“You think you know what happened, but you have no idea.” Invisible Children explain it all in the sub-heading on the trailer for their newest documentary, MOVE. On October 17, representatives from Invisible Children visited University of Toronto and met with students in the Hart House debate room. Following a year of praise and controversy in equal measure, the non-profit organization behind the failed Kony 2012 campaign continues to seek the capture of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
No sooner had the original campaign gone viral, than it was met with scrutiny and questions. MOVE appears to be an attempt to clear up the so-called misunderstandings behind Kony 2012, namely the questionable allocation of donations, factual inaccuracies, the ties with Ugandan military, and filmmaker Jason Russell’s meltdown in March 2012.
This time, the goal is to gather participants in Washington, DC on November 17, 2012 to “hold world leaders accountable to their commitments to end LRA violence,” as they said on the MOVE:DC website. Supporters of the campaign may wish to claim that Invisible Children have made a grand contribution to the promotion of human rights around the globe and, regardless of its problems, at least it did what it was intended to do: spread awareness. This may or may not be true in regards to social justice, but I would argue that the failure of the Kony 2012 campaign has also had a number of latent effects that ended up creating “awareness” of an entirely different sort.
Firstly, we have become more acquainted with the power and possibilities of the most powerful communication tool of our time: social media. One of the aims of the Kony 2012 film was, supposedly, to make the millennial generation realize their power when it comes to causing change. I believe that it is more important for this generation to realize that activism without background understanding can only go so far in making a positive change. For better or for worse, let it be acknowledged that the potential is there, although it is doubtful that it would be possible to recreate a trend on the same scale as Kony 2012.
The reason behind this lies within the failure of Kony 2012 some eight months ago. Invisible Children’s human rights awareness campaign has, in addition, taught the public to be aware of the possibility of inaccuracies in the information presented to them, to approach such issues with a much more objective and critical mindset, as well as to research causes before offering up blind support. It should be noted that MOVE has not received nearly the same level of media attention as the previous campaign created by Invisible Children, although it involved a similar thirty-minute film. In fact, I do not believe that it is possible for any future cause seeking to spread awareness through social media and “slacktivism” to be met with success. Social media has become more and more ingrained into our daily lives, and we’ve learned to be more critical of the information presented to us.
As for the effectiveness of MOVE, it will be revealed in due time whether or not Invisible Children were successful in holding legislators accountable for their promises to locate and arrest Joseph Kony. Should this prove to be unsuccessful, we may at least thank the organization for demonstrating the power of social media and the need for critical thought with which we are to approach it. I encourage both supporters and critics of Invisible Children to follow up on the coming MOVE:DC event, as it will determine once and for all the success of the Invisible Children filmmakers’ attempts to regain public support and influence legislation to cause the capture of Joseph Kony.
