Have you been on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube in the past 24 hours? If so, you’ve seen at least a glimpse of one of the most pervasive social media campaigns in recent history. Going beyond the typical ‘Trending Topic” or Fan Page status, the Kony 2012 campaign has completely taken social media sites by storm.
- YouTube video posted Monday night now has 7 MILLION views. (update: by the time I posted this, its up to 10 million views)
- Trending worldwide on twitter and making up over of half of current Twitter US trending topics.
- About every third post on my Facebook newsfeed right now.
This campaign has made its voice known with a viral video produced by filmmaker Jason Russell. Russell’s mini documentary brings light to Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, and his brutal practices of abducting young children and forcing them into his army.
Before I get into the video’s content, I want to touch on one specific fascinating piece to me. The video is 27 minutes long! If social media minutes had some alternate timing, like 1 dog year = 7 human years, it would be something like 27 social media minutes = forever. In the world of 30 second pitches and 140 character updates, 27 minutes is a long time to ask someone to focus. For me, that makes this campaign’s success even more staggering.
But - as the documentary states - “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” And with that, the video calls for action from the world to continue to put pressure on the US government to keep aid in Central Africa to help them find and capture Joseph Kony. The plan to achieve this is to “Make Kony Famous”. Hence, the Kony 2012 campaign.
Its better to watch the video for yourself than to read about it in an article. Links to the postings are below. No matter if you are counting with regular time or ‘social media time’- its worth your 27 minutes to watch.
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