Imperialist n00bs: quit complaining about the vuvuzelas

Yoann Gourcuff is blaming the vuvuzelas for France’s uninspired play on Friday night in Cape Town. The players couldn’t hear each other on the field, he whined, and they had to rely on gestures. Patrice Évra added that the players can’t sleep because the vuvuzelas start going off at 6am every morning.¹

Twitter has been full of people complaining about the vuvuzelas, arguing even that soccer will never succeed in the US (as though it needs to succeed in the US in order to mean something) if there is a threat of having to endure this constant buzzing.

Banning the vuvuzelas was even half of the pre-game show yesterday afternoon on France2 (the rest was about a visit to a “bidonville” by the French team), and reports are surfacing that indicate that the organizers, in the voice of World Cup organising chief Danny Jordaan, are considering putting a halt to the horns.²

To everyone who is complaining about the vuvuzelas, I offer you one of two bullets by which to shoot yourself: either you are completely new to the sport, or you are an imperialist.

Consider this: horns are played, without pause, around the world. The constant noise predates the South Africa World Cup. Making noise constantly is precisely the Ultras credo. Don’t believe me? Watch some footage of the US playing Mexico in Mexico City last year. Forward about 2:10 into the video below and listen to the din. The main difference, in terms of noise, is that there is cheering mixed in with the constant horns, which we heard last night in the Australia match, where Australian fans managed to drown out the vuvuzelas.

Again, there’s nothing new to constant din in the stadium. It’s the point, as any English fan will tell you, as he or she boasts about the sheds over the supporters that let the supporters’ racket echo out over the pitch. It’s part of caring for your team. Soccer, no matter what those who say it’s boring believe, is an intensely passionate sport, and passion is displayed by lots. of. noise.³

So if it strikes you as annoying, and you want it gone, take the easy way out and admit to barely ever watching soccer; admit that seeing a match where crowd response isn’t conducted by hopping frogs on a jumbotron is a completely brand new experience.

I recommend that as a way out, since the other variant is basically this: you have certain expectations about what is “appropriate” fan behavior, and they are probably rather puritan and emblematic of your western European cultural upbringing. Blowing horns without pause for two hours isn’t what’s done at Harvard-Yale football games, so it must be the wrong kind of exuberant gesture from a fan base. Tut-tut the shit out of that vuvuzela feeling.

A World Cup already heavily biased towards Europe (playing in Euro-friendly temperature) also now needs to regulate fan behavior to coddle European sensibilities? Really?

Keep the vuvuzelas around. If you don’t like the buzz, sing over them (as the Australians managed to). Imagine yourself in a round of “We’ve got spirit, how about you?” with the vuvuzelas until you’re showing so much spirit that you’re winning.

And now, ultras courtesy YouTube:

1. Les Bleus are turning into advanced level catfighting egomaniacs, by the way, as Four Four Two shows us. [↩]
2. Now Libération is getting into the mix, asking readers which is more annoying, the horns or the cheesy pop songs that support Les Bleus? [↩]
3. And they do this in the US, too, thank heavens. Go to a Chicago Fire game. Sit by Section 8. [↩]

Tags: Chicago Fire, Danny Jordaan, Four Four Two, France, France 2, Patrice Évra, soccer, vuvuzela, World Cup, Yoann Gourcuff