My Reaction to KONY 2012

KONY 2012 AUGMENTATIVE ESSAY 

I am known for my emotionless poker face and seemingly unimpressed expression. My reputation for my blank face did not change when I saw the KONY 2012 video, although I must admit, I saw the videos and pictures that criticized KONY first on many sites, such as 9gag and Facebook. I have to say that I had a hard time deciding on whether KONY was a big fraud or not, since both sides were so persuasive. I decided that I am not completely for it nor against it, although I am mostly on the "against KONY" side. It persuaded me for three main reasons; only part of the money donated to "Invisible Children", the group founded by Jason Russell, the person who made KONY famous, and that the group is supportive of a direct military intervention. But the most shocking thing for me is that most people- so called "activists"- don't really know much about the cause and are just jumping on the bandwagon. I won't (and can't) deny Joesph Kony is a bad guy, a terrible criminal, but instead, I'm simply saying that KONY 2012 is a big fraud, and that one should not believe whatever they hear or see.

I believed in KONY a bit when I first saw it, despite all the demotivational posters and criticism it got, but unlike some people, I didn't believe it all the way. I did some research before getting heated up on the issue, and found that only 31% actually go to the real cause. This is because the group, "Invisible Children" uses it for other uses. Other uses that include but are not limited to; lining the pockets of the three people in charge of the operation, pay for their traveling expenses, and funds their film-making business. Although 31% is actually a quite big sum of money, considering a lot of people have donated, but there are so many other way to help them more directly and more efficiently, such as donating to organizations such as "Save the Children", or "Doctors Without Borders" etc. They should be true to what they stated in the video.

The second reason is that KONY 2012 is in favor of a direct military intervention. I do not support this, because the U.S. is already involved. Not only that, Kony is already pushed out of Uganda. I believe this is something like the 9/11 event, when people demanded troops sent to Iraq. This eventually turned into a war for oil, not to fight terrorism.

The final reason is that most people don't really know anything about the cause, and they just jump in the bandwagon because of two reasons; their friends are doing it, or they really just believe whatever YouTube tells them. For their information, there are not thousands of children in his resistance army, but in fact, there are only 250 soldiers. (in March of 2012) Also, to get to Kony, you'd have to kill some of his army, which includes children. Kony was not active in Uganda for six years, and is instead active in other surrounding countries. Additionally, I really don't think that forwarding a video makes one an activist. Before one believes information provided by YouTube or such and getting swept up by a new trend or fad, they should at least research a bit.