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YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button (Seriously)

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-stop-watching-sports dept.

teh31337one writes "YouTube always has had a way with pranks. Some time in the last hour, the world's largest video portal activated a new button on some videos that looks like a tiny soccer ball. Clicking it will activate an endless, incredibly annoying sound that sounds vaguely like a swarm of insects. Or, for anyone who has been watching the World Cup, like the dreaded vuvuzela — an instrument commonly played in South Africa at football (soccer) games. South Africa is, of course, the host country for this year's World Cup, and fans watching the games have been subjected to the vuvuzela's mindless drone for hours on end. The noise is so annoying that television networks have taken measures to filter it out, and guides have popped up showing viewers how to block it from their TV sets and computers. I'm not seeing the button show up on all videos, but it is definitely appearing on some clips that aren't soccer-related."

4 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. dreaded? by unixcrab · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dreaded? Incredibly annoying? Come one, it's just a trumpet. I get the feeling that after all the prophets of doom predicted the stadiums wouldn't be finished and the fans would be murdered by criminals, they have nothing left to complain about except the little trumpets.

  2. Re:So... by BoofBaf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i have never understood why some people take such great pride in hating something

  3. South Africa and the vuvuzela by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The one legacy the vuvuzela will have after the World Cup is the future exclusion of South Africa from ever again hosting any international sporting event.

    1. Re:South Africa and the vuvuzela by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just because it's labeled "culture" doesn't make it any less of an annoyance, if not to everyone then at least to international spectators at stadiums or at home.

      South Africa should have taken a lesson from China. In preparation to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, China outlawed spitting in public. Spitting, clearly part of China's "culture", is considered an annoyance to international visitors. China considered these visitors their guests and appropriately catered to them.