Following the massive release of a thirty-minute documentary on the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, targeted Ugandan monster Joseph Kony has made front-page news and headlines across the country.
Through YouTube, An ad campaign has championed waging a war of human rights against an African warlord-thug whose sole interest is power through exploitation.
Yet even viewers in Uganda have offered mixed reviews of this campaign, one which pundits have argued plays fuzzy with the facts.
And YouTube as an indicator of public outrage and private propulsion fails in light of the glaring embarrassment that clips like Pitbull's "Hey Baby" and "I am a Gummi Bear" have garnered millions more above the multimillion reaction that Kony's video exposé. True, Kony has taken in millions of hits within a week, but humanitarian fads attract interest, a brief yet heavy surge, only to subsidize after the star power falls away and individuals return to pondering their daily concerns.
Conscience must be struck with more than glitter and gamesmanship on-line. Texas Congressman Ron Paul commands quite a following on-line, yet is dead last in the delegate count for the GOP presidential nomination. Fan following on the Web is all surface and no substance. The same is sadly true for the the manufactured outrage that has sparked youth to rally against a second-rate thug in Central Africa.
Fixation is not action; conviction does not engender caring or action. Yet the most disturbing trend following the Kony documentary release lies with a vapid yet expansive media which has catered to amateurish propaganda. If nothing else, the mainstream media outlets have all but signaled their growing irrelevance in the face of instantaneous media and news cycles that transform national narratives so quickly as to reduce even the most relevant press releases to sound bites.
Humanitiarian action, if individuals truly want to make a difference in this fallen world, must proceed from a deeper commitment that one's reticulum fired up by computer bells and whistles. The value of news content now lies all the more with and informed and informative audience, a community which we are witnessing grow as a larger number of Internet followers jump in line with fads on-line.
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