Friday, March 16, 2012

Semi-visible Children?

  Over our (ridiculously short) spring break a YouTube video was released. But not just any video, this short documentary initiated a conversation that should have been happening for years now. If you do not know by now the video I am referring to is the Invisible Children’s 29 minute documentary on a man named Joseph Kony. If you do not know who he is here is my super-duper watered down version of it. So the International Criminal Court named the worst criminals of the world and Joseph Kony is at the top of that list for conducting a civil war in Uganda for about 26 years with the Lord’s Resistance Army. Even though the LRA is no longer in Uganda, this army continues to kidnap, mutilate, rape and kill families in Central Africa. Invisible Children, the group that created this video believes that if we as a society make Joseph Kony famous then congress will continue to support the US troops who are in that area helping armies with intelligence to capture Kony.
But that is not what I wanted to talk about to. I wanted to bring up how society reacted to this video and why. This KONY 2012 video received close to 80 million—MILLION views in about a week. Our generation definitely did what they had to do to make Kony famous. But why? This has been going on for 26 years and now is when people take the stand to say something about it? To make this situation even worse the majority of the people who are making the tweets and comments do not even take the time to get a well-rounded view of the situation. Rather they watch this one video and assume they know everything. After researching the topic, I learned that there was a lot left out like the fact that the LRA is no longer in Uganda and that the people of Uganda do not even want to be seen in this light. But the majority of this generation will not even learn more on a topic that they are so verbal about on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. What I want to know is what does this say about our society if so many people can only learn about the world around them by someone else forcing it into their faces on social networks? Are we becoming a society that just keeps the blinders on and only focuses on our backyard?

Here's the video if you would like to watch :)

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2 comments:

  1. Connor RodimerMarch 16, 2012 at 1:20 PM

    One reason, aside from the fact that so many social network mediums have had this video being posted in a frenzy, is that the video is emotionally manipulative to some extent. This is another argument that has been raised againt Invisible Children because it provides simple solutions to complex problems through its propagandism. Although propaganda usually has a negative connotation, is it necessarily a bad thing if its intentions achieve a mostly positive end? Its a little foggy on the ethical boundaries here.

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  2. Alaina S.March 17, 2012 at 9:16 AM

    I think this is a great point to emphasize in our video, Ashley. Obviously Invisible Children is a great and heart-wrenching cause, but nevertheless it's still important to learn all the facts about the situation and examine them objectively. Connor's questioning is interesting, too--how does the video's pathos change the way we view it? Is this propaganda? If not, what is it, and it is okay as long as the rhetorical purpose is noble?

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