Kony 2012: Changing the World, One Tweet at a Time

You always hear that change cannot happen over night. One man by the name of Jason Russell proved that statement wrong.

The filmmaker has been working for several years in Central Africa to help stop the rebel army and their leader Joseph Kony. Russell already convinced the president and many other American leaders to allow for a small group of United States forces to be deployed to the area. He has helped to rebuild schools and create an early warning detection system for the area to protect them from Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.

I am not going to go into detail about the Kony 2012 campaign because I am sure every other HuffPost blogger is going to mention it today, but I think it is truly an excellent cause. Instead, I am going to focus on the popularity of it.

Russell's newest idea was to make Kony popular by using social media. The results were excellent. The 27-minute video was posted on Vimeo and YouTube by Invisible Children and became a worldwide trending topic on the Internet.

Let's start with YouTube, the biggest video sharing site on the Internet. The video was posted on Monday. By Wednesday morning, the video had over 1.8 million views.

The video was also put up two weeks ago on Vimeo.com. It started off with 20 views a day at the most. On Monday the number of people viewed it was at 58,000 views, then it jumped to over 3.5 million people viewing the video on Wednesday.

Together, the two video sites had over 7 million views, the majority from the last three days. Most people are sharing by embedding into Facebook profiles and on Twitter accounts.

Personally, I have never seen an outpour of support from people on my Facebook news feed like this. Close friends, co-workers, and friends from across the globe all started posting it last night.

I saw the video on someone's wall on Monday, but to be honest, I didn't read it until a fellow co-worker posted it in our staff Facebook group with her plead to watch. I thought it would be worth my time. It was an excellent video and provided a great insight into crimes against humanity.

The Invisible Children Facebook page has jumped to over a million fans and a Stop Kony Facebook page now has over 20,000 fans.

Twitter has been taken over by storm too. The documentary has a call to action to get celebrities involved in providing a powerful voice. Many people have taken to Twitter to grab their attention. The hashtags #StopKony2012 and #MakeKonyFamous and the keyword Kony is lighting up Twitter and is now worldwide trending.

The big question is, how long will this last? I think that this is a big wave, but in a few weeks the popularity will die down. I certainly will continue to support it. Do you remember Haiti? The outpour of American support was amazing, but a few weeks after the natural disaster hit, we forgot.

Maybe America will prove me wrong, but the viralness of the video is amazing. I don't think I have ever seen something spread so fast, with so many people bought into the cause.

Change may not be able to happen overnight, but awareness can. Russell proved that right.

 

Comments

[Elle0508]

08:31 PM on 03/08/2012

No, the Kony 2012 video isn't the most accurate. If you further research the topic, you'll find how much the facts have been manipulated. But it is creating a discussion about topics like displaced person, child soldiers, mutilations, war crimes and guerilla warfare that persist in several countries around the world. The legitimacy of Invisible Children remains to be seen, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other organizations working hard around the world to fight these issues and fight for Human Rights. You don't have to donate your money or volunteer your time to help fight these issues. But you should at the very least be aware of them.

[Alan Saltzman]

07:57 AM on 03/08/2012

Im gonna keep investing in my own well being thank you.

[P1James]

03:59 AM on 03/08/2012

only worthy of 100 troops. no oil in Uganda. next topic.

[s1979]

12:13 AM on 03/08/2012

why NOW??? from what I have read this has been happening for some time right? I mean its better now than never right and its great that its getting the attention and support that it is gathering but I hope that this hype lasts until Kony is brought to answer for his crimes and not one of those issues that causes a huge outcry for about a month or so then nothing happens... Finally FB, Twitter, Youtube is being used to make a difference! Good to see celebrities are using their status to help in this cause! imagine if this was also done in regards to the increase of child abuse and murders in America.... imagine that..

[Joe Pena]

06:00 PM on 03/08/2012

Imagine that.

[digitaldales]

10:06 PM on 03/07/2012

My 18 year old watched and then asked, "So, this guy wants to create an 'army' of uninformed and mainly young people from around the world to beat someone doing precisely the same thing? Which is worse?"

I think she has a point. And once you look at the research done into Invisible Children, you do start to wonder how legit it all is.

Charity begins at home. Within a few miles of your door, there will be children suffering from poverty, abuse, incest, hunger etc etc. Why not start there instead of dabbling in a country whose culture and politics we know little about apart from what is crafted into, admittedly, an extraordinary film?

[sftblljblvr75]

09:39 AM on 03/08/2012

Because many of the poor in America have welfare, food pantries, and yes even apartments and cars. What do the kids in Africa have?...... of wait literally nothing.

[Joe Pena]

06:02 PM on 03/08/2012

Yes and those things are slowly going away. What's next, bring these kids to America so that they can join the many who have welfare, food pantries, and yes even apartments. More of our taxpayer dollars at work.

