#KONY
Kony, Grass Roots And The Power Of Celebrity
The power of social media is by far the most effective way in the 21st Century to promote a cause and help it ‘go viral’. This week we have seen just how it has empowered one charity and highlighted a cause they have been trying to raise awareness of for years.
Invisible Children have been a public, non-profit organisation since 2004, a year after young film makers travelled to Uganda to witness atrocities which were happening firsthand.
The footage may have been documented years ago and it may not be as polished as a Hollywood movie, but that doesn’t mean that its content should be overlooked or disregarded as fraudulent. This story (the story of the viral campaign not the regime) started in 2003 when three student filmmakers (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole) travelled to Africa with the intention of filming a documentary about the war in Darfur. Instead they discovered a very different war, the Civil War in northern Uganda and decided to use their talents to raise awareness of rebel leader Joseph Kony’s brutal regime.
In their own words, the documentary “depicted the atrocities of the LRA, a rebel group that had been abducting children to fill its ranks and terrorizing the people of northern Uganda with impunity and little to no international media attention”.
This week, Invisible Children had a breakthrough. Firmly believing for years that video content was the way to raise awareness of their cause, they posted their recent video on YouTube and within hours tens of millions of peoplehad viewed the 30 minute long documentary. Over the past week, the documentary has exploded all over the social networks generating more than 50million views on YouTube and over 13million on Vimeo.
If we take a look at their Facebook page, we are able to see that at the present time there are 12,080 people talking about Invisible Children and no doubt there are many thousands more who are currently talking about Kony alone.
Below is a chart pulled together by Twitter’s very own Isaac Hepworth, validating the growth in tweets about Kony and #stopkony over the last month.
This is the 11th film that Invisible Children has posted online, so what is it about this one that has gone viral instead of other ten already published?
In our opinion it has built up a following due to a strong grass roots campaign. The fact that the charity was founded by three students meant that it had a huge student following on all of its social channels already, which meant when this emotive, unique and compelling piece of footage was uploaded onto the social networks, the young community responded.
During the video, Jason Russell, the film’s director and narrator explains how social media has empowered people all over the world, from all walks of life, to raise awareness and bring about change. Russell clearly states that “in order for people to care, they have to know” and directs viewers to share the footage via twitter with celebrities who have a hug following, to help generate movement for the campaign and raise awareness.
The video was also promoted on the Invisible Children Facebook Page urging Fans of the page to view the film and share it over all of their social platforms, so that “Kony’s name is everywhere”.
This directive has worked, and they have managed to achieve their goal of worldwide awareness about Koney in the hope that it might pressure the government in Uganda and the US officials who are currently looking to find and arrest Mr Koney, who has reportedly fled the country. Their aim is to have him arrested by the end of the year.
Twitter soon began to listen as celebrities such as Justin Beiber, Oprah Winfrey, Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian began to tweet, who have approx. 48million followers collectively.
If we compare this to the population of Uganda, it is pretty phenomenal.
Kim Kardashian’s little sister, Kendall Jenner then also retweeted the video and if we look at the further reach you can see just how this campaign went viral for yourself.
However, there are always the cynics and this time it was a 19 year old college student from Nova Scotia who created a Tumblr account called Visible Children, which questions Invisible Children’s methods when it comes to how they spend their money.
Since this micro blog has appeared (yet another form of social influence), there have been many other reports and articles questioning Invisible Children’s methods and budget spends. Invisible children have since published a new blog post directly answering the accusations which are being made against them.
Meanwhile the White House press secretary, said “President Obama would like to extend his congratulations to the people who mobilized to promote a viral Web video about the atrocities carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army”.
This said, no press is bad press right? The views of the video are still increasing, and with it is the level of awareness. Invisible Children are now planning to take the viral campaign to the next level, translating the footage into as many different languages as possible.
Whether or not if this a valid cause, it’s certainly raised awareness worldwide. Celebrity endorsement via social networks can be a recipe for success, even in dubious circumstances.
