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As
many cheeseburger-loving Americans long feared, soccer has finally
driven the world stark raving mad. Wanting to create an international
buzz in the worst way, the World Cup unleashed something called the
vuvuzela on an unsuspecting planet. Ears bleed from Amsterdam to
Alabama.

And the world screams back: Hey, put a sock in it!
The vuvuzela looks like a harmless plastic trumpet. A mere toy, at
first glance. But more than 500,000 vuvuzelas have descended upon South
Africa, and faster than you can say “Didier Drogba,” tournament
organisers have a plague of white noise that disrupts every game and
disturbs every telecast.

“It’s almost as if South Africa has been invaded
by a million bees,” TV play-by-play announcer Ian Darke bellowed
Sunday. The audio feed sounded as if ESPN was broadcasting from the
dark side of Mars, with the action on the pitch drowned out by the
unrelenting din of vuvuzelas, which can generate a mind-splitting 125
decibels.

For folks who don’t speak the language of soccer,
the buzz is pronounced: voo-voo-ZAY-la. It is sold as a musical
instrument of mass destruction. The vuvuzela poses the greatest threat
to permanent hearing loss at a stadium since Roseanne Barr received a
lifetime ban from singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” These garishly
hued plastic horns cost 3 bucks, are as long as an elephant’s trunk and
threaten to swallow the biggest sporting event in the world.

“We have asked for no vuvuzelas during national
anthems or during stadium announcements,” Danny Jordaan told reporters
in South Africa, admitting his World Cup organising committee has
considered banning the trumpets. “I know it’s a difficult question.
We’re trying to manage it the best we can.” Where on earth did this
fascination for soccer fans blowing their horn begin?

While the exact origin of the word is clouded in
mystery, some intrepid etymologists have traced it to Zulu and believe
when loosely translated, vuvuzela means: Bored to deaf.

At risk of revocation of my natural-born right as
a U.S. citizen to supersize my meals at Mickey D’s, let me confess to
be one American who truly, deeply and passionately loves soccer.

The 1-nil scores don’t upset me. I even kind of
dig the wacko tradition of hooligans trying to burn down bleachers with
flare guns in celebration of a goal. The vuvuzela, however, is turning
a beautiful game into nails on the chalkboard.

This is not to say American ingenuity is without
guilt when devising mindless ways to make a racket inside an athletic
venue. So we will take the rap for the cowbell, the thunderstick and
the immortal wave, where everybody, including your Aunt Nancy, waits to
stand up and be identified as over served.

But as we watched Team USA tie grumpy old England
1-1 on TV, how many millions of Americans had the same immediate
reaction as cyclist Lance Armstrong?

“What is that horn going off in the stadium?”
Armstrong tweeted. After determining the source of the noise pollution,
he chirped, “No offense to the vuvuzela posse but, man, it’s a bit
much.” Aren’t soccer crowds supposed to sing? As rock stars from Paul
Simon to Bono can attest, no continent can lift up its voice in song
the way Africa can.

How hard could it be to set up collection bins
outside every World Cup venue? If Americans will dump bottles of cold
beer before entering an NFL game, then soccer fans can surely be
trained to surrender a vuvuzela at the gate.

Kill the buzz. Please.

For the love of Pele and everything soccer holds sacred, put an end to this endless torture of white noise.

Are we just being ugly Americans to complain? Hey,
don’t make us send Will Ferrell, the “Saturday Night Live” alum who
also played a soccer dad from Hades in the classic soccer movie
“Kicking & Screaming,” to Johannesburg to clean up this mess.

Because do you know the only stadium sound that could be possibly be more annoying than a vuvuzela?

More cowbell.

© The New York Times 2010