APRIL 2012 - ISSUE 03 - Massive Magazine

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FEATURE James Greenland looks at the phenomenon that is Invisible Children’s viral campaign and finds there are two sides to the story. THE HUNT FOR KONY – SETTING THE AGENDA ONLINE Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time is now. Really? What about murderous kidnappers armed with machetes and machine-guns? Guerrilla soldiers and their captive child soldiers rampaging through unwary villages under cover of darkness to wreak a nightmarish-barbarism upon the innocence of youth itself … This is the choice that the phenomenally high-profile organisation Invisible Children wants you to make: Which is the more powerful? First, their viral idea, which has rapidly infected the global community and is hosted within cells of online empathetic collectives; or, secondly, a small bunch of armed rebel ideologues with weapons hiding somewhere in the dense jungle of Central Africa, who raid homes and prey on the defenceless, led by an evil bastard with a good Christian name – Joseph. +++ Unless you have been hermiting beneath a boulder, without wi-fi or 3G, you probably know Joesph Kony is a bad man. You probably know he kills and kidnaps children. You probably want him stopped. This is what Invisible Children wants to happen, too – this year. They want Kony captured and tried for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2012. And they want the people of the world to make it happen. All they ask is that you pay attention (and a few dollars a month). Invisible Children believes their virtual virus can overcome Joseph. Millions of you agree. The time is now, they say, and the idea can stop the bandits. They need you to help. But what do you know?! You know the idea. “Stop Kony”. Invisible Children exposed LRA leader Joseph Kony’s monstrosities to the Western world through their video production Kony 2012, which was released early in March. It captures one’s attention immediately, and does not release it for 30 minutes. 18
In the film, analytical details of Kony’s terrorism in Uganda are traded for stimulating graphics, and a manufactured contrast between good and evil – represented by the filmmaker’s young son reacting to tales of Kony’s malice. This stark contrast may simplify a complex political conundrum, but Kony 2012 definitely doesn’t sugar-coat depictions of the LRA’s atrocious rebellion. Viewers are left emotionally exhausted after 30 minutes of wondering how such evil has been allowed to exist. With typical American hyperbole, documentary-maker Jason Russell gives viewers hope for a change. Something everyone can agree on – the prevention of murder, kidnap, rape, and all other vile atrocities regularly perpetrated by the Kony clan. It is a compelling documentary. And now his name is everywhere. He is in the news, on the internet, and all over the T-shirts of the trend-wariest hipsters. In the West, Kony has become infamous on a scale never before seen, going from a little-known-zero to an ultra-celebrity internet anti-hero almost overnight. Their movie has become one-of-if-not-the-most viral online videos in the history of the internet. Already with over 100 million views, it is gaining momentum. Invisible Children cared, now people everywhere care. And the reason is social media. Invisible Children targeted their phenomenal video campaign carefully. By encouraging some high-profile socialmedialites to promote Kony 2012 through their various digital profiles, they reached out to an audience of millions, who avidly follow the daily updates of many celebrities’ lives. Millions upon millions of internet users quickly became aware that something was happening. Some strange word was taking over their usually familiar homepages, cluttering their online experience with red and blue hues, an unfamiliar face, and murmurs of unpalatable human hideousness. Intrigued, people opened the link. Now, more than 100 million people “like” Kony 2012. Whether you like it or not, it has become unavoidable. The power of the internet and social media to set trends and influence opinion has proved truly astonishing in recent years (during the Arab Spring revolutions, for example). However, the age of instant global communication has not been entirely beneficial to Invisible Children’s campaign. Critiques of them began to circulate on the internet almost as soon as the movie was released. ‘What cannot be debated is that Kony 2012 has become a phenomenon, unquestionably achieving its stated goal of raising awareness.’ Accusations have flown around the internet, from in blogs to mainstream news reports, claiming that Invisible Children have managed a financially questionable charity, produced misleading and West-centric • LRA = Lord’s Resistance Army, active since 1986 in northern Uganda, originally intended to protect the interests of Acholi people, eventually turned against own people, “purifying” them in attempt to create an Acholi theocracy; labelled terrorists after September 11; thought to be 200-700 troops remaining. • Joseph Kony, LRA leader, indicted by International Criminal Court for war crimes in 2005. Believes he is a messenger of God. Dickhead. • Invisible Children, a non-profit organisation devoted to raising awareness about Kony and restoring peace/prosperity to villages affected by his tyranny. http://www. invisiblechildren.com/ anti-African propaganda, and deeply offended some Ugandans personally affected by Kony’s terror. Possibly most discrediting were reports of the film’s maker, Jason Russell, losing his mind, running around naked and masturbating in public. This was filmed and, ironically, went viral too. There seems to be a dark element to Invisible Children’s campaign. Certainly there are two sides to the story. Much criticism has been directed toward the hordes of young “slacktivists” who form the bulk-mass of support for Invisible Children’s campaign. They have been labelled as ill-informed, apathetic, bandwagon jumpers, who are more interested in keeping pace with the craze than they are concerned by the LRA’s torment of Central Africa. Because all they have done is watch a film – and told other people about it – they are chastised for having offered little-to-no practical support to the cause. I wonder if such critics ever heard Burke’s famous call-to-action: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. Though next to it, spreading information online is not nothing. +++ What cannot be debated is that Kony 2012 has become a phenomenon, unquestionably achieving its stated goal of raising awareness. I believe, along with Invisible Children, that spreading the knowledge of specific evil doings is a good and necessary thing for the prevention of evilat-large. A good person, concerned by the fate of other good people, is a good thing. Many good people concerned is great. Chris Park is vice-president of communications and marketing at United Nations Youth New Zealand, and does much of his work online, using various mediums of social media for the communication of his organisation’s message. UN Youth NZ seeks to equip young New Zealand citizens with the knowledge and understanding they need to co-operate effectively as global-citizens within our globalising world. Writing to me, Chris Park joked that though they have much experience disseminating information online, UN Youth NZ campaigners have yet to achieve a viral potency equivalent to Kony 2012. Like Invisible Children, he believes in the power of internet-based social media to positively in- ‘Spreading the knowledge of specific evil doings is a good and necessary thing for the prevention of evil-at-large. A good person, concerned by the fate of other good people, is a good thing. Many good people concerned is great.’ fluence the hearts and minds of the young, connected generation. “If you are trying to generate hype and get buy-in from Gen Y, it only makes sense that you use social media campaigns,” he says. Despite Joseph Kony remaining an uncaptured international criminal, Park contends that, good or bad, Invisible Children has been successful. www.massivemagazine.org.nz 19
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Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS ISSUE 3 April. Where is th
Page 5 and 6: ARAB SPRING: LIFTING THE VEIL Benji
Page 7 and 8: LETTERS Massive magazine welcomes l
Page 9 and 10: Jess Roden looks at the use of cour
Page 11 and 12: WHAT THEY SAY STEVE MAHAREY Massey
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Page 41 and 42: MASS EFFECT 3 Allan Werner GAME 201
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