How 'Kony 2012' Went Viral (INFOGRAPHIC)

By now, most viewers subscribe to two schools of thought surrounding Invisible Children's "Kony 2012": It failed by a longshot in its oversimplification of a complicated issue -- or, hey, slacktivism or not -- at least it galvanized people to action. In any case, a recently released infographic tosses all that out the window and measures its success by the ultimate benchmark -- How does it compare to a Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga video?

In just six days, the Kony 2012 video got more than 100,000,000 views -- that's three days faster than the previous record-holder, Susan Boyle of Britain's Got Talent, according to OnlineSchools.com.

So what led to the video's quick shot to success? It may have been due in part to some big celebrity supporters -- specifically, Oprah, according to Onlineschools.com.

Video views shot up by 9 million in one day after the star tweeted the video to her 10 million followers, and when other celebrities got on board, the numbers kept rising.

Check out the infographic below for more on the online success of the video from onlineschools.com

Courtesy of: Online Schools

Comments

[Real EP]

06:53 PM on 04/13/2012

The "slacktavists" who were so into the video when it came out sure gave up on it pretty soon. And what better are they for having seen it? The video oversimplified the problem in Africa and taught them nothing, and it doesn't seem it motivated the people who saw it to begin doing research about the reality of the problems in Africa. I believe the founders had good intentions, but went about it all the wrong way by oversimplifying the problem and denying Africans agency in the video. People need to be educated for the long haul, or else they get behind a movement for a week when it's popular, but then give up and move onto something else, without learning anything about it.

[Antnne]

06:43 PM on 04/13/2012

It died sooo fast. The video didnt receive more than 2 million views in the whole full weeks after the controversy started.

[rutroGeorge]

12:12 PM on 04/13/2012

So what's become of it anyway? I though 4/12 was supposed to be the day, or was it the 20th like I saw on Tumblr where a twenty-something was posting about her "awesome" Kony Kit she got and how she coulnt wait to use it. Like she was describing her latest fashion haul from Target or something.

[Talitha Baker]

02:53 PM on 04/13/2012

On April 20, there will be the Cover the Night event. To learn more, check out http://www.kony2012.com/coverthenight.html

[ablegacy]

11:39 AM on 04/13/2012

"42% of people had heard about KONY 2012" What kind of stat is that? Is that the world's population? America's? People with internet? What?

[badscientist]

11:24 AM on 04/13/2012

looks like someone couldn't keep hiding their invisible children and had to let them out