Post -Kony blog

I am deeply troubled by my tardiness in posting this blog, because I'm pretty sure that by now nobody cares about Kony. I mean, it was all anyone could talk about before, but then Cover the Night happened and there was very little mention of it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook (that I noticed) and it all seemed rather anti- climatic. 

This was an assignment I was supposed to have completed... months ago. And to be fair, I did! I actually wrote this as an assignment for my English class and was waiting to get my marks back before I posted it on my blog, trying to kill two birds with on stone. But of course I didn't get it back for like two months (jaja -.-) and this is the result. So, please, if you still haven't formed your own opinions about Kony (unlikely), allow me to brainwash you.

 

 

 

What is Kony2012?

   Kony2012 is the name of a youtube video produced by the charity organisation Invisible Children to raise awareness about a man named Joseph Kony. According to the video, (narrated by Invisible Children's director of media, Jason Russell), Kony is a Ugandan Warlord who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for kidnapping children in central Africa, forcing the boys to fight in his army and the girls into sexual slavery. The film has been called the "most viral ever", having racked up about 75 million views in a week. 

 

 This explosion of popularity was due to the "sharing" of the video on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. Youtube statistics also show that the video was most popular with teens and young adults aged 14- 24, which partially explains its appeal, for it's common knowledge that young adults tend to be attracted towards movements which they believe will make a difference and generally more willing than older people to throw themselves heart and soul into a project.

 

Needless to say, no organisation is perfect, and Invisible Children has attracted a lot of negative attention from critics the world over, people of all ages and backgrounds lashing out and calling the movement a scam. In truth, there was initially a lot of missing information and suspicious gaps in the Kony campaign, such as how the funds were actually being spent, whether Kony was actually a threat to Uganda and why it is that Invisible Children received a poor rating  for "transparency and accountability" by Charity Navigator. 

 

  A two second Google search for "Kony 2012" will bring up almost five hundred million results, and most of them are unenthusiastic, calling the video a scam and saying the organisation is run by mercenaries at best and completely fake at worst. It is much harder to find blog posts and youtube videos defending the movement, and this is where the question presents itself, am I being manipulated? The Kony 2012 video is brilliantly produced, utilising countless persuasion techniques and propaganda tools to draw people in and make them feel empathy, hopelessness, sorrow, and then build them up with solutions, inspiration. If a media piece is persuasive, does that automatically make it malicious and mean you are being brainwashed?

 

There are other more conspiratorial criticisms put forth by the exceedingly creative "Anti- Konyers", such that the video promotes bigotry and white supremacism. One article from The Atlantic online titled "The Soft Bigotry of Kony2012" states "...(Kony 2012) reinforces a dangerous, centuries- old idea that Africans are helpless and that idealistic Westerners must save them." If we see a people in crisis, we can only help them if it has zero potential for racist implications. Another slightly more understandable doubt people have is whether there is an ulterior motive to placing American troops (even advisory troops) in central Africa, where large amounts of crude oil were discovered last year. There is a suspicion that Obama's sudden interest in "helping" Uganda might have been spurred by this breakthrough, which appeals to a large demographic in the United States of citizens tired of fighting seemingly pointless wars.

 

 The most disappointing aspect of all this cynicism is that people have been so adamant on spreading the word that the Kony movement is a scam that they have forgotten to take into account that even if Invisible Children is fraudulent, the issue with Joseph Kony is still prevalent. If less time was spent making blog posts and videos whinging about the evils of Jason Russell and his superior marketing skills, and more on finding an alternative to assisting Uganda, we as a people might have actually profited from the roughly 685,000 USD spent on the production of this film. 

 

 The irony of the issue is that "anti- Konyers" like to produce great, intelligent pieces of genius where they strip down the philanthropist façade of Invisible Children and expose the "blaring fallacies" behind the campaign, convinced they've done something to better society. But how is it we can be so wrapped up in hating the movement that we completely forget the whole message behind it? Instead of putting our energy into trying to bring down Invisible Children, we should be attempting to help in a more tangible and effective means, by providing support and relief to those affected by Kony's reign of terror. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And voila. Maybe it wasn't too terrible, I got a 7 so maybe it was even good. I wouldn't know, because I refuse to read over it again. 

 

~ Mari