It doesn’t seem that bad on UK TV, either.
Probably because you are used to the sound of files buzzing over piles of shit.
I would’ve suggested inserting the vuvuzelas up those guys asses, but I’d figure we have 10,000 Le Petomaines.
Culture my ass, by the way. I’d buy it if it happened only in South Africas matches.
Cool story bro.
US here–the noise isn’t as bad today. I can actually hear some crowd noise and the whistles today.
And you wonder why people call you sanctimonious? Jesus Christ, “culture” isn’t an excuse to be an asshole and annoy the living shit out of people.
How about letting Scotland let their fans play the bag pipes in the audience when SA is playing? Besides, according to the article posted above, they’re being blown during national anthems and what not. That’s hardly what I call “respecting culture”.
Why should we be allowed it? Because colonialism, that’s why.
ETA: shit, I’m a little late. Sorry, everyone, just ignore me.
Same here in Canada. I watched Germany-Australia today, and the buzzing was not as bad as in yesterday’s US-England match. It was still there but not nearly as loud, and the crowd noise could be heard too.
Somebody’s definitely been tweaking some levels. Give it up to the sound techs. Those guys are some fucking wizards to even even be able to make it THIS tolerable (or at least this much less INtolerable).
The US-England game did a 9.0 share - or about 10% worse than Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Not bad for an early Saturday afternoon.
You’re a worthless human being, by the way.
It’s annoying the hell out of me, too, but after 9 games I’ve actually gotten used to it.
They didn’t have international football (or any other international sport) in South African until the 1990s, so it’s been a tradition for as long as it possibly could have been.
I LOLed.
I’m starting to like it. It’s become the soundtrack to this world cup. Think I’d miss it now if it went.
If they decided they wanted to have the game in Scotland, and Scottish people overwhelmingly wanted to play the bagpipes, then yeah, go for it! Their turf, their decision. I’d be all for seeing how Scotland enjoys it’s games!
The beauty of football is how truly international it is, and how it is celebrated is different everywhere. In my experience, football in Africa is a loud, group-oriented, public event- even when people are just watching it on TV. And football in South Africa has vuvuzelas- a South African football match is exactly the appropriate time and place to use a vuvuzela. Blowing one is no more “being an asshole” than moshing at a rock concert.
So what if it makes people a few thousand miles away grumpy? It’s not like more staid countries never get the chance to host the World Cup. Indeed, I’m sure next time it’ll probably be someplace with traditions you are more used to. I’m not too sympathetic to the "whine whine whine the penniless natives at the World Cup are having fun their way instead of catering exactly to me! How could FIFA not realize my needs are more important!’ thing. Good on FIFA for not making the World Cup a souless and sanitized lowest-common-denominator inoffensive-for-maximum profit event. This is way more fun than the Olympics, which have become a festival of vaguely feel-good lame.
Anyway, the buzz makes me wish I was there. I’d get swept right up into it. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!
Long plastic horns? I recall blowing on them in the 1960s at hockey and Canadian football games. Don’t people do that anymore?
Football has pads and Brett Favre. We’re talking about soccer here.
Seriously, you’re an American, aren’t you? Call it soccer. An American calling soccer “football” sounds pretentious as shit.
I don’t give a flying fuck about the penniless natives, by the way. My sanity and comfort is more important than their drunken idiocy.
Incidentally, I lived in West Africa for two years. I saw plenty of third world horror. I don’t need any lectures about it. I gave actual, real live, Sally Struthers style starving kids my lunch every day for two years. I still don’t have any sympathy for their desire to blow those stupid horns.
I was under the impression that the beauty of world class soccer was the soccer itself. Would you be willing to watch thousands of people blow plastic trumpets without the soccer? If so, then that’s super, but I hope you would recognize that your views are somewhat peculiar.
I am not too sympathetic to the “whine whine, we’re penniless natives, we can slap the word ‘culture’ onto the most annoying noise on the planet and it should become inassailable” argument. The World Cup is not South African soccer, it is international soccer. I don’t think it is crazy to believe that different norms apply.
