KONY2012: Waiting for My Naked, Drug-Induced Spiral

The American story is one filled with contradictions and villains, but someday, we may be on the other side of that story.

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In 2012, a new campaign popped onto the scene, and it was out of nowhere. One day, we were all navigating through the crushing weight of late-stage capitalism, and in the next moment, our screens were locked in on a 29-minute YouTube mini-doc narrated by an Ernest Millenial named Jason Russel. In this doc, Jason told us about a massacre that was happening in Africa, Uganda specifically. And while most of us were on U.S. soil spending $12 on avocado toast and or going to grad school to avoid the stagnant workforce, thousands of people were being kidnapped and killed by the Tyrant Joseph Kony.

 

Kony, the general of a Militia group called the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), was a villain who wreaked havoc across the continent of Africa, forcing children to become soldiers, raping women, and killing people in the name of his beliefs. Russel and his organization, Invisible Children, ’s goal was to make Kony “globally recognized so that he could be arrested by the end of 2012.” In the days before TikTok, when attention spans were longer than 30-second clips, this almost 30-minute video was extremely effective. Accumulating over 100 million views on YouTube and over a million “likes.” 

Despite having just survived the worst recession since the early 1900s, things didn’t feel as grim in 2012 as they do now, but I’m still surprised at how fast KONY 2012 captured people’s attention. Within days, everyone and their mother cared about the atrocities happening in Africa and wanted decisive action against Kony. While I and countless others started uploading profile pics on Facebook with the #StopKony watermark, critics of the video tried to add some much-needed context to the conversation.

For example, while many were happy with the attention this put on Kony, others had questions about where an organization like “Invisible Children” came from and who was funding them. Others were unsure of how helpful it was to make KONY a “Global name” and were fearing it would raise his profile in ways that could be harmful. However, like all internet discourse, critical and relevant conversations took place with little interest or online engagement. While all of this happened, I remember asking a simple question because, sure, Joseph Kony was a problem, but how did he come to be, who created the conditions for him to exist, and why hadn’t someone done something earlier on?

The story of America and all of our amazing feats is filled with tales of “good versus evil” or the clear-eyed hero versus the demonic villain. This narrative is part of our country’s beauty. Our history is told through the lens of a shallow comic book. A bad guy is doing comically evil things because of “reasons,” and suddenly, we swoop in, ready to use force as a tool for safety. As a child, these shallow stories feel good, but the older you get, the more you ask questions, and eventually, your taste evolves. 

But here’s the thing: when you start to ask questions about the villains America faces against, you will often discover that the person we view as the “big bad” isn’t quite as inhuman as you imagined. If you dig deep enough, you may realize that, in many ways, the United States is Thanos, and the villains we face are usually survivors of someplace we demolished for the sake of “prosperity.” The story of Instability in Africa is no different.  

To understand how Joseph Kony rose to power, you must take a sober look at America’s foreign policy decisions. For 30 + years, the United States Government and other Western countries supported leaders and policies that led directly to the destabilization of countries in Africa. For example, the United States stood by former Uganda President Yoweri Museveni despite his role in sinking his country into poverty and stripping democratic rights away from his people. In Helen Epstein's book, “Another Fine Mess,” she explains how the U.S. Government doesn’t overlook Museveni’s behavior; we funded it by over 20 billion dollars over 30 years, all in the name of “counter-terrorism.”

Our “war on terror” led to chaos in countries all over the world, specifically in the Middle East and Africa, and that chaos created the environment for people like KONY to rise. By the time Jason makes his video demanding KONY’s arrest, our government’s hands are soaked In the Blood of Ugandans, Kenyans, Nigerians, and Sudanese. Jason likely doesn’t have that context when he puts this video together; in his defense, none of us did, but would it even matter? 

The next time we saw Jason, he was again in the news, but this time for a very different reason. The man who became an overnight celebrity for his video about the atrocities in Africa and Uganda was found wandering through San Diego, almost naked. He had allegedly had a mental breakdown from exhaustion. When I found out about this fall from grace, I laughed. What could have happened to Jason to cause such a steep and aggressive decline? In an interview done with Oprah years later, he explains that the extreme workload and pressure from that experience led to him having a psychotic break. Thankfully, his family was able to rally around him, and as far as I can tell, Jason is doing quite alright in 2024.  

It’s been 12 years since the KONY video first dropped, in that time we have faced a world wide pandemic, an attempted coup, rising sea waters and temperatures, stagnant wages, and sky rocketing rents. No matter what part of the country you live in, housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and while productivity in this country continues to rise, and corporations are making more money than ever, more everyday people are struggling to make ends meet. Jasons fall from grace was funny in 2012, buy as a 38-year old man who is one emergency, or lost job away from being financially devastated, I suddenly understand where Jason was coming from. 

And it’s not just me; go anywhere in this country, and you will find more people who have lost their anchors and are now wandering through the streets in a state of disconnect. While enjoying our outdoor brunch, we ignore them, taking a sip from our $22 cocktail as we try to ignore the fear that we could soon have the same fate. And those lost souls, the people with nowhere to go, no money in their pockets, and every reason to find coping mechanisms that help them face or ignore their circumstances, are rising. So much so that we can no longer ignore them; their suffering is now entering all parts of our lives. 

Despite the significant shifts, we still have enough resources to ensure everyone has what they need, but helping others isn’t a top priority. And as more suffering happens, our streets become less stable; theft rises, violence rises, and insecurity rises. In response to this instability, our government goes to its most faithful response, force and incarceration as a tool for safety. This solution is flawed in that it has never been proven to improve our lives or stop the chaos. Still, it's much easier than acknowledging our failures or having honest conversations about the problems we manifested. Our prisons get more prominent, and the naked guy on your block disappears, but the problem remains the same until one day, you’re the one naked in the street, all logic gone, melting down for everyone to see. Somewhere far off, someone is making a documentary, begging our government to do something about you.