As a long time supporter of the anti-apartheid movement I couldn’t be prouder for a free South Africa to be hosting the World Cup (I drink coffee from an ANC fundraiser coffee mug I bought when Nelson Mandela was still in prison, I have read Mandela’s autobiography, I own dozens of South African vinyl records and music CDs and I have friends who live there).
But when I watched Mexico vs. South Africa on TV last night I was deeply irritated by the constant drone of vuvuzelas, meter-long plastic trumpets played by fans that make it sound like a swarm of about 10 million wasps is hovering over the stadium throughout the games. There is no rhythm or melody to it, it is just noise at exactly one volume, extremely loud.
To me, part of the attraction of a football (soccer) match is in the crowd response, the ups and downs of singing and shouting and gasping by the crowd as the ball moves closer to their goal or the other team’s goal, as the teams gain and lose control of the ball, etc. It makes football games exciting when you listen to them on the radio, where you only get the crowd response and a reporter describing the action. None of that happens with vuvuzelas. If you close your eyes in this cacophony it’s like the audience is absent, but someone forgot to turn off a hundred jet engines.
It drives you crazy. I don’t know how the players can put up with it. How do they communicate with their team mates? How about viewers trying to follow reporters in the stadium, how about reporters who have to talk in this noise?
I don’t know about you, but if this pattern persists with other games, even ones not involving the South African team then I may give this World Cup a miss on TV and I pity those who traveled half way around the globe to see their favourite teams play, only to be drowning in an orgy of mindless noise.
Bring back the beautiful Brazilian samba drums, but ban the mindless vuvuzela. PLEASE!
So the whole world should just mute their tv? I tell you what will remain of the WC in south africa then. NOTHING. It will be forgotten at best and at worst be remembered as the most annoying and worst World Cup in the History of World Cups.
The WC is a GLOBAL event, it doesn’t belong to South Africa alone. And if the whole world hates this sound, why should they suffer from it. Is it really THAT worth? I certainly would want that the world LOVES the WC in my country, not HATE it.
I really hope they ban it before the knockout round.
The Vuvuzelas were driving me crazy!!! Had to watch the match in mute during the boring moments..
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I agreed with the above comments. This irritating noise is snatching the enjoyment. It must be banned…..
I HATE THIS SOUND PLEASE STOP IT!!!!
There is no rhythm to this annoying instrument, its just a constant drone of noise. Myself and a few of my mates are not going to watch any other match until the final, and hopefully they’ll be banned by then.
Why do South Africans love these vuvuzela’s?
The Africans get finally get the world cup and they ruin it for everyone else.
Now it has started and it’s a bug, there are a couple of petitions online to ban the vuvuzela from the World Cup. Here’s one:
http://www.petitiononline.com/2010WC/petition.html
Its the duty of the host to make the guest as comfortable as possible. SA is the host here, n they shud know that the freakin VuVuZellas are annoying the hell out of people all over the world . As hosts they should be considerate enuf to make this sacrifice. This noise is truly ruining the world cup experience for millions of ppl.
why don’t we just boycott this event?
My ears can’t accept it anymore!
This piece of crap horn is ruining the World Cup. I refuse to watch football when all I can hear is the stupid monotone noise of the vuvuzela. Some mad scientist needs to invent an audio filter to remove the vuvuzela noise from the audio feed so I can hear the commentary without my wife coming in the room and chewing me out for having the tv too loud when I can’t even hear the commentators.
@Pupu-zela:
Actually, it’s already been done:
http://twitter.com/joewein/status/16357740257
You guys are whiners!
Stop please. It’s not even funny
I’m from the US with little exposure to soccer. My 7 year old son asked if we could watch the World cup on tv. We turned it on and immediately i am wondering “what the hell is that buzzing noise?” because after about 3 minutes it starts driving me crazy. So now we have it on mute. But without announcers or crowd noise it is boring. Okay back to baseball and us football for us i guess.
That’s how bad the vuvuzela is – it makes watching baseball more pleasant than football! 😉
I am from South Africa and HATE vuvuzelas. I can truly not understand why anyone wants to make or listen to that horrible sound. I cannot even stand watching a game on TV. Why it’s allowed is beyond me!
Totally agree with you. I hated the constant noise from the vuvuzelas as well. I heard the BBC brought in something where you could actually mute the sound of the vuvuzela make the broadcast more enjoyable.
Loved your explanation of how/where the new grub2 gets it’s info. The old grub menu was so simple, I hope the new config is better for someone, somewhere.
Since you hate the vuvuzela, maybe you’ll like this!
Will It Blend? – Vuvuzela World Cup 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KHFA6ZuFTE
This guy/blender blends everything from wooden rake handles to ipods and now vuvuzelas!
How would you like your vuvuzela Mr. Bond?
I’d like it blended, not blown.