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YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button (Seriously) 305

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."
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YouTube Gets a Vuvuzela Button (Seriously)

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  • Or how about... (Score:5, Informative)

    by The MAZZTer ( 911996 ) <megazzt.gmail@com> on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:48AM (#32676414) Homepage
    ...on ANY website? [vuvuzela-time.co.uk]
  • Annoying... (Score:2, Insightful)

    Why is it that all of these big web giants are doing stuff like this? It has been enough with Youtube adding the "like" button to mimic Facebook when upvoting or downvoting made more sense. But now we have Google automatically adding backgrounds to the search page when you don't want anything to change because it's distracting and works as it is already.

    Not that the web should be completely static, but it's annoying when you have change for the sake of change in widely used sites.
    • Re:Annoying... (Score:5, Informative)

      by The MAZZTer ( 911996 ) <megazzt.gmail@com> on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:51AM (#32676448) Homepage
      Oh come on, April Fools Day' is the Internet at its most amusing just for stuff like this. You know it's only a temporary change.
      • Re:Annoying... (Score:5, Informative)

        by interkin3tic ( 1469267 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @11:19AM (#32679188)

        Also, it's youtube. You know what's more annoying than websites all mimicking each other? 99.9% of the content on youtube, that's what.

        The vuvuleza sound is actually quite an improvement. For instance, this morning one of my friends had sent me a link which turned out to be two minutes of a video of a rabbit, not doing anything. The buzzing sound gave it an ominous tone which was highly amusing, like the bunny was very very slowly moving toward a swarm of evil robotic bees.

        The top youtube videos, what you might expect to be the cream of the crop, are even worse: "Justin Bieber LOVES Chinese Guy!" I can't imagine a horrible buzzing noise degrading the quality of that one. A bunch of clips from the world cup, most having already been taken down, a buzzing noise would at least be something. "Seattle Cop Punches Woman - Raw Footage " didn't have the option, a buzzing noise masking the incoherent shouting would have been nice.

        It really failed to improve "Super Mario Beatbox" though.

    • by Spad ( 470073 ) <slashdot@ s p a d . co.uk> on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:52AM (#32676456) Homepage

      Well you've got to mimic the Facebook, otherwise how will you attract all those cool, intelligent people who use social networking sites to your services?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:52AM (#32676462)

      I Like This!

      • I've tried watching some of the World Cup stuff, to see what it was all about.

        I had to turn it off after a few minutes. That drone of those horns just blew it for me. They are especially bad if you have a slight hangover...at first I thought something was wrong with my set, then figured something was wrong with the audio portion of the transmission.

        They really needed to filter that shit out much earlier, as that it may have cost them some American's possibly trying to learn about and watch this game since

        • by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @09:30AM (#32677618) Homepage Journal

          may have cost them some American's

          Here in America, we Americans don't put apostrophes in "American's" unless it's possessive. i.e. "Scientific American's in-depth article on electronic Vuvezeula noise filtering". It's possible apostrophe rules are different where you live, such as England or South Africa, but I doubt it :)
           
            http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [angryflower.com]

        • They really needed to filter that shit out much earlier, as that it may have cost them some American's possibly trying to learn about and watch this game since the US is actually in it.

          Here in Portugal they're selling them by the thousands. It's terrible, I tell you.

    • Re:Annoying... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Moryath ( 553296 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:59AM (#32676550)

      Far more annoying than either of these are the fucked-up popup "slide window" ads that obscure the bottom 1/3 of every fucking video on Youtube these days.

      I've taken to just clicking the Download Helper button and downloading whatever video to my desktop, so I don't have to see those stupid annoying ads and can actually see the video I was looking for.

      • Re:Annoying... (Score:5, Informative)

        by bami ( 1376931 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:38AM (#32676950) Homepage

        Adblock Plus takes care of these, haven't seen one ever on my desktop/laptops.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Ant P. ( 974313 )

        Turn on HTML5 mode, install flashblock and you won't see any ads on YT videos. The ones that do have ads are forced to use flash.

    • But now we have Google automatically adding backgrounds to the search page when you don't want anything to change because it's distracting and works as it is already.

      Whats funny is the day Google introed the backgrounds and showed samples, everyone at work thought something was wrong with their computer. Google prided themselves with (and others lauded) their simple vanilla search page. Then they go and try and copy Bing.... yeah, copy one of their biggest competitors.

