Kony 2012

By the time I type this, 80 million people and counting will have watched the Kony 2012 video; its director Jason Russell has been arrested for public drunkeness and public masturbation on Pacific Beach San Diego. Sadly the only video of the incident is a fifteen second clip of a naked man (presumably Russell) assaulting a shrub. According to a spokesperson, Jason Russell was emotionally exhausted and dehydrated, hence the breakdown. So do make sure to drink plenty of water when stressed or you'll end up attacking ornamental plants and wanking on the seafront.

I started watching Kony 2012, then stopped after a few minutes because like all net junkies I have the attention span of an ADHD goldfish on crack. There was no way I could spend 30 precious minutes watching a worthy film when there were so many videos of cute baby sloths and Russian brides losing their dresses to view in the same time frame. Those last sentences contained several exaggerations and falsehoods, much like the film itself.

After only five minutes of Russell's film, I clicked off. It was pure propaganda, apparently to highlight a human tragedy, but propaganda nonetheless. Opposing Joseph Kony's child soldiers in Uganda is surely a given, like the UK group, Mothers Against Murder, you should assume we are on your side.  It's hard to think many mums would support a pro-homicide policy, unless it included people who play music through their mobiles on public transport.

Maybe you can change the world for the better by sharing a video, maybe solving the world's problems is possible through social media, maybe if we all send enough tweets then all the bad things in the world will end. Remember all those email petitions to save the rainforest, a much needed campaign with the one tiny flaw that no matter how many people signed up, whoever you send it to can always just hit delete.

Invisible Children, the organisation behind Kony 2012, could have good intentions, but as they say, that's how the road to hell is paved. I've become more skeptical about the ability of best intentions to produce positive results; Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind as ghastly examples of the mismatch of aims and outcomes. Turns out the West is good at blowing things up, drone strikes and shooting people; nation building is a lot harder, especially when the peoples and nations in question hate you, mostly because you keep blowing up their homes and killing their relatives.

If this episode proves anything, it's that our first responsibility is to get the facts straight, before sending on a video link. And in case this all seems very uncharitable, watch this piece by Charlie Brooker to put you straight.

A bit of background on that video