KONY 2012, Real Denunciation or a Business Based on Manipulation?

The Creators of the Most Viral Video in Online History Are Defending Themselves.

It is the most viral video in the history of the Internet. In its first three minutes (it is 30 minutes long), the objective is made clear. On the one hand, in the first sentence, it mentions boldly and directly the means by which it hopes to spread its message, “Right now, there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago.” On the other hand, it appeals to “what we all have in common.” YouTube videos narrate simple and entertaining stories that we’ve all seen and been moved by.

The video was made by the NGO Invisible Children, a group of filmmakers and audiovisual developers that dedicate themselves to portraying and helping the minors that are victims of the conflict in Uganda, an African country. It is a call to stop the rebel leader Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army. This force maintains a constant fight against the government of that country with the objective of establishing a theocratic regime. Over the course of the war, the Lord’s Resistance Army has assassinated, sexually abused and recruited thousands of boys and girls. In the video, it is said that the International Criminal Court classified Kony as one of the “world’s worst criminals.”

But is the documentary as good and honest as it seems? Of course, it defends an unquestionably noble cause. Besides, it is well done. It fits the bill, has good rhythm and doesn’t lack the emotional moments that Hollywood has made us used to. There are harsh images, close-ups and violin music. According to the El Tiempo TV critic and columnist Omar Rincon, “Its narrative of the good and bad guys, heroes and villains with the subject of saving Africa is very effective.” If one lets his guard down, this can be very convincing.

Despite all of this, one of the video’s weak points is that some say it is excessively simplified. In a talk with ENTER.CO, Alvaro Duque, the academic director of journalism masters at the University of Rosario, offered harsh criticism: “I saw the video, and around the fourth minute I was bored. What they were showing there was a sweetened speech to attract idiots.” He goes on to add that the way the content is presented “sums up the whole problem to an individual; it simplifies the message.”

In fact, the magazine Foreign Policy highlights some of the factual inconsistencies in the video. “Joseph Kony is not in Uganda and hasn’t been for six years”; this is something that the narrator doesn’t say but only mentions in passing for a couple of seconds. The magazine also states that “the LRA (thankfully!) does not have 30,000 mindless child soldiers. This grim figure, cited by Invisible Children in the film (and by others) refers to the total number of kids abducted by the LRA over nearly 30 years.”

These are things that the video’s maker Jason Russell doesn’t deny. According to the New York Times, he “acknowledges that he has not made the most nuanced or academic of films.” In the article the maker admits that he “may have boiled down the issues, but that is what it takes to captivate so many people.” According to him, the usual way of treating that kind of problem doesn’t have a lot of impact: “No one wants a boring documentary on Africa…. Maybe we have to make it pop, and we have to make it cool.” [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/world/africa/online-joseph-kony-and-a-ugandan-conflict-soar-to-topic-no-1.html?pagewanted=all]

The NGO admits that the “pop” element was a reaction to the indifference which Russell says it has received in the past. “We have made 10 documentaries before this one, and we’ve shown them in institutes and universities since 2006…We work very hard, we made all these videos and put so much effort into them and achieved 3,000 visits. And so a cat in a video throwing a chain has 40 million views…that was an inspiration,” explained Invisible Children in a statement published in the Trending Topics blog for El Pais from Madrid.

And the Money?

The money that Invisible Children have collected is also being questioned thanks to the documentary. In it, people are urged to buy a support kit which costs $30. According to what Russell said on the Today Show in the U.S., as of Mar. 9 they had sold 500,000 of them. But, as El Tiempo indicated, “criticism has emerged that the American might be becoming rich with the donated money.”

The Guardian assures that “most of the money raised has been spent in the US.” Even Jedidiah Jenkins, the director of communications for Invisible Children, confirmed in an interview that “the truth about Invisible Children is that we are not an aid organization, and we don’t intend to be. I think people think we’re over there delivering shoes or food. But we are an advocacy and awareness organization.”

The CEO of the NGO, Ben Keesey, defended himself against these charges in a video published Monday. In it, he says that the policy of Invisible Children is “to be as transparent as possible” and denied that it was all a facade to pay for the “management team flying around and staying in fancy hotels.”

The Dangers of a Meme

The apparently ingenious NGO accepts that it had “no idea that the global audience was starved for [what it produced].” But according to some critics, the video is specifically designed to manipulate audiences. Delia Rodriguez of El Pais from Madrid writes, “It is made to activate each spring what makes viral videos jump from one person to the other.”

But, how did it become so popular? Duque suggests that on one hand, “the world has a particular sensibility to those that use children inappropriately.” On the other hand, “the conscience is being brainwashed: I feel happy buying a bracelet, that way I think I made a small contribution.”

Rincon, however, highlights the “excellent use of cinematographic and televised narrative” in the video. Furthermore, he assures that as a beginning to a more serious action to solve the problem, Kony 2012 was an unmistakable success: “Social networks are a way to [introduce a] ‘virus’ [into] society. If the idea was to get the world to talk about something, it succeeded.”

Either way, this is only one among many other similar phenomena we will see in the future. Russell said that what has happened until now “is only the beginning.” As more people connect to the Internet, the market for these kind of initiatives will only grow.

At the same time, there will be more risk of manipulation. The Guardian asks, “But what if a video with more sinister antecedents were to get this kind of viral boost? It suggests the old saying that ‘a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on’ is acquiring a chilling new resonance.”