    • Something else annoying on Google lately, when you search for something, and the result you click on is a forum thread, when you go back to the google search, after several seconds the entry for the forum thread you were just looking at expands to have a 'More threads from this forum' or somesuch link. And this invariably happens JUST as you're about to click on the next search result.

    • Re:Annoying... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cojoneees ( 916665 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:54AM (#32677130)

      Your assumption regarding the rating system of youtube is wrong. The like/dislike system was adopted as a consequence of the rating habits of youtube users not in an attempt to mimic facebook. The majority of the videos on youtube were either 1* or 5* with mostly nothing in between.

      The like/dislike mechanism is an evolution of a system that is trying to adapt itself to its user base.

      You can read more about this on the official youtube blog - http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html [blogspot.com]

      Cheers.

    • "Anything goes, as long as it's funny" - Jim Dymek
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 24, 2010 @10:33AM (#32678558)

      Oh, for once in your dreary, lonely life, just laugh and appreciate harmless spontaneity, you hopelessly miserable, cynical person.

  • dreaded? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by unixcrab ( 1080985 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:49AM (#32676438)
    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.
  • http://www.vuvuzela-time.co.uk/slashdot.org [vuvuzela-time.co.uk] Such a soothing sound...
  • So... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ground.zero.612 ( 1563557 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:52AM (#32676460)
    Being that I'm from the US, I didn't need yet another reason to hate soccer... but, thanks Youtube for giving me another one!
    • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BoofBaf ( 624944 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:29AM (#32676850)
      i have never understood why some people take such great pride in hating something
      • I take great pride in hating Zurich Financial ala Farmers Insurance (farmersreallysucks.com) because they're assholes.

        Now if you mean strictly hating something incapable of harming you if you watch it (like football [fifa.com],football [nfl.com], or rugby), then yeah I agree with you.

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Odin's Raven ( 145278 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @09:09AM (#32677308)

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

        Yeah, I hate it when people act that way!

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

        I don't understand why people even bother to *hate* a sport. I figure, if you don't like a sport, just don't watch it. Ignore it. It's not doing you any harm and most likely isn't a part of your life anyway.

        I don't particularly care to watch basketball, but that doesn't mean I'm going to waste energy *hating* it.

      • Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dc29A ( 636871 ) * on Thursday June 24, 2010 @09:24AM (#32677514)

        That's what I was asking myself all the time, then with every single FIFA World Cup I am reminded why:

        Incompetent referees: US being denied TWO game winning goals in TWO different matches (no refs, those weren't off sides). Brazil scoring a goal after a double handball (that fucked CIV for sure). Villa from Spain slapping a Honduras player: no infraction (should have been a straight red card)! And I won't even mention the hand of Henry. While most major sports have evolved to use video replay, not the FIFA! No sir! And even if you have clear video of players blatantly cheating, the FIFA won't do shit: see Ireland being fucked over by Thiery Henry and France. The FIFA is so stuck up and stubborn that even when Henry said: "Yes I cheated", they didn't do a thing.

        Cheaters: Asshole Italian (De Rossi, I know, I am shocked too, Italian divers, who would have tought?! He did same exact thing in 2006.) dives in the Kiwi penalty area to get his team a penalty shot. I am pretty sure Italians have discovered a new force in nature because being pulled back from your shirt, somehow miraculously they fall forward! Endresult: Kiwis are fucked. Italy, France and Brazil along with Christian Ronaldo are masters of diving. As soon as one of their players is touched, they dive. Couple this with incompetent referees and a broken referee system and you got a clusterfuck of bad calls.

        Playacting: Kaká being sent off with with double yellow card because Keita from CIV was "writhing" in immense pain on his head after being touched in the chest. I wish I had this insane ability of Kaká, just touch someone and this dude is in mega pain! Oh and let's not mention Miroslav Klose from Germany sent off as well because of obvious play acting from the serbian side. His first yellow card was completely unwarranted.

        Every single game, watch players agonize in pain as if they are dying, 20 seconds later they are back on their feet and trucking along. Now watch a hockey game with a player receiving a puck in the face, losing a few teeth, bleeding, sits down on bench a few minutes, gets patched up and goes back playing. All this without one single moment of agonizing in pain, and I am willing to bet he was in infinitely more pain than the football player. Football is slowly becoming a joke, becoming almost as bad as WWE wrestling. The difference between WWE and football is that football is only partially acted out versus WWE is all acting. This is very unfortunate because the game is beautiful, but it's being ruined by a federation, the FIFA, stuck in a 1920 mentality and of course by the hordes of players who abuse the system to cheat.

