scream, also known as the Shailene Woodley Scream, Beatrice Prior Scream or Divergent Jump, refers to a scene from the 2015 film Insurgent (a part of the Divergent film series) in which actress Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior jumps off a building and screams. Her voice cracks in both screams sounding raspy and lowbrow. Many made fun of the screams because they sounded out of place. On TikTok in 2024, Shailene Woodley's scream became a TikTok sound and TikTok meme.

Origin

On March 16th, 2015, the Divergent film The Divergent Series: Insurgent was released in American theaters.^[1] In one scene, the character Beatrice Prior, played by actress Shailene Woodley, jumps off a building to grab a rope and screams when in the air. Later in the scene, she emits a similar scream (seemingly the same scream) when jumping to another building. The scene was posted to YouTube^[9] on July 14th, 2016, by the channel Movieclips, receiving over 1.1 million views in eight years (shown below).

On December 23rd, 2023, TikToker^[2] @logant167 posted a video of herself watching the scene, writing in text overlay, "the worst scream I've ever heard…and they used it twice 😭😭😭," receiving over 18.5 million plays and 2.2 million likes in five months (shown below).

Spread

On March 19th, 2024, the TikTok^[3] account of Lionsgate (the entertainment company) posted the two clips of Shailene Woodley's scream, captioned, "how i scream in my nightmares." Over two months, the video received roughly 10.6 million plays and 1.2 million likes (shown below, left).

The video spawned a TikTok sound^[4] that was used by many. For instance, an early viral example was posted by TikToker^[5] @lillthicky on March 20th, 2024, who made a Fortnite joke about, "fortnite mfs randomly getting snatched by the chain of hades," earning over 2.9 million plays and 612,100 likes in two months (shown below, right).

The trend spread elsewhere on social media during the same timeframe. For instance, on April 20th, 2024, Instagram^[6] user @yasmine_sahid shared a Reel in which she parodied the scream, also greenscreening herself to be jumping towards a flying helicopter. Over one month, the Reel gained roughly 16,200 likes (shown below).

Also on April 20th, 2024, YouTuber^[7] @tyler_warwick posted a similar video in which he parodied the scream and scene, receiving over 38,000 views in one month (shown below).

Viral videos using the Divergent Scream sound persisted on TikTok^[8] in May 2024. By May 14th, 2024, the trend's primary TikTok sound^[4] had amassed over 6,100 posts.