The Rhetoric behind Kony 2012

This week I watched the video behind Kony 2012. This is quite an interesting and new way to approach the problem of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa. It seems that the creator behind this network and campaign took a whole new approach to tackle his problem. Initially, he met with the children of Uganda, and that is where he saw the effects of Kony’s terror in Uganda. He saw that Kony would kidnap and force children to fight in his army. He had been doing this for years, but the creator of Kony 2012 became determined to stop it. In the beginning he took the same routes that many other people with problems had done before; he went to the U.S. government. But the US government could not and would not send aid to Uganda. This is the point where most people give up, but instead of giving up, Kony 2012 was created. This campaign was created to bring attention to Kony and the terrible acts he has committed against the children of Uganda. This innovative campaign has become very successful, and recently the U.S. sent several military advisers to Uganda in order to help them capture Kony. The next part of this campaign is very critical. The creator set a time limit for Kony’s capture. He set midnight of December 31^st as the deadline for Kony’s capture. He understands that without a timeframe for the articulated goal people will lose interest, and Kony understands this even better. Kony’s main strategy now is to evade capture long enough for the world to forget about him. Most campaigns these days revolve around sweeping generalizations, such as “Cure World Hunger” or “World Peace”, which will be accomplished some amorphous day in the future. The problem is that people aren’t as dedicated to these campaigns because they have no end in sight, and that is why it was critical to that the creator of Kony 2012 set a deadline. This is the number one reason why Kony 2012 is as successful as it is, and I can only assume that it will continue to become more popular as that deadline approaches.