The Kony Cure

We know that “information” is one the most essential commodities to our culture, but what happens when information is presented through disturbingly powerful visuals? Well, 50 million viewers in four days are what transpired. “Kony 2012”, a viral-video documenting the creator Jason Russell exposing the “truth” of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or the LRA, led by Joseph Kony in Uganda. Kony abducts children to become his soldiers in his LRA. The LRA is encouraged to rape, burn, mutilate and torture Ugandan civilians.

An Ugandan boy, age 16. Rebels from the LRA abducted him and cut off his fingers,  ears and top lip. 

Russell’s plan is to project Kony into “celebrity” status and make him as famous as possible in order to gain support in the arrest of Kony.  The 30-minute video, in my opinion, was pretty incredible. Beautifully edited and visually powerful, the delivery of the message was touching. A Ugandan boy, Jacob (a friend of Russell)is one of the main characters in this mission. Directly involved in the cause, Jacob escaped the path of Kony, but not without losing his family first.   He says “It is better that you kill us, because we don’t want to stay on earth”. 

The Internet is the facilitator for this mission. Thousands of images have been posted of and about Kony and the LRA. Millions of Tweets and Facebook statuses have been created and discussed. Over 50 million people have now viewed the “Kony 2012” video.

The poster that will make Kony a visual enemy. 

Of course there is always the counterattack community that are calling this a scam of democratic brainwashing, but nonetheless, all of these comments (over 500,000 of them) have been spreading through the highways of the Internet at warp speed. Another characteristic of this day, immediacy, this is our culture. An Internet society that shows strength and support by “likes” and #hashtags.