Here She Comes Now Sayin' Kony Kony

Likely by the time you read this, someone will have produced a spoof song with same the title as this post.  I'm actually surprised no one has done that yet, given the speed with which Konymania is sweeping the net.  But when I Googled "Kony Kony," no such Jankovician satires were found.

(I just made up that word.  Would "WeirdAlian" Sound better?)

If, however, you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, Joseph Kony is a Ugandan warlord with a messiah complex and an army made up of abducted children, and Kony 2012 is a video condemning his actions.  Social media and celebrity endorsements have made the video and awareness of its issue spread fast.

Oh, and full disclosure:  I haven't seen the video.  All my information comes from reliable sources like Wikipedia and the mainstream media.

On the one hand, the issue is painfully predictable: There's a wave of awareness and righteous anger, followed by a wave of backlash.  No one in direct defence of Kony yet, but lots of you-haven't-heard-both-sides.  Yes, that's how stagnant public debate has become in our society: even in the case of a maniac enslaving children, a large enough group of contrarians will rise up to defend you, and nothing will get decided.  Society is just one big U.S. Congress.

But on the other hand, the issue is really odd in the way it's spreading.  I'm not hearing about it from my politically aware friends.  I'm not hearing about it from media outlets that I usually get world political information from.  Instead, it's mostly coming from friends that aren't politically active.  It's been endorsed by celebrities that aren't usually the activist types, and it's spreading by media that isn't usually the source of earth-shattering political discussion (meaning, Facebook.)

I'm left with a weird kind of mixed feelings.  I'm glad people are concerned about a major injustice, and that more people are caring about the state of our world.  But at the same time, um, what took you so long?  More to the point, didn't you know that there are monsters like this in the world?  See, I always assumed the reason everyone was so complacent about the world's injustice was because we just couldn't get passionate about the fate of people on the other side of the planet.  But apparently it was just because you hadn't heard about any of it.  What about Kim Jong Il?  He just died, you had to have seen it, it was on every channel.  Right next to Uganda is Rwanda.  Plenty of guilty people to bring to justice there.  How about Bashar Assad in Syria?  You don't have to wait for someone to pass you the link to the video, you just have to turn on the news.

So there you go: lots of terrible things in the world you can dedicate yourself to.  And if you used to be uninvolved because you were uninformed, now I've probably made you uninvolved because you're overwhelmed and burned out.  Sorry about that.  And welcome to my world.  And sorry to all of you who found this article because you were looking for the "Kony Kony" song and video, hope it's funny.