Cover The Night (With Apathy)

Do you remember when you first watched Kony 2012, the inspiring 30 minute video released by Invisible Children? What did you feel? Here are some statements quite publicly made available on my Facebook the week of March 5 2012:

"Make Joseph Kony known. Share this video. I have no words for the greatness of this video and movement."

"Take the time to watch this, seriously. Be a part of the change."

"Make him famous!!!! I can't believe this is happening and for this long and so few knew"

"Help me by taking action. Help yourself by taking action. Sign this petition and give the children the freedom to have a good night sleep for once... give them the right to be just like you"

"Let's make Kony visible."

"This is rad and something that's close to our hearts. Check it out!"

The sentiment was hopeful. Everyone I knew - and I mean everyone I knew - had, at minimum, an opinion about the subject, if not the push inside their hearts to do something. I'm not excluding myself here. This is what I said when I encouraged others to watch it:

"Worth your time to watch. Definitely a must-see, but more importantly, a must-do. If we are more connected than ever, we may as well do more for each other than ever. This is a great starting place."

The movement? The mission? Cover the night. On April 20 2012, everyone who was touched by the video was encouraged to get away from their computer screen, onto the streets, and plaster their cities with posters and words intended to encourage the public to learn more about the atrocities occuring under the watch of Joseph Kony and with the goal of doing something. Writing your political leader. Financially supporting organizations who stop war crimes. Whatever, just something.

Well, April 20 came and went and I have to admit, the cries of my colicky baby (and the fact that I.need.sleep.) trumped the 2 AM (or was it 7 PM?) calls to cover the night. My husband really wanted to be part of the movement and had the goal to film the night getting covered, but unfortunately here is what came of covering the night in our city:

Thanks, Mike, for the photo (if you have a blog link lemme know & I'll link it!). It made 2/3 of the Butlers laugh. The Caterpillar cried.

So obviously we lost our vigour. That's a problem. But here's the thing... there's a bigger problem:

The vigour is back. 

But in a different way. Like the week of March 5 2012, Twitter has exploded - but this time the lines of inspiring / dejecting are a little harder to read. Rather than taking ownership of their lack of participation, millions of young people have either forgotten entirely the excitement they once held or are being labelled "slacktivists" for their inability to carry through. Now, the trend is no longer to stop Kony, it's to point out all of us who forgot to stop Kony. The vigour now lies in laughing at those who lost their vigour.

Is this the first time we've seen excitement die down nearly as quick as it rose? Of course not. Remember when we used to write love on our arms? Or signed up to sponsor a World Vision child? Or remembered to turn off all of our power for 1 hour? 

Is this just how we are?

And this is from here

My generation has tended to lose their vigour quickly. It doesn't take a whole lot to get our attention, but best of luck with keeping it. Things go from you-have-to-see-this to this-again? quite literally overnight in our generation. Sure, it's a first world problem, but if we start to curb our first world problems one by one we might be able to do something about those in the second and third world.

That said, here's what I learned from Kony 2012:

We are a generation of delayed-response-apathetics.

Apathy is defined as a "lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern" (thanks Google dictionary) - but a lack of interest isn't our problem... our problem is in keeping our interest. Hence the "delayed response" part of our condition. We get enthusiastic for a very short amount of time, and then we ask what's next.

The solution? Those who want our attention must find a way to keep it - and once they make a call to action, they must devise a way for us to take up that action quickly. Unfortunately, even just 46 days is enough time to cause a viral-video movement which had over 100 million views to trickle down into what the Globe and Mail titled "lacklustre action" with the message barely "stumbling" into view.

"Time and again we put humans on pedestals and then shame them when they fall down". Remember that time Jason Russel melted down? The simple mistaken act of one man - