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On March 5, 2012 Invisible Children, Inc launched a 30-minute video to inform people about The Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa and their crimes against humanity carried out under its leader of over 20 years, Joseph Kony. Within 4 days the video reached 70 million people – that’s the fastest a video has reached that many viewers (the runner up being Susan Boyle’s first audition on Britain’s Got Talent, which took 7 days to hit that mark). Even more surprising, “It goes against all the best practices for going viral. It’s incredibly long. It’s serious subject matter. Plus, it’s horribly tragic,” explains Matt Fiorentino, a representatitve from Visible Measures – an analytics company that tracks the success of viral videos and online media. The other videos that share such successful viral status were either ad campaigns, clips from reality TV shows, or cute babies and animals like the famous “Sneezing Panda” video.

There is something to be gleaned from the fact that people were willing to sit through 30 minutes, when most of us only have an attention span of 30 seconds (in fact, according to our analytics you readers can only stomach articles that take you 3.3 minutes to read – so I’m really trying to make this short). Despite the failure to launch that attention into action there was a message in that video that we all sat through those 30 minutes to hear. A message I believe we were all hoping to embody: “We can make a difference.”

Another Invisible Children video (featured above) cross-references the success of social media to unite Arab citizens in a collective fight for their own justice in the 17 North African, Middle Eastern and Gulf countries that were ignited during the Arab Spring. With the Kony 2012 video Invisible Children, Inc dared to ask if we were able to ignite that same passion for justice to someone beyond our borders. Could we amplify our collective consciousness and reach all the dark corners on this earth and in essence become global action heroes?

Our Associate Editor, Nathaniel Sandler and Contributing Editor Leila Samii, who each attended Cover The Night on April 20th in their respective cities, weigh in on what happened:

We cannot talk about the Kony 2012 video, at this point, without openly discussing the complicated behavior of founding member Jason Russell that emerged four days after the video initially posted online. Obsessive American scrutiny was once said to have strung out and forced the breakdown of Britney Spears, and it’s hard not to see a similar mechanism at work with Jason Russell when he was caught on video masturbating across the streets of San Diego. One tweet that followed quipped  “He got caught making invisible children :O” and another “He sure covered the night! lol”.  

Just like the Kony 2012 video itself, the people involved with the organization were immediately overrun and each nuance of personal description available on the internet was deconstructed by countless overwrought readings and re-readings of their electronic identity. Psychology aside he quite conspicuously cracked mentally and once the machine has forced someone over the edge it becomes much easier for the whole project to be written off. Thus a video displaying the power of the internet was foiled itself via the power of the internet. And nothing deflates momentum in America like a sex scandal. In fact I learned this firsthand when I was unable to find a cohesive or functioning rally anywhere in the city of Miami to attend on April 20th.  

Without reinforcing or chastising the analysis that the internet offered of the Kony 2012 video or of Russell himself, we should take a step back and dissect where the intensity of selective group focus can actually lead. The overwhelming response that the video received can stand as a blueprint for activism moving forward. Sleekly presented socially conscious ideas in video form have now proven to be capable of moving virally through the internet. We can collectively become action heroes. The next concern is avoiding over saturation of an idea which leads ultimately to the flippant rejection of the social media conscious masses. Things on Twitter only maintain popularity for a couple days, sometimes less. How can we move from just a click-awareness-forget model to a click-awareness-action model? – Nathaniel Sandler

“On April 20th we will turn this digital revolution into something more and show the world who we really are.  We believe that the human connection extends across the world but starts across the street.  We will earn the right to be heard globally by serving locally.” Those were the opening words to Invisible Children’s Cover the Night video.

By using tactics such as presenting their goal in a simple manner and creating a video that would appeal to the Internet generation, Invisible Children arrived at the right place at the right time.  Reporters have referred to the movement as “clicktivism”, or simply put the notion that you can make a difference by liking a video on Facebook, or sharing a link to a website on Twitter.  If Invisible Children is simply attempting to make people aware of the LRA, and using Kony as the respective face of the army, then they were very successful. But their lofty vision to initiate widespread action on a global scale fell short. The transparency of their campaign was poorly executed. As a result Invisible Children found themselves swamped with accusations, and from there the negative critiques began to pour in.

The most prominent argument against Invisible Children is that they essentially brainwashed viewers into supporting the organization without truly explaining how the campaign was functioning behind the scenes. The original film itself explained the issue in an intentionally infantile manner, with their justification being that they wanted to make the issue as clear as possible. By ignoring the complexities of the issue and exactly how it is that Invisible Children is carrying out their plan, they left their followers in the dark in regards to what the full story even is.

So what happens when a movement grounded in the shark tank of social media, where fads come and go and criticism is abundant, attempts to manifest itself in the real world? Apparently nothing comparable to the attention it got on the Internet.  Social media would have been the perfect vehicle to launch the Kony 2012 campaign for Invisible Children if that was their only intention, but due to the fact that their credibility sunk in the process and a click on a website doesn’t take that much effort, the success of the Cover the Night event was very telling.

The New York City turnout for the event was sparse despite being one of the nation’s most bustling and activist-oriented metropolises. There was no indication as to where the event was meant to take place, leaving supporters once again in the dark. The only clear representation for the Kony movement came from about thirty volunteers located in Times Square. With the Invisible Children Kony video playing on two screens in Times Square, the volunteers remained in position for the evening, spreading the awareness of who Joseph Kony is.

Perhaps tallying the number of supporters of the Invisible Children movement isn’t the correct approach.  It is more essential to understand that regardless of how many people physically showed up to the Cover the Night events, the message was still carried out. Not just the message about the atrocities of the LRA, but about our potential to influence just by bearing witness. As volunteer Max Nostrand said, “our efforts will work as a domino effect, if we can reach out to even ten people tonight, those people will hopefully carry on to tell someone else, and awareness will be spread.”

According to current news reports, a multi-national force, led by Uganda and helped by 100 US Special Forces, has been chasing a retreating Kony in Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo and The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo predicted yesterday that Kony will be “arrested or killed” this year. When that day comes perhaps we will finally understand our power.  – Leila Samii