Monday, April 23, 2012

So How About That Kony 2012?

Posted By on Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:00 PM

As seen Downtown during Club Crawl

April 20 came and went — except for those who might have made their brownies too strong and are still feeling the effects.

But 4/20 was supposed to be about more than just pot this year — it was supposed to be the night that those supporting the Kony 2012 movement "covered the night," making Joseph Kony the most infamous person on the planet.

Kony, for the uninitiated, is the leader of the Ugandan resistance group, the Lord's Resistance Army, notable for the conscription of children into soldiers and the mass killing of Ugandans.

So, how'd the campaign do?


Good show, guys.

What about the local efforts, you ask? In Facebook one group, a member posted "Did we save Africa?" In another, a woman posts trying to confirm plans for Cover the Night — with no response.

To their credit, I did happen to see a few posters while wandering Fourth Avenue during Club Crawl©, but many of them were either so poorly printed as to obscure their images entirely, or had such poorly written messages that they undermined the campaign entirely.

Nationwide, Kony 2012 supporters took the most logical of actions: Defacing homes and vandalizing landmarks.

Again, great job. This is the way to prove that the generation born in the late '80s and early '90s isn't a bunch of narcissistic children, and that we do indeed hold the power to change the world through measured, organized action.

Sure, many of the above posts are facetious, but the fact that a movement that was sweeping the globe fell apart in a matter of months speaks to the power that this generation holds and squanders unthinkingly.

I think Kony 2012 and Cover the Night can be summed up in a paragraph from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's coverage: "A group of teenagers from Stanwood applied posters and stickers around the Pike Place Market. But some of their work was quickly undone by a security officer who followed them and pulled down the posters."

Sounds about right.

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