This Yale student made his 5-day mumps quarantine into the greatest Snapchat story
One Yale student is on his way to becoming widely recognized as the first-ever critically acclaimed Snapchat-only filmmaker. Yale University freshman Tarek Ziad was stuck in mumps quarantine for five days. With nothing to do but watch TV, eat 3 Musketeers, and interact with his sterile environs, he took to his smart phone.
Over the course of five days, he composed a riveting comedrama in which he shows his slow descent into a hilarious madness.
He creates an infomercial on gloves that come in blue, blue, and blue. He admonishes Phil, a gay pillow, for hiding in the closet. He enacts firm boundaries with Sally, an inflated latex glove. He welcomes listeners to Mumps Talk, NPR’s newest radio show. And revels at the plethora of containers.
“I’ve got to say, if there’s one thing Yale Health has going for it it’s the abundance and variety of containers—we’ve got this pink container, and then this slightly smaller…”
Midway through, he realizes the implications of his isolation.
“You know, in this room, nothing else really matters. Donald Trump can be president and that won’t really get me in this room. You could all die—I wouldn’t know,” Ziad waxes poetic in another.
Ziad visited the Yale health clinic on November 28th when the left side of his face became swollen.
Suspected of having mumps, he was placed in quarantine for five days.
So I had mumps and then got quarantined for 5 days and then NBC Nightly News interviewed me and then I got on national television and now I'm famous. No big deal.Note: I was vaccinated. It don't work.
Posted by Tarek Ziad on Tuesday, December 13, 2016
After the quarantine ended, Ziad learned that his mumps test results were “inconclusive.”
In these trying times (read: finals week), please enjoy my snapchat story from when I was in quarantine with the mumps....
Posted by Tarek Ziad on Saturday, December 17, 2016
“So I was told by the doctor that my DNA test didn’t actually grow mumps, but they’re still ‘pretty sure’ I have mumps,” Ziad tells his viewers, with a look of sheer exasperation.
Ziad posted the video of his story to Facebook on December 17th.
“I don’t ever post things online,” he told the Daily Dot. “Lots of people just really liked my Snapchat story so I figured I’d save it,” Ziad said. “Then people kept wanting to see it who missed it, so I uploaded it.”
We are immensely grateful. Ziad’s Mumps Adventure is hands-down our favorite movie of 2016, giving us one silver-lining to an otherwise rotten year.
As one Facebook commenter says, “Tarek is not the hero we deserve but the hero we need.”
