The Vuvuzela: Loud, Loved, and Loathed

00:00:00 Speaker 1: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, And while the saying may not be entirely accurate, I mean what happens if said picture is a picture of a five hundred word essay. I do think it illustrates that a picture conveys a more immediate and accurate feeling of the senses sight, feeling, touch than written words offer. When you look at a picture and you see the sun, you can feel the warmth of the trays, and you can imagine how someone in a picture might feel just by a glance at their facial expression. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a sound might be priceless. You can feel the excitement, fear, love, or anger in someone's voice, and some sounds transport you to specific moments in time. Which is made to the topic of today's episode. Not a rant, not a quote, and not a play call, but a sound. Even amidst the pantheon of all times sports, crowd chants, noises, and sound making devices, it stands alone. Yes, we're talking about the vuvuzela, the instantly recognizable, extremely controversial, really loud, the equivalent of a jackhammer, loud and really annoying plastic horn that defined the twenty ten FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Behold the vovozela and just for reference, this is how a normal soccer stadium full of screaming crowds, chants and song sounds just like public opinion on the infamous plastic noisemaker. The vvuzela's history is full of controversy, scandal and debate, but its influence on the twenty ten FIFA World Cup, pop culture and beyond is irrefutable. Now you might be wondering what's FIFA. FIFA stands for the Federation International Day Football Association. So basically it's the governing regulatory body of international football aka soccer, and they're the ones that hold the World Cups and all the other big tournaments. So yeah. The twenty ten FIFA World Cup was iconic for numerous reasons. It was the first time the event was held in the continent of Africa and the entire history of all World Cups, so that was a big deal. It had easily two of the most popular songs ever associated with World Cup events, Shakira's Waka Waka this time for Africa and Canan's waven Flag. It was also the first men's World Cup in the modern media landscape of Twitter memes and viral clips. And that's not even getting into the Jubilani ball, which was specifically made for the competition but ended up being two round, which led to crazy movements and long range goals throughout the tournament. And it was in this environment that the singular sound, the all encompassing, ever incessant buzzing of the vouvizela, rose to the top, forever attached to the competition and connected to the culture of Africa for the rest of all time. Between a fierce debate over the plastic horns copyright to almost being banned before the competition even started, the zeila's iconic place in sports history almost never happened a few times at that. So, without further ado, I'm Willgatchel and this is sports dot MP three. Let's get into it. I guess we've already been into it for like five minutes. But yeah, the vuvuzela seems to be inspired by, if not modeled after, the kudu horn that is made from the horns of South Africa's kudu antelope. Historically, it was used mainly for communication, rituals and music across South Africa and other tribes cleaning the Zulus. But here's where things get complicated. It's hard to definitively track the vuvuzela's origin because that would require a single agreed upon inventor or creator, not three. Yes, I said three. So first you have Ennek Theembu, a public relations officer for the Quezulu in a Tall based Chembei church. This public relations officer has stated to the press that the kudu horn was not an inspiration for the vuvuzela, and he knows this because the founder of his church, Prophet Isaiah Chambey, actually introduced the instrument in nineteen ten for ceremonial and healing purposes. That also brings us to option number two, because the reason that the Shembey Church came out and talked about this is actually because they were going to sue the person who's actually trademarked the term vuzela. Neil von Shall, Quick, owner of Cape Town based company mass Sin Sendaan Sport, began mass producing plastic versions of it in two thousand and one, and they were thinking of suing him because they claimed that they actually were the ones that invented it and he was using it for bad purposes. Neil. I'm not going to try and pronounce his last name again, and I apologize for any bad pronunciations. Has stated that he didn't invent the original version, and he actually spoke on the idea for how he came up with his version of the voo Verzeila quote. I saw a tin version of the product at the stadiums. With my background in plastics, I spoke to my then manager about us developing a plastic version in about nineteen ninety nine. The first samples were made in two thousand and one and we started getting the product out into the market. Then end quote. All right, so it's me speaking again. Hello. That brings us to Freddie Mayake, the third and final person in this three person group. He claims that he invented the first aluminium and plastic prototypes of the vouzela in the nineteen seventies, and he came up with a specific name, Vouvuzela in nineteen ninety four. Yeah, there's obviously a lot more to the story than that, but I'm no Ronan pharaoh, so I'll just say that the vouzale's origins remain somewhat murky. What isn't murky, however, is its rise to prominence in South African footballing culture. The instruments were widely adopted in the nineteen nineties by supporters of South Africa's two rival and most popular football clubs, the Kaiser Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates. Fans and supporters of the teams would use the vou verzelas during the matches, and it definitely became a quintessential part of South African football and culture, with fans often using them specifically to encourage their teams to move forward and attack. Yeah, maybe attack your ear drums. On May fifteenth, two thousand and four, South Africa was announced as the host of the twenty ten FIFA World Cup. Street vendors in South Africa sold about twenty thousand vuvuzelas that same day, showing the world a glimpse of what would greet them some six years later. Well sort of so. The world was first introduced to the sound of the vuvuzela during the two thousand and nine Confederation Cup. Surprisingly, the final was between the US led by Landon Donovin, Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard and brazil Leabai Kaka Luis Fabiano Lucio and Danny Alvez, just to name a few. Unsurprisingly, Brazil won and in the aftermath of the Cup, FIFA received numerous complaints about you guessed it, the