The Olympics has been vaguely feel-good lame ever since Theodosius I abolished pankration in AD 393.
Get over yourself. Yes, I want to “oppress the natives” or whatever. No, I think people are simply asking OTHER PEOPLE to be courteous to those around them. “Hey, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we be able TO LISTEN TO WHAT’S GOING ON!!!” Or that I don’t come out of this with RINGING IN MY FREAKING EARS!!!
It’s not just people watching on TV, even sven, people attending the events, players, announcers, quite a number have complained about the noise. Your right to swing your fist, etc.
Could you be anymore patronizing, or condescending? Oh, those poor, innocent people, who need us to look out for them!
Hey, when the Steelers won the Super Bowl last year, fans completely trashed the streets down in Oakland (I think it was Oakland). Was that their right to do so? After all, Pittsburgh IS a football town, and it’s part of our culture!
Or how about the fact that the stadium is cracking down on tailgating, despite the fact that it’s a tradition. Unfortunately, it’s a “tradition” that leaves a lot of trash and inconvience to those around them. But hey, let’s not look down on the those out there celebrating their teams!*
*And before you start on me, tailgating around here goes back to the 1970s. The vuvuzela, the 1990s. Both are “cultural” expressions," by your logic. (A smaller culture, in the case of south-western PA, sure, but we definitely have our own local culture here.)
You might be up to someting there. The fucking horns make a very low-register sound that could be filtered out, particularly if you sound is going throug a computer somewhere.
I’m not the one who brought up the “we’ve got more money so we’re more important” angle. I’m also not the one who brought up “penniless natives.” Personally, I don’t care if it’s the elites of Luxembourg who are using the vevuzela. If it’s their stadium, it’s their choice.
Sure some people at the stadium are complaining. Some people go to rock concerts and complain about the noise. I’m not sure why people pay money for tickets to events that they know will annoy them. Given that the vuvuzela is present at every single South Africa football match (oh, wait, wouldn’t want to be unamerican by not stubbornly insisting on using a word that nobody I know uses…do I also have to give my doctor my temp in Fahrenheit and insist on asking the bus driver how many miles it will be?) it shouldn’t be a big surprise that the biggest football games South Africa has ever seen also have vuvuzelas. Nobody is talking about ancient customs or preserving cultures. It’s just that this is what South African do. Right now. At every football match.
Surely you can see the difference between a municipality doing away with tailgating because it’s a pain in the ass for them to deal with, and say, TV viewers in Kazakhstan wanting America to do away with tailgating because they find the leftover bits of food on the audience’s faces unsightly?
How would we react if during the Atlanta Olympics TV viewers in China were raising a big stink that our clapping was bothering them because they like to meditate as they watch track and field? Wouldn’t we be right in telling them to screw off, and the could do what they wanted when it was their turn?
I didn’t say you were unAmereican, I said you were pretentious. I lived in England for three years, but I don’t go around saying “tomahto” amnd and calling potato chips “crisps.”
By the way, you know what else is a tradition in South Africa? “Corrective rape.” Fuck their tradition.
You go to a rock concert to HEAR “noise”. You don’t go to a soccer match to hear buzzing in your ears.
And no, I don’t see the difference between a nuisance as tailgating and not wanting to risk permanent hearing loss.
Nor do I want to risk missing a potential evacuation order.
If something is drowning out the announcers, that’s a potential risk, not to mention rude. I came to enjoy and hear THE GAME. Not a buzzing in my ears. The players are saying it affects them as well. “Culture” is not an excuse to be an inconsiderate jackass. And yes, I said it: jackass.
If I were there, I’d yank that damned horn away and jam it up that inconsiderate motherfucker’s ass, “cultural expression” bedamned. “Culture” isn’t always an excuse.
(Actually, I’d say Pittsburghers would be most upset if you took away our Terrible Towels. 
But then, they don’t annoy anyone, unless you smack someone in the face with it)