IT might be the unlikeliest instructional video ever, but footage of two Japanese amusement park executives demonstrating how to “scream inside your heart” to avoid spreading Covid-19 while on a roller coaster has been a roaring success.

“Now, our customers stay silent while riding the roller coasters,” a spokesman for amusement park operator Fujikyuko told AFP, after the video on riding etiquette in the coronavirus era went viral.

It features the executives, one in a full suit and tie, and the other in a shirt and bowtie, sitting stiff-backed and straight-faced in silence, with the only sounds coming from the whipping of the wind and grinding of the roller coaster.

As they plunge downwards, one executive serenely readjusts his hair and mask, but otherwise, both remain stoically silent, even as they sway violently in the coaster car.

At the end of the ride, one lifts his hands off the seat handles, visibly trembling. A black screen follows, featuring advice that some social media users have dubbed a slogan for 2020: “Scream inside your heart.”

The video was first posted last month as virus restrictions eased and reopening theme parks asked visitors to avoid screaming and observe social distancing.

“Even though the amusement park association’s guidelines ask you to ‘refrain from speaking loudly’, we have received complaints that it is ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’, so Fujikyu Highland offers a good example,” said the operator on its website with the video.

It promised customers able to stay silent a discount on photos taken of them on the park’s signature Fujiyama coaster, which plunges riders from a height of more than 71m.

On Twitter, the footage delighted viewers in Japan and around the world.

“This video is great fun,” said a Japanese user.

Others lauded the theme park for inadvertently summarising the way many have felt after months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Literally the best description of 2020 I’ve ever read: please scream inside your heart,” said a Twitter user. – AFP, July 14, 2020.