They are everywhere at the World Cup games in South Africa: vuvuzelas! The plastic horns sound like a swarm of hornets when thousands of people play them at once. The sound can reach up to 140 decibels, which can damage hearing, and hundreds of thousands of vuvuzelas have been sold this year.
Read about how the vuvuzela came to be such an integral part of the World Cup games at Smithsonian magazine. Link
(Image credit: Jon Hrusa /epa/Corbis)
The horns, FIFA officials said, were too much a part of the South African tradition to silence them. “It’s a local sound, and I don’t know how it is possible to stop it,” Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA’s president, told reporters. “I always said that when we go to South Africa, it is Africa. It’s not Western Europe. It’s noisy, it’s energy, rhythm, music, dance, drums. This is Africa. We have to adapt a little.”
Read about how the vuvuzela came to be such an integral part of the World Cup games at Smithsonian magazine. Link
(Image credit: Jon Hrusa /epa/Corbis)
That does not mean we should send them all over the world, but we shouldnt try and stop them played in their own country.
Personally I am happy to encourage the spread of them everywhere, but I guess thats just me in a minority!
Don't be ridiculous, it has nothing to do with the fact that it's from Africa. I wouldn't care if they were from Scunthorpe, the noise is still irritating and drowns out the the crowd noise which is such an integral part of watching a live sporting event on TV. Let's see how long they last once advertisers start pulling out.
However, for those of us lucky enough to be able to watch advert-free on the BBC, they will be broadcasting a commentary-only version via the "red button" apparently.