Kony 2012 has taken the virtual world by storm, though no one seems to be entirely sure why. The movement is not new. Invisible Children’s campaign has been active since 2007, and Obama’s breakthrough involvement began late last year. This new video that was uploaded Monday evening by Imvisible Children co-founder Jason Russell however, had reached 9.6 million views on YouTube by the following evening. There has been a whirlwind of post-uploading chatter all over Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest, with a wider range of reactions and opinions.
For those of you who don’t know about Kony 2012, here is the summary that Jason Russell gave in the 30-minute long video. Joseph Kony has been terrorizing Uganda with his Lord’s Resistance Army for more than 30 years, looting villages and pressing young boys into servitude, forcing them to murder sometimes even their own parents and raping and abusing young women and girls. IC has been actively campaigning against Kony since 2007, but only recently, when Obama officially sent 100 military advisers in October 2011, did the United States actively become involved. Even then, the American public was largely unaware, that is until the now infamous Kony 2012 video went viral.
The methods of distribution for this video have been almost exclusively via social media. The point of the video is to “Make Kony Famous.” By Tuesday evening, even the most conservative Facebook users had to have noticed that the Kony 2012 video was popping up all over the news feed by the dozens, and dozens more people were changing their profile pictures to an image supporting Kony 2012. It was apparent that the goal of making Kony famous had been successful: Facebook was covered with the story, and tweets concerning #StopKony were coming not only from the everyday Twitter account, but also from celebrities such as Rihanna and Ryan Seacrest.
This video, of course, was not without its criticisms. By Wednesday morning, Grant Oyston, a 19-year-old college student from Nova Scotia, had formed a rebuttal criticizing IC’s methods that he posted on his Tumblr titled, “Visible Children.” He too, had received millions of hits by the next day, though public acknowledgement of his criticism was noticeably less widespread than the IC’s “Kony 2012” enthusiasm.
Social media proves to be an extremely effective method of getting the word out, at least with the people that IC most wants to hear its message. Through social media, IC is appealing to college and high school students, and likely banking on the fact that this age group will be the most willing to accept its message. It seemed that those not actively using social media (read: adults) were slower on the uptake of Kony 2012.
Take for example, Rush Limbaugh. In response to Obama’s decision to send U.S. military advisors to aid central Africa in its fight against the LRA in 2011, Limbaugh recorded a lengthy monologue criticizing Obama, defending Kony and stating that, “the Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan, and Obama has sent troops, United States troops, to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them.”
Social media has been an extremely successful tool for spreading IC’s message and uniting those who view it for a common cause overseas.
“I think it’s good that people want to get involved but I think it should be more than sharing a link and thinking that it’ll be enough,” freshman Annie Jeong said. “They should research it more before they get all worked up about it.”
And people are getting worked up about it. Following the video’s instruction to “Make Kony Famous,” there has been a flood of Kony 2012 videos, pictures and updates all over every social media outlet imaginable since the video’s release. Pepperdine hosted a convo event on the evening of its release showcasing the video, contributing to the fervor that many Pepperdine students have experienced.
IC’s methodology of using social media to inform people of its cause has been extremely successful, causing massive support among who were previously unaware of Kony’s violent tyranny.
“For such a ridiculously long time, nobody knew who Kony was or that there was even a problem in Uganda, the Congo and the other areas Kony and his armies have occupied,” freshman Allan Spencer said. “But then, overnight, everything changed thanks to Invisible Children and this campaign, and now it’s common knowledge.”
Others are a little more skeptical of the Kony 2012 campaign, and worry that too many people are blindly accepting the cause without fully understanding the organization they are choosing to support.
“I think the video had pretty images but not much substance,” Jeong added. “I think there are a lot more credible organizations out there and they should not dedicate so much to their personal expenses.”
Invisible Children has been criticized in the past for spending too much of its revenue on advocacy and outreach rather than actually sending support to the cause in Africa.
“Every movement is going to have critics, and that’s OK,” senior Kevin Vandivort said, who interned with IC last summer. “Invisible Children’s model of charity is different from any other charity in the past, and that’s certain to raise some questions. But do the research for yourself before you make your criticisms public.”
Social media is both a blessing and a curse. It makes spreading the word about such an important issue incredibly easy, and also potentially dangerous. As was its goal, Kony 2012 has brought awareness to the atrocities that have been going on in central Africa. At the same time however, it has created an army of potential ignorants that may not know anything about the organization they are supporting and donating money to.