KONY 2012?

It’s “hot” on Google+, it is taking over facebook, it’s… jeremyhasablog!

Oh, I lied.  It’s … KONY 2012???  A video campaign aiming to raise awareness about “invisible children” in Africa (Uganda and beyond) being kidnapped, taken as sex slaves and child soldiers, forced to kill or be killed.  This campaign strives to make Joseph Kony, the mind behind these atrocities,  “famous”, to keep him on the mind of citizens, celebs, and policy-makers, to ensure that he is captured before the year’s end.  On April 20, all are encouraged to post Kony’s name and image in public places, in a sort of guerrilla marketing campaign like none other.  If you haven’t watched the video already, I sincerely encourage you to do so.

A few reactions to the video/idea/phenomenon, composed of a mixture of my reactions and those of others:

• It is encouraging that people  care enough to spread the word.
• It is less clear whether facebook posts will translate into the capture of Kony.  However, there is hope, inasmuch as this campaign seems to have gone “viral” and may remind policy-makers that the populace cares about this issue… or at least cares enough to re-post a video on facebook…
• On a related note, attitude accessibility is associated with greater attitude-behaviour consistency.  In other words, if an attitude comes to mind more easily (e.g., because you have thought about it recently), it is more likely to translate into actual behaviour.
• This may be an example of the ability of “the people” to dictate which issues mass media focus on, rather than vice versa (cf. agenda setting )
• This is not a “new” issue – Many of us had heard of child soldiers before.  Some seem to be aggravated that people are acting as though this is a recent phenomenon.  In any case, I’d say this is a “better late than never” situation.
• This issue doesn’t “directly” impact those in first-world countries, which 1) is one reason given for the difficulty in receiving U.S. government support and 2) may lead some citizens of first-world countries to feel ambivalent or apathetic.  However, one key point made by the video is that one’s place of birth should not determine one’s right to a meaningful and healthy existence.  It’s cliché, perhaps, but 1) injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere (MLK) and 2) If relatively powerful countries do not provide aid, then who will?
• The idea of wearing shirts bearing the name of an evil man (assuming that anyone can be “evil”… which would make for a great blog post in itself) seems strange, even counterproductive, but I *think* it will do more good than harm, given that 1) there is little ambiguity that Kony’s actions are sinister (i.e., few people should be under the impression that the publicity is intended to support Kony) and 2) (for the nth time…) a central aim of this campaign is to raise awareness.
• There are many other problems (poverty, starvation, dehydration, water-borne illnesses) that claim more lives than Joseph Kony has or will.  Some of us wonder why these issues fall by the wayside as this campaign picks up steam.  Why has KONY 2012 gained virality that these other issues lack?  Perhaps this Kony “bandwagon” is easier to jump onto because it has a concrete “target” (though the issue transcends one man, the focus is on a single person, namely, Joseph Kony), concrete “deadlines” (April 20th, and the end of 2012), and a well-produced, easily-reposted video.  Perhaps poverty, AIDS, etc. are taken, dare I say it, for granted – they are not seen as “new”, whereas KONY 2012… has 2012 right in the title.  Lastly, whereas one can concretely define the goal of Kony 2012 (i.e., capture Kony), the elimination of poverty is less likely to be seen as having a clear end-state (when can we be certain that no one is impoverished?  How can we be sure poverty will not reappear after its first “eradication”?)
  I’m not sure how to deal with this apparent issue.  At the moment, I think it is crucial that we approach these various tragedies and travesties with a healthy mentality.  Certain issues (including racism) may be exacerbated by a zero-sum mindset, in which gain for one person (group, issue) means loss for another.  Certainly, governments and citizens have finite amounts of time and money.  Still, it is unlikely that we each use our resources with optimal efficiency.  At an individual level, it is unlikely that the money you spend on Invisible Children “would have” otherwise been spent on solving world poverty.  And if you feel as though your money and time are better spent on world poverty, AIDS, malaria, etc., then so be it.
  Furthermore, Kony 2012 has the potential to benefit other important causes.  For starters, the mere presence of persons who are disappointed that Kony 2012 gets all the attention are, through their dissension, reminding us of the importance of these other causes.  Furthermore, campaigns for other issues (e.g., clean water, environmentalism) may be able to learn from the success of Kony 2012 – assuming that it is indeed successful.
• On that note: Some of us doubt that this campaign, this “experiment”, will last longer than a month or two.  Others see this as an historic (ugh… saying “an historic” sounds so pretentious…) moment, a chance for us to collectively use social media for more than just status updates, photos of food, and  terrible pun threads.  I love pun threads as much (okay, okay, much more) than the next person, but you can’t save lives with corny puns.  Kony puns?  Perhaps.