“I hated Kony before it was cool”: A Hipster Responds to Kony Fever

First of all, let me preface my post with the following admission: this title is misleading for two reasons.  First, I’m definitely not a hipster.  Just because I listen to bands that you’ve never heard of, sport a lumberjack beard, and eat food from a dumpster, doesn’t mean that I didn’t think all of those things were lame before everyone else.  Second, in no way am I qualified to make a statement like the one in my title.  To be totally honest, I had no idea who Joseph Kony was before the massive campaign and subsequent counter campaigns flooded my facebook news feed.  But now I do, and so do you, and that is why I think the campaign has been so important.

Let me be clear: I don’t support everything that Invisible Children (the organization behind the Kony 2012 campaign) does, I am skeptical of their incredibly simple presentation of an unfathomably complex issue, and I am wary of the campaign’s potential to perpetuate stereotypes.  The Kony 2012 campaign clearly has its faults. Yet it has been undeniably successful in its main objective, which has been to raise awareness about the LRA and problems brought on by conflict in Central Africa.  Though this ‘awareness’ may have been presented in a less than desirable manner, the problems with the Kony campaign have, albeit unintentionally, created a wave of something even more valuable: dialogue.

If you were on Facebook at all during these past few weeks, you must inevitably have witnessed something resembling the following scenario.  First, a few videos posted by excited individuals about some man in Africa named Joseph Kony began to pop up on profiles throughout Facebook.  Soon, statuses and profile pictures were changing, Kony 2012 action groups were being created, and incessant postings and repostings of that same half-hour video began to fill news feeds.  Kony 2012 was the biggest thing to hit Facebook since Farmville.  And then the criticisms struck.  Some began to question Invisible Children and the logic behind the Kony campaign.  Some began object to the way that this issue was being presented.  In response to these questions, some of which were raised in an undeniably self-righteous and patronizing manner, status updates and wall posts across Facebook began to change their positions faster than Mitt Romney in a GOP primary race!  People began to question many of their previous assumptions about international development, foreign aid, and the ‘plight of the Africans’.  People became aware of the complexity of these issues and of the depth of research required to adequately understand (or not understand) them.  I believe that this more holistic awareness, though probably not Save the Children's original goal, has been the greatest outcome of this campaign. 

Though it remains to be seen whether or not the campaign will have any real effect on the situation in Central Africa, Kony 2012 has undoubtedly taught a valuable lesson to all who have caught the Kony fever: that incredibly complex issues in international development require an equally complex understanding.  Getting ‘informed’ is not as easy as watching a video or reading a blog.  It usually requires dialogue.  And for those who do find reason to criticize the next online ‘save Africa’ craze, instead of intimidating well-intentioned people with condescending and self-righteous responses, remember that these campaigns create an excellent opportunity to raise holistic awareness about complicated situations.  Whatever you do, don’t be an INDEV hipster!

Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this issue,

Dan