One of today’s major sports stories was: The absence of noise.
Typically, this is only an issue on the PGA Tour, when anything louder than the sound of Tiger Wood’s sinking ranking is frowned upon. But, well–this is the World Cup, and this time around, Noise Matters.
People who couldn’t even pronounce “vuvuzela” a week ago have now pushed it to trending Twitter topic status for the past several days. It’s a plastic horn which produces a buzzing noise– annoying by itself, downright mindnumbing when produced en masse. If Americans don’t care about soccer, they for some reason certainly do care about obnoxious sounds made by soccer fans.
Dads 'n' Grads gift suggestion: Can't go wrong with a vuvuzela cozy. Image from: Shine2010
Complaints about the sound, which well and truly drowns out traditional chanting from fans of other nations, have so unsettled viewers that capitalism has marched to the rescue. While a mint is flowing to the crap factories producing the cheap plastic horns, a British company hurriedly prepared a download which, when placed next to television speaker, equalizes and washes out the epic humming.
In the meantime, players can’t hear coaches, refs can’t hear players, and–perhaps the sole upside of the audial assault– nobody can hear the broadcasters. The story has overshadowed the actual gameplay, to the point that when host nation South Africa was defeated earlier today, sports wires rushed to report not the upset, but how darn quiet it suddenly was in the stands.
Vuvuzelas, deemed by Coke as the iconic image of this World Cup (check out a can near you), are a cultural mark which South African planners hoped to export to other nations. In light of the world’s reaction to them, however, we shall see (Actual quote from UK message board: “If anyone pulls out one of those next to me in Manchester, he’ll soon find it crammed up his arse.”) On the other hand, I haven’t heard or seen this much soccer coverage since Brandi Chastain became uncovered.
