I wrote this a little while ago on the subject. I'm not sure if it's shitty or not. (I should work on recognizing that. I'm only in high school, but it's a useful skill to have.) I think it sums up my feelings:
The internet can be a wonderful tool for many people. Marketing used to be about focus groups, picking venues, appealing to your audience. Now, if you just target something at a group of people and send it out on the web, and if your message is just powerful enough, it will go viral. Many organizations use this to their advantage. The Kony 2012 campaign is just one of them.
In fact, not only does the Kony 2012 campaign use viral marketing, the very foundation of what it wants to accomplish is based on this new method of communication. It does this by appealing to a very specific demographic: teenagers and young adults, who, in this new age, are more likely to spread something on the internet. It uses very specific imagery to appeal to this audience. Throughout the promotional video, scenes of young, active, good-looking young people are seen running through the streets, slapping up posters of Kony’s face wherever they can while high-energy electronic music blares. (It is dubstep, to be precise, which has connotations of being “not-mainstream” and rebellious, and, ironically, is appealing to a large portion of the younger generation.) The shots evoke rebellion through its use of iconic, graffiti-like posters and imagery of large masses of people, resembling the hippies in the 60’s. Ask any angst-ridden teenager and they will tell you that rebellion is very much in their mind, so to capitalize on our yearning to rebel is extremely smart of them.
It does all of this to make a horrible war criminal, Joseph Kony, famous, in order to bring international support for his arrest. However, to build awareness for a cause is only half the battle. This is where Invisible Children starts to fall apart. In their released financial data on their website, only 37.14% of all their funds go to Central African organizations. The rest goes into awareness programs, merchandise, the promotional videos, fundraising, and management. This, as I said earlier, is only half the battle.
Most of the LRA’s focus is not in Uganda anymore, and has since been focused on South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, they continue to work with the Ugandan government, which has, itself, committed several human rights violations. In a statement on their website, the Invisible Children organization states:
“We do not defend any of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ugandan government or the Ugandan army (UPDF). None of the money donated through Invisible Children ever goes to the government of Uganda or any other government. Yet the only feasible and proper way to stop Kony and protect the civilians he targets is to coordinate efforts with regional governments.”
They continue to coordinate with the Ugandan government and other powers in the area. This conflict between their fight for peace and their coordination with a morally corrupt army also raises another question: What will the consequences be for encouraging a conflict between local governments and the deranged tyrant Kony? Obviously the problem cannot be ignored, but is the end result of bringing an evil man to justice worth the violence it is sure to cause?
I could go into other complaints skeptics have had with the campaign, such as it is perpetuating the concept of the “savior complex” in America. Some say the promotional video’s use of a small child to simplify the strife in Central Africa is insulting as well. Those arguments are less compelling to me as the potential misguidedness of the Kony campaign. It upsets me to even think about it. Perhaps, to relax, I’ll slip into Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It takes place in a world not far from our own. A world where everyone’s hooked up to networks, and bad men are always hiding in the shadows.
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