A Vuvuzela Primer

This year’s World Cup games features a prominent loud African horn known as the “vuvuzela”. They are not:

  • Venezulas

  • Vulvas

  • Pazuzus

  • Mezuzahs

  • Hezbollahs

Unfortunately for fans at the game and watching on TV, this joking instruction manual for the vuvuzela is quite accurate, and the horn can hit almost 130 decibels, causing much of the world to try to quiet the vuvuzela.

There’s even been talk of banning them entirely, leading to complaints of stepping on the host country’s traditions. Of course, the rest of the world has crappy plastic horns too, but it’s important to respect annoying traditions which stretch back almost two whole decades.

The best tidbit of information, however, is that the manufacturer of the plastic vuvuzela, Neil van Schalkwyk, is now also selling earplugs to fans. Van Schalkwyk has managed to get himself paid on both ends, and one simply has to admire that kind of business ingenuity.