        PS: GO ORANJE [wikipedia.org]!

        • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @11:24AM (#32679236) Homepage Journal

          It's not about stubbornness, it's about corruption. Bear in mind that FIFA is a predominantly French organisation, or it would have the letters in a sensible order. As it stands you can fix a game by bribing one person, who always has plausible deniability that he was unsighted or some other bullshit.

          When England or the USA win the final with an Argentina style "header" - that's when FIFA will introduce video replay - retroactively.

          P.S. Were you looking for your bike?

    • What reasons would that be, as opposed to those to call handegg [wordpress.com] boring? ;)
      (In terms of sports, I’m a shooter (online) and rally (offline) guy, so if you think I care about “sides” here, it’s all in your head.)

      • Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)

        by ground.zero.612 ( 1563557 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @10:17AM (#32678346)

        What reasons would that be, as opposed to those to call handegg [wordpress.com] boring? ;) (In terms of sports, I’m a shooter (online) and rally (offline) guy, so if you think I care about “sides” here, it’s all in your head.)

        I'm sure you've heard them before, but let's see how much of my still bad karma I can burn into oblivion answering honestly:

        The games are long and boring.

        The goal nets are too small.

        They don't score enough points (prolly due to the net's small size).

        The transitions are obvious.

        The players are wimps.

        The refs are blind.

        The fans riot violently; often causing mass destruction.

        Now add vuvuzelas!

  • Oblig. (Score:4, Funny)

    by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:54AM (#32676490) Homepage Journal
  • by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @07:56AM (#32676514) Journal

    Soccer is what the rest of the world follows for sports as they don't have access to baseball or football or basketball or hockey.

    Some americans do play soccer, mostly because mothers consider it to be more harmless then a sport where you hit others with a baseball and spit on your balls, gay men jump each other, or the kid ain't black or japanese or the mother is against open warfare on ice. (European impression of US sports).

    The vuuzela is something soccer fans blow because they are bored out of their mind and hate their neighbour but rioting is forbidden. Average EU soccer fan does hockey on the stands.

    As an EU citizen who has been to both EU and US sports events, don't bother Americans. Your sports might be impossible to comprehend for non-natives but the atmosphere is a thousand times better.

    For the EU soccer fans, attent a US sports event once and make it clear you are a foreinger, the Americans will welcome the newbie and show you everything, just remmeber that they like to play pranks and so will offer you a drink of cooled piss and pretend it is beer. Just smile politely and drop it somewhere. It is all part of the experience.

    Oh yeah BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      There was an interesting interview on NPR this week. It was pointing out that quite a few schools in the US are dropping American football for soccer sports programs (basically due to cost as to outfit a soccer team you basically just need a field and a ball compared with suits of armor) so a huge number of kids are playing it. But when it comes to watching sports they all watch American football.

      It also suggested that part of the reason for not watching soccer is a distaste for a draw - there has to be a

      • It also suggested that part of the reason for not watching soccer is a distaste for a draw - there has to be a winner, someone has to win and someone has to lose no matter how well the game is played.

        First of all, American Football used to have draws, and people watched it just as much.

        Second, why do people keep searching for some mystical explanation for why Americans don't watch soccer? It's not that complicated. The United States has a HUGE number of sports to watch. It's a mass market. Individuals gravitate to which sports are the most interesting to watch. The market has spoken. Soccer is less interesting to most individuals in the United States than other sports.

        It really is that simple. I can go into the reasons *why* soccer is less interesting than other sports to me, but it's not because of some stupid reason like "it wasn't invented here."

        • Re:For the americans (Score:5, Interesting)

          by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @10:55AM (#32678870) Homepage Journal

          Soccer is less interesting to most individuals in the United States than other sports.

          It really is that simple. I can go into the reasons *why* soccer is less interesting than other sports to me, but it's not because of some stupid reason like "it wasn't invented here."

          I would buy that, except Americans watch fucking golf, the world's most boring sport. (Thanks a lot, Scotland.)

