I just finished watching “Kony 2012,” a documentary some are calling the most watched Internet video of all time. As I write this, the official video on YouTube has received nearly 80 million hits. But the film was surprisingly hard to find, and who knows how many others have watched other versions of the film.
The point of the video is simple: Filmmaker Jason Russell wants the world to make African warlord Joseph Kony “famous,” and through that fame force the world to pursue and arrest the man for his crimes. The film is a call to action—an effort to engage this wired world of ours to use its collective power to bring an end to a decades-long atrocity.
I’m not here to opine on the cause: I know very little about Kony or Russell or the myriad other considerations at play in this online drama. What I’m interested in is the drama itself—the way in which “Kony 2012” shows how the world has changed with the ubiquity of the Internet—for the better and worse.
Kony, according to Russell’s documentary, is the most-wanted war criminal in the world. As head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (a rebel group originally based in Uganda that has since migrated into other African nations), Kony allegedly kidnaps children (more than 30,000, according to “Kony 2012,” but some put the figure closer to 100,000), forcing the boys to fight and the girls into the sex trade. Often, the abductees are made to kill their own parents.
But Kony’s been at large for 26 years, mainly because (according to Russell) the world didn’t know who he was and had little reason to care. Without a public outcry, there’d be little international impetus to bring the man to justice.
But the world is a different place than it was in 1986. Then, most of us received our information from just a handful of sources: the newspaper, the nightly newscast, discussions with friends and family.
But the world, obviously, has changed. Many of us no longer subscribe to newspapers or tune into the nightly news. For many, our primary source of information is online. Our media is far more democratic these days, and that democratization brings with it its own plusses and minuses. We can steer clear of the biases we may perceive in the “mainstream media” and find outlets that better reflect our own outlooks and biases. We don’t have to follow the news that some gatekeeper thinks should be important; instead we follow the news that truly is important—at least to us.
There are two sides to this. As an old mainstream media journalist, I worry sometimes that all this democratization makes us a little lazy, intellectually: Our notions never have to be challenged if we don’t want them to be. We’re less likely to follow the minutia of national fiscal policy and more likely to read articles involving Kim Kardashian or (a particular weakness of mine) Tim Tebow.
But it also allows potentially important movements to take root. The phenomenon that is “Kony 2012” probably wouldn’t have happened in 1986, without the aid of Facebook and YouTube. Back then, we relied on people to tell us what we should care about. Now, we decide for ourselves—and that can affect real, and often positive, change. “Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live,” Russell says in his video, and if the upshot of this viral campaign results in lives and childhoods being saved and a true monster being brought to justice, that’d be a pretty positive outcome.
But while Russell and his supporters hoped “Kony 2012” would be a unifying event this year, that’s not entirely the case—and again, we owe that to the democracy of the Internet.
“Kony 2012” is not news: It is a one-sided documentary that makes no pretention of being balanced. So perhaps it’s not surprising that critics have taken it to task for oversimplifying the issues in play. Some even call Russell’s organization, Invisible Children, a fraud. And when the film was screened in Uganda, some viewers hollered and threw stones at the screen while the rest of the audience fled. Other scheduled screenings in the country have been cancelled.
I did a simple scan for “Kony 2012” on YouTube, and the first results I pulled are titled as follows: “Kony 2012 Hoax.” “Kony 2012—Action Figure Therapy.” “The Truth About Kony 2012 (Chinese Guy’s Opinion).” To the casual viewer who wants to “learn” more about this Kony guy, they’re likely to walk away from the Internet—or at least YouTube—more confused than educated.
“We share what we love [on the Internet],” Russell tells us “and it reminds us what we all have in common.” And that is true. We can find people who share what we believe online. And when we unite to pursue a common goal, our collective voice can make a difference.
But the Internet reminds us of how different we are, too … and sometimes that sheer diversity can immerse us in a land of static.
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