History

Origins

The Annoying Sounds Society has been dedicated to delivering annoying sounds to the world ever since it was founded in 1907 by the Austrian humanist and philosopher Erich Van Staffelbacher. In his quest for meaning, Van Staffelbacher was often found to make deep heaving sounds while contemplating things like the intrinsic traps of self-perception. While his philosophical works were never taken seriously by any of his contemporaries, he did notice the impact of the contemplation-sounds he made had on people around him.

When he lost his family's money on a bet with a deaf conman in 1902, he famously spent a week following the man, shouting and wailing into the deaf man's ears. In the eyes of the public, he was connected with the generation of annoying sounds, and the recognition this gave him made him drop philosophy altogether. He wisely invested the money he made from selling his life story in the Second Boer War. This enabled him to found the Annoying Sounds Society, thus starting an ongoing barrage of sounds specifically designed to irritate people and unknowingly sowing a seed for this website.

Rise Of The ASS

Through aggressive lobbying and it's Boer War contacts, the ASS's influence grew globally. The society instigated the placement of hidden speakers in most newly-built homes, and started a schedule of regular broadcasting. In later years, the regularity of the sounds was found to be conducive to growing accustomed to them, thus totally negating the intended effect. In fact, most people from that period cannot remember any occurence of the constant grinding and pounding sounds that most of them grew up hearing. The realization of this oversight in strategy, coupled with economic decline and an increased popular activism against the ASS, caused the society to adapt.

Instead of the broad apporach, the focus of the ASS was on generating occasional noises, some of the time, maximizing impact and minimizing cost. Memorable occasions were the high-pitched squeak during the semi-finals of the 1947 Middlesex County Cricket Championship, and of course the sneering saw-noise just after they cut away from Nixon's 1952 Checkers speech. While many attributed the tone heard on test-channels on tv to the ASS, this was later admitted by the UN to be a failed animal-control experiment, now known as ContraPet.

Public Acceptance

Until the mid-80's, annoying noises were still largely under peak-popularity, but when the internet was coming up, the ASS saw it's dream fulfilled. The new trend was a box at home spewing out random noise loudly into ever more living rooms. The modem arrived, and there was much rejoicing. But if this wasn't enough, people also started carrying around small sources of annoyance, cell-phones. And while the sounds they initially made were reaching critical annoyance levels, there was yet another step to be made. When the cell-phone was well enough distributed among the population, the ringtone emerged.

Crisis

At this point, the ASS was in critical condition. The crisis was not one of deficiency, but one of superfluence. Many of the members said that there were enough annoying noises everywhere, and that to promote an increase in this would be bordering insanity. Mostly everyone abandonded the society, and went on to become leafblowers, firetruck-drivers, dog-owners and mothers. In fact, at this date, there is only one member left, CheshirePuss, the creator of this site.

Future From Now

Still dedicated to the original endeavor of Van Staffelbacher, this site aims to present an array of annoying noises, while keeping the pulse on society, by giving them the option of contributing and ranking the sounds. The ASS is still the society most dedicated to annoying people, especially now the need seems so low. If you are interested in becoming a member of the ASS, please submit an annoying noise, and your email. You will be contacted if your sound proves to be sufficiently annoying.