          And let's face it, baseball can be pretty freaking boring too. Throw the damned ball already! No, not to first base! And there are how many more innings of this?!

          (Disclaimer: I'm joking and American.)

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        ...sometimes I think soccer was invented by suburban parents. It's kind of like the perfect politically correct game for kids in that they get to run around for a couple of hours and get tired, so they can go home peacefully, and not chew the legs off the furniture. You don't have to be exceptionally tall, or strong, really there's no physical requirement other than being able to run around and kick a ball. Often, no team actually wins, so there's no tears. And when somebody does win, they can easily consol
        • by Draek ( 916851 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @04:02PM (#32683590)

          A physically slow kid playing football is very much like a physically weak kid playing rugby: unless he *vastly* compensates for his shortcomings in other areas he's going to get himself and his team owned, and hard.

          But perhaps you just don't notice because in the US the competence level in football is fairly poor to begin with, so as long as you've still got two legs you aren't that far from the average. In a country like Argentina however, you'd be fucked.

    • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:20AM (#32676758)
      And, as a side benefit for tourists, you should note that American sporting stadiums are, by and large, riot free. So if you get piss drunk, punch the person in front of you, then light your pants on fire and throw them at a player as he's exiting the field; you will likely be arrested. You are only allowed to act this way in Detroit.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:37AM (#32676938)

      > will offer you a drink of cooled piss and pretend it is beer

      Yeah, last time I visited the US they pulled this one on me in every single bar I went. Even the shops sold it in cans, pretending it was real beer! You guys sure love your pranks, that's for sure! :-P

      • To be 100% fair, good American beer does exist. I remember I could buy a pretty good lager from Samuel Adams at most shops near Chicago, for example; but the really good ones are from microbreweries. Flying Dog has a fantastic selection, for example. Their imperial porter (called Gonzo) is one of the best beers I've ever tasted. I highly recommend it to anyone.

        American beer isn't bad at all. Mass-marketed American beer is pure cooled piss.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          What people think of as "American" beer (Budweiser, Miller) are actually not American at all; the last major American brewery (AB) sold out to foreigners a couple of years ago. Sam Adams and the other REAL American beers (St Pauly Girl and Rolling Rock are good American lagers) are indeed good beer.

          So anybody dissing American beer are ignorant. Bud Light and Miller Lite are NOT American; they're brewed by foreign owned breweries.

    • File this under "claimed soccer is more boring than baseball - obviously not attempting rational argument".
  • Memes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jojoba86 ( 1496883 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:00AM (#32676552)
    This is my new favourite internet meBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttTTTTTT.
  • sounds like some part of a woman's anatomy

    vuvuzela button: sounds like some part of a woman's anatomy i'm not aware of, but should be aware of

  • by RaceProUK ( 1137575 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:08AM (#32676636)
    Just don't click it. It's not like it's labelled 'Do Not Click'.
  • A year ago, the thought that there existed a more annoying musical "instrument" than a didgeridoo [wikipedia.org] would have been inconceivable. But the world shocks and amazes me once again.
  • by slasho81 ( 455509 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:31AM (#32676870)
    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.
  • Before reading the summary, I thought that YouTube had done something useful and added an optional filter to remove the frequencies that the vuvuzelas produce. That would have been cool.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      Well that's what it's for. After watching YouTube like this all day, your brain will filter out the annoying horns!

  • by Adrian Lopez ( 2615 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @08:46AM (#32677038) Homepage
  • I must be the only one who LIKES the vuvuzela. I don't watch soccer, but when I'm clicking by and I see a match in progress, the weird noise draws me in. It's surreal.
  • Something strange happens with this one. Sometimes I get the button, sometimes I don't.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 [youtube.com]

  • not that bad... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @09:59AM (#32678074)

    If the biggest complaint to come out of the first world cup in Africa are the cheap noisemakers, I'd call that a win. Sure, your typical South African may be upset that people are complaining about the horns, but the organizing committee has to be thrilled that people are not complaining about violence, a lack of organization, or any of the other things people were worried about when South Africa was announced as the host.

  • by Atryn ( 528846 ) on Thursday June 24, 2010 @02:35PM (#32682274) Homepage
    Sounds like a great flashmob idea... txt out a venue where folks are watching a world cup match and show up with either real Vuvuzelas or just your cell phone making the noise... Then avoid getting the @##@ beat out of you by enraged soccer fans.

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