Perfectly Imperfect

Apparently, a 30-minute film named Kony 2012 was a big thing in, of course, 2012. But for some reason, I had never heard of it until now.

The short-form was created by Jason Russell for his nonprofit organization, Indivisible Children. The purpose was to generate awareness around Joseph Kony, the Ugandan leader of a terrorist militia group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. Kony is documented as forcibly and inhumanely taking children to fight in the organization against their will. 

Watching the film, I felt like I had already heard about this dire situation. The inhumanity of what was happening was quite unfathomable. Russell does a great job of explaining the situation, and the severity of the exploitation of these African children. I was amazed that I hadn’t previously heard about this film that took the world by storm.

The goal of producing the video was to generate public awareness about Joseph Kony, with the end objective of getting him arrested by the end of that year. The organization made posters with “Kony 2012” plastered all over them, and encouraged watchers to participate in their programs. The video ended up taking the internet by storm, racking up “over 100 million views in six days” according to Invisible Children.

And yet, it is 2025, and Joseph Kony is still on the loose. Does that mean the campaign was a flop? Of course not. The campaign generated more knowledge of Joseph Kony and the situation in Uganda, and this should be acknowledged. However, the effects of the campaign only went so far. Joseph Kony, in fact, did not get arrested in 2012, and he’s still off in the world 13 years later.

Virality can be a great thing, if used for a good purpose. According to Anjali S. Bal, et al. in their paper “Do good, goes bad, gets ugly: Kony 2012,” the virality of the Kony 2012 was fueled in part by the powerful coverage it received. “Kony 2012 received a great deal of attention because of the speed with which it spread,” wrote Bal, et al. “The video was highlighted by every major news organization including CNN, BBC, the New York Times, and the Guardian integrating the video to traditional media sources” (Bal, et al. 2013)

But can a popular video actually go about and create sustainable change on an international level? I assume that it can, but Kony 2012 fell just short of doing so. According to Bal et al.,

“The message of Kony 2012 was that simply by forwarding the video on, and educating others about Kony, people could make a difference in the world… Interested parties merely needed to share the YouTube link of Kony 2012 as posted by the Invisible Children. Similarly, many individuals were easily able to ‘like’ Facebook pages to show support.”

We learn from advertising that there are different types of campaigns, some focused on conversions, others focused on awareness, and so forth. Kony 2012 can be classified as an awareness campaign, which can be seen as a minor issue. It didn’t lead to actual advocacy or activism projects, aside from hanging up posters. In comparison to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which raised around $115 million according to the ALS Association, Kong 2012 only raised a mere $12.6 million.

Awareness is good, and it’s better than nothing. But awareness and virality does not lead to sustainability. Actions do. There’s a reason why Kony 2012 fell short, be it the processes of the organization behind the video or the simplified logic of arresting Kony through awareness. The positives it generated should be celebrated, but we must acknowledge that actions speak louder than words.