Politics: Letting Go of the Bandwagon, by Pranada Devi

Recently, a YouTube video called KONY 2012 went viral. It depicted the plight of children in Uganda who must walk many kilometers every night to avoid being raped, killed, or forcibly conscripted into an army. It was touching, inspiring, and produced with a great deal of mastery to appeal to emotion and a sense of injustice. It flooded Twitter and Facebook feeds.

And then something else went viral. It turned out that the makers of this video were not all that they presented themselves to be. Websites pointing to problems with the approach of Invisible Children – their lack of a record with the Better Business Bureau, the high proportion of donations that go to salaries, and the fact that Invisible Children directs funds to an army that is known to do the very things the video speaks out against: forcibly conscripting child soldiers, raping and killing.

It turned out that Ugandans affected by these events didn’t appreciate the KONY 2012 video. In fact, screenings of the video in Uganda had to be cancelled because people were so angry and frustrated with the way the video depicted their situation that they began to throw rocks at the screen.

After this came to light, it turned out that the creator of the KONY 2012 video had been adversely affected by the intense public scrutiny and criticism. Apparently unwell, he began to vandalize cars, scream, and act indecent in public. Social media commentary, already highly critical, became pejorative, with some people apparently delighting in seeing him so disgraced.

Too often, this happens with those we started by holding up as a hero. When their imperfections come to light, we become angry and want to see them brought low. But both the hero worship and the scapegoating are representative of tendencies within us. It is all too easy to succumb to a bandwagon effect, where the more of our friends and acquaintances believe a certain thing, the more we may believe it too regardless of the evidence or our own inner knowing. When this happens, we can get carried away thinking we are participating in a wave of positive activism, or bringing some imagined criminal to justice.

There is no shortage today of videos, websites or other information that deliberately spins the reality, or presses emotional buttons, in order to get us to buy in. It is a good practice to see these techniques for what they are. Excess credulousness – or excess skepticism – will ultimately lead us astray. It falls to us to practice discernment and do our own fact-finding before deciding to believe and spread information that has been given to us.

In the case of viral information, you can check sites like Facecrooks, Snopes or About.com Urban Legends to get a quick assessment by someone else who has researched the issue. Or you can take some time to do your own research more deeply into the issue, if you feel able.

Finally, the plight of child soldiers in Uganda has been known for some time. The GuluWalk movement to raise awareness of the problem began in 2005 with two young people in Toronto, and grew to become international. In fact, GuluWalk claims the problem of children’s night commutes has since been largely resolved, though many other problems still exist.

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Pranada Devi is a communications professional living in Toronto, Canada. She manages the Politics, Books and Activism sections for Parvati Magazine in addition to serving as Managing Editor for the magazine overall. She serves as an advisor on marketing communications for Parvati’s various projects.