This is a submission for the DEV April Fools Challenge
🎤 Scream to Adjust volume or Skip Ads (But You Can’t)
Because clearly, the problem with modern apps is that they don’t make you scream enough.
What I Built
I built a completely unnecessary, emotionally draining, and technically over-engineered web app where:
You control volume by screaming into your microphone
The louder you scream, the higher the volume goes
And just when things start working…
👉 You get hit with ads you cannot skip
Not because you don’t deserve control…
But because this app doesn’t believe in it.
Demo
Try it yourself (preferably not at 2AM near your family):
👉 [Try it yourself (preferably not at 2AM near your family):
👉 https://mic-driven-slider.vercel.app/](https://mic-driven-slider.vercel.app/)
Code
https://github.com/preeti-3/music-player
How I Built It
This masterpiece of uselessness is powered by:
- React – for building a surprisingly serious UI
- Web Audio API – to detect how loud you scream
- Custom smoothing + noise filtering – so your fan doesn’t control the volume
- State machine logic – to decide when to ruin your experience with ads
- CSS animations – for glitch effects, screen shake, and general chaos
Key Technical Bits:
- Real-time microphone input processing
- RMS-based volume detection
- Exponential smoothing to reduce noise fluctuation
- Volume → UI mapping (0–100 scale)
- Event-triggered fake ad system
Ironically, building something this useless required… decent engineering.
Top comments (9)
Very funny! Not much for my cat and my neightbours ;p)
Haha 😂 apologies to your cat and neighbors!
I might need to add a “silent screaming mode” in the next version.
I think there's no need to. It has to be like that!! AAAAAAAAAAAH!
AAAAAAAAAAAH accepted ✅
Volume detected: 92% → triggering more ads…
Wow, my voice is so powerful :p :)
Absolutely 😄
We’re considering using your voice as the benchmark for max performance testing now.
Ok, my cachet is 1000$ per scream :D
lololol
That’s the exact reaction I was optimizing for 😂