KONY 2012 and Animal Rights

Hello everyone,

Today is my Birthday! Happy Birthday to moi.

Anyway, I had an idea I wanted to share on this blog.

Has everyone heard about the KONY2012 video? It’s gone viral, but you blink and you can miss these things.

If you haven’t watched it yet, allow me to explain.

The other day on FB I noticed a lot of people mentioning this KONY thing and being like please watch this excruciatingly long video. I was like…hmm no. I didn’t even know what it was about.

But that night I was texting with my sister, a social media guru, and she was like “what do you think of the whole KONY thing?”

I was like, “wha?! et tu, Brute??”

jk, but then I was like, I should watch this. If she is interested in it, it must be some cool controversial thing.

I began the video.

I was immediately drawn in. 30 minutes later I had been holding back tears and so inspired and awed at this simple little video.

You can watch it here.

Basically a guy, who seemed like just a regular old youtuber with a phone camera, went on a trip to Uganda and what he saw shocked him. Thousands of children all packed together sleeping on the floor, hiding from the LRA, led by Josef Kony. The LRA is his army made up of children Kony has abducted, forcing the kids to kill their parents, giving the boys machine guns, making the girls sex slaves and forcing them to fight for him. Does it get more evil than that? Kony is considered the #1 war criminal in the world according to some famous org (I forgot what).

The guy filming talks to this Ugandan boy Jacob who escaped Kony but is sleeping in one of these camps for people hiding form Kony. Jacob talks about how his brother was killed in front of him, and how he has no desire to live anymore. It’s hard to imagine since Jacob is so charismatic and immediately likeable. There is a scene in the vid where the guy who made the vid promises Jacob right then and there…he will do everything in his power to STOP Kony: “Do you understand me, Jacob?!” just like a dramatic scene in a movie. And just like in a movie, he made good on his promise and founded Invisible Children, an organization working to stop KONY and help the children Kony abducted. I can’t believe he caught such powerful moments of video. It’s amazing viewing.

The video is told in an extremely engaging you tube-y way, going back and forth between footage of this guy’s young son, Uganda, Jacob coming to america and speaking on behalf of these Ugandan children. It’s really an amazing video.

Anyway…at the end of the video…he says, we have a plan. We will contact these top twitter celebs like Jay Z, Angelina Jolie, Taylor Swift, etc…and these top policy makers…and swamp them with retweets and calls about KONY. Essentially making Kony famous, so that the gov will take some action to stop him. They are also going to have a night where they plaster every city in America with posters…so that when the world wakes up, everyone will know KONY’s name.

Basically, it’s a really good plan. And you can’t believe one guy thought of it all. And through the power of twitter and youtube and young kids on youtube could really use the internet to truly do what everyone is saying the internet will do…make the world a global community and become a way to combine forces…and for the people, the youtubers, the twitter lovers, to truly change the world.

I feel like this one video showed us it’s possible.

Today there was a ton of backlash to the video…everyone is saying the situation is far more complicated than this video makes it out to be. Major controversy!!

lol

My take is, the video was a great idea. He is doing something at least. He made people aware of a hugely important issue. Who cares if people say it’s too hard and won’t work. People always try to take you down a few notches when you come up with a good idea.

I thought the video was great…and I believe it PROVES what you can do with twitter, facebook and youtube, and that a personal honest story from a youtuber is so much more powerful than some expensive corporate ad thought up by an ad team.

Anyone see where this is going?

I think a video like this needs to be made for animals.

Any ideas?

PETA needs to make videos like this. Regular people too.

Have you heard of Ghosts in the Machine? It is going to be a documentary film featuring JoAnne McArthur, an amazing and truly gifted photographer of animals I wrote about here. I liked the Ghosts on facebook and they are great to have on the newsfeed! I can’t wait for their film, but I think we need youtube vids now…with viral potential.

Tell me, did you watch the KONY2012 video. Did you think it was stupid? Or did you change your facebook picture to KONY2012? Do you have any ideas on how we could use social media and videos for animal rights? I can’t wait for Ghosts in the Machine to put out something like this. For the ghosts!!