Yep. I'm going to blog about that.

Kony 2012. A (very well made) video about Joseph Kony and his involvement in horrible crimes in Africa. You all know, you've all seen it. It's kind of really scary how involved people got after seeing it. Like, really scary. People jumped at the chance to buy posters and action kits to 'cover the night'. That sort of stuff really appeals to our generation! We love graffiti! We love street art, that shit's cool to us. The thing that's really scary though is that we were all willing to throw money at this stuff before looking further into it. Sure the video looked convincing, but it didn't really tell you where the money you were giving them was going to go.
Give money to UNICEF and other aid funds: it goes to feed people and build communities. Give money to RSPCA. It goes to feeding, desexing and finding homes for animals. Give money to cancer/other disease research causes: it goes to people finding a cure (doing this research is a lot more expensive than you would think!) This money, from what I can tell, is going towards hip videos to raise awareness without telling us what happens next.

Ok. So now lots of people know about this guy, and if you looked into it further there are plenty more groups who are involved in finding Joseph Kony and stopping the LRA. But the point is, anyone could have made a video like that for anything and people would be all over it donating. Without checking the validity of it.

It's obviously evoked very strong emotion in a lot of people. If people do decide to support the cause, I'm hoping they do their research first, because it is a good cause. And, if they chose not to support it, for whatever reason, that they use the huge emotional energy they experienced while watching the film, the urge to do something to change the world and that they do go and find a charity/cause/organisation they feel strongly about. That's what I hope will come out of the video, and that's what I got from the video. I should stop doing nothing. Donate blood, sign up for organ donation (why have I not already done this?) and start supporting and donating to animal welfare groups like RSPCA. I'm hoping to adopt a dog very soon instead of buying a puppy, which is something I've started feeling strongly in. And maybe I'll start to advocate what I believe in.

Or maybe everyone will forget about it next week...