[thatsjustrachel]

05:45 PM on 03/08/2012

Because this is a human issue. If your prick your finger, the only thing that comes out is blood. And it's red no matter where you're from. We are linked beyond national boundaries, blood ties, and political affiliations; we share a universal human connection.

[thestandnews]

07:12 PM on 03/07/2012

For the thoughts of a student who has worked with Invisible Children, read this: http://www.stand-news.co.uk/kony-2012-the-worst-campaign/

[kidcat24]

03:46 PM on 03/07/2012

Put this the HEADLINE!

[reno mason]

02:46 PM on 03/07/2012

Okay so we spread the word and raise money and awareness? Now what? Imagine we are all soldiers being deployed in Uganda together. Now imagine us slaughtering hundreds if not thousands of child soldiers to find this guy. Then what? Imagine we stop and kill him, what sort of infrastructure are we going to need to setup to repair the damage that has been built over at least 2 generations of humans? The USA has a large military force but we lack the money to create entire new colonies whenever there is injustice in the world. I wish tears and money could solve every problem in the world and that everything was black and white.

[usirn]

03:18 PM on 03/07/2012

I think this Kony 2012 thing is more an experiment of social media than anything else. It's people with your attitude that stunts the growth of the world coming together. Perhaps it is idealistic to think that with the man power of billions around the world, we can induce change, but I don't think being idealistic is such a bad thing. In the history of time, we have never had the knowledge and connectedness that we do in our current "facebook age". It is a new era and I applaud people seeing just what we can accomplish. It's exciting that instead of being sheep and looking up to the "powerful" politicians to help us with our problems, we can become our own power in numbers.

You'll eat your words when Kony is caught.

[Joe Pena]

05:59 PM on 03/08/2012

Face it, we're still sheep with the power to do nothing but vote for these politicians. Unless you guys want to sack the Hill.

[TankGirlz]

03:53 PM on 03/07/2012

They aren't soldiers per se, they are training support troops... from what I understood from video and this article http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-kony-troops-africa-903/ it was merely 100 personnel , btw

"In a letter address to House Speaker John Boehner today, President Obama says that American troops "will only be providing information, advice and assistance to partner nation forces,” but that they could engage in battle if necessary for self defense. "

[Joe Pena]

05:57 PM on 03/08/2012

Sounds like when Kennedy sent 400 Green Berets to act as "advisors" to train the South Vietnamese soldiers in tactics and counter insurgency in May of 1961. By October of the same year, there were 16,000 so called "advisors" in the region...shall I go on.

[BlogginItUp]

01:42 PM on 03/07/2012

I hope people remember to not just watch the video but to also write to congress, sign the pledge and really make a difference by spreading the word!

[TankGirlz]

02:16 PM on 03/07/2012

It's trending on twitter, George Takei's fans all know and that's good! We can tweet to the celebs who have impact, to congress critters and the President... keep it going!!!

[JournalismFactCheck]

01:41 PM on 03/07/2012

http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/ Fact check your articles - you are journalists aren't you? "... the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”. Pay a Looter to catch a Looter, great plan.

[TankGirlz]

02:17 PM on 03/07/2012

Perhaps, Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army is more heinous... start somewhere.

[bummmmy]

03:02 PM on 03/07/2012

Here are counters to many of the points made in that tumblr, especially many of the "facts" that author lists.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/john-rudolph-beaton/visible-children-viewed-critically/10150614970287933

[Joshua D Wolter]

01:41 PM on 03/07/2012

The growth is even so well beyond that at this point. It appears that YouTube has over 7 Million, almost matched with Vimeo. You Tubes counter hasn't been able to keep up. I watched the video this morning, it had about 450,000 when I started, by the time I finished it was at almost 4.5 million, where it has been frozen since. Mobile YT is reporting over 7 million now, as well does YT statistic page.

Great Message, Great Strategy!

[Michael Geheren]

09:59 PM on 03/07/2012

I know, every time I check it gets higher. It is amazing how fast something can spread.

[ksoltero]

01:38 PM on 03/07/2012

This is such an amazing story. It is most refreshing to see my students talking about KONY2012. Many of them are upset and want to start campaigns and fundraisers to combat war children. I love the power of social networks. I am so saddened by what is happening in Uganda and I pray that we as a human race can be the change we want to see. I also pray that I find something rewarding and special that I can do to help the cause.

-Kathleen Soltero Bronx, New York

[TankGirlz]

01:30 PM on 03/07/2012

Make him visible.. order a kit, $30 is ridiculously cheap

http://invisiblechildrenstore.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage

[Ken Langham]

01:29 PM on 03/07/2012

We should strive harder. To Free Texas from America. As Texans We can relate to the struggle Africans are facing. Its only a matter of time for us as well.. .

[That Liberal Guy]

01:28 PM on 03/07/2012

This Kony situation should be front page stuff, instead of an Apple keynote that's not even being live streamed.

[TankGirlz]

02:18 PM on 03/07/2012

It will be if we keep talking about it!