vuvuzelas. And it wasn't just one angry reporter either. The complaints came from European broadcasters, some coaches, and even a few players. There were also complaints in debates galore in online forums and blogs and social media, but that's not surprising. All of this backlash and controversy culminated into an experiment to decide if the vuvuzelas should be banned or not leading to the World Cup. FIFA officials tested the noise levels of a friendly match between South Africa and Colombia at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, two weeks before the start of the twenty ten World Cup, and the verdict was in There would be no banning of theelas. So the stakes were set. The vouvuzela would be at the World Cup, but you already knew that, duh. The first match of the twenty ten FIFA World Cup took place on June eleventh, twenty ten, between host nations South Africa and Mexico. The world would have immediately heard the vouzelas even before the whistle signaled the start of the match. But almost poetically, South Africa scored the first goal of the match and the tournament in the fifty fifth minute, setting the stadium of eighty five thousand fans buzzing, and whether you liked it, didn't mind it, or outright hated the unique sound, there was no escaping it. I mean, here's just a few headlines from that twenty ten World Cup. A deafening joy opens South Africa's World Cup. ESPN's dilemma, how much to mute the buzz of the vuvuzela horns at the World Cup? How I learned to love the vuvuzela? Soccer players blame mistakes on irritating vuvuzelas. How much does the vuvuzela bother you? Yeah, those are just a few, so you've got the idea. In total, an estimated one point five million of the plastic horns were sold in South Africa during the event. Oh and did I mention those bad boys are pretty loud, Like one hundred and twenty seven decibels loud. A few decibels higher than an ambulance siren and around the same as a heavy metal rock concert or chainsaw loud, and being that loud can certainly lead to issues, and it's a major reason why the vuzela is actually banned in a lot of other sports entirely. And for broadcasting companies like ESPN, they were faced with a conundrum leading to the games. What was the ideal volume level of stadium sounds during broadcasts? Do you completely mute it so there's no sound from the stadium or do you just kind of leave it at e and maybe no one hears anyone talking. But fortunately that wasn't a huge issue in and of itself. You see, ESPN and other broadcasting companies have a lot of experience lowering the volume of loud sounds from things like motors at NASCAR events, and they were able to drastically lower the sound of vouvziales and broadcasts, almost cutting it in half. And yet, of course, even with that, people still complained. On June fifteenth, only a few days after the start of The Cup, the BBC reported that it had received five hundred and forty five vuvuzela related complaints for its World Cup coverage, so you have all those complaints and that's from half the normal sound of what the Voozales were making in person. But don't just take my word for it. I mean, I wasn't there. A number of players and coaches themselves actually spoke out about the disruptive plastic horns. Patrice Evra, captain of France, blamed the team's disappointing tie with Uruguay on the vouvizelas. When talking with reporters the next day, he said, quote, we can't sleep at night because of the vuvuzelas. People start playing them from six am. We can't hear one another out on the pitch because of them. End quote. I assume he said it in French, but he also could speak English, so maybe I'm completely wrong. Christiano Ronaldo, portugal superstar and one of the greatest players of all time, and that's coming from a messy fan just saying, spoke about the vuvuzelas as well. He said, quote, it is difficult for anyone on the pitch to concentrate. A lot of players don't like them, but they are going to have to get used to them. Teams have done nothing but criticize the vuvuzelas, but you have to respect them. Hardly anyone likes them. But the people who do you like them are those who like to blow the instruments and make a racket. End quote now. The twenty ten World Cup Final ended with Spain defeating the Netherlands an extra time thanks to a beautiful goal from midfield maestro Andres Iniesta. In the build up to the twenty fourteen World Cup in Brazil, FIFA officially added the vouverzealas to its list of banned items, cementing the iconic instrument as a defining sound of the twenty ten World Cup and making FIFA a member of many other sports groups to have banned its use at events, including but not limited to the Union of European Football Association's tournaments, Rugby World Cup Finals, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Wimbledon. But the vuvuzela can never be truly stopped. It might have peaked in twenty ten, but it is forever eulogized in pop culture in sports history. For instance, the twenty ten SBS featured a Will Ferrell bit as Jeff Uvuzela, the creator of vuvuzelas, and honestly based on the other claims, who knows his could be right. Hyundai created a massive vuvuzela as a marketing stunt, and it was indeed loud and worked. Designers were making recycled earrings out of zeilas, and a vuvuzela noise making app was number one on the charts for way too long. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Unraveling all the mysteries, controversies, and debates surrounding the plastic horn is probably impossible, and it's just as impossible to find a single thread that defines the story of this sound. I could say that the vuvuzela hayters were actually what made it so iconic and popular, and maybe there's a lesson in that. I could argue that there's no sound in all of sports that more instantly captures an atmosphere and defines a moment. I could point out that the sound of the plastic eight dollars vuvuzela. To find a World Cup that featured Shakira's walka waka this time for Africa, in Jesta's World Class World Cup winning goal in extra time, or a myriad of other legendary moments, but instead I say sh and behold the vuvuzela. Thank you all for listening or skipping through. I don't judge. I'm Will Gatchel and this is Sports Set MP three, a podcast exploring the most iconic sounds in sports. Please leave a rating or comment if you enjoyed, and definitely tell your friends, family, or random people who might seem down for a new podcast recommendation or not. You do you. I'll be back with episode number three in two weeks because this is a bi weekly podcast, and bi weekly as in every other week, not bi weekly as in twice a week. Thank you again, and I will end my rant now see you in two weeks unless you see in real life, but one way or another, see you later and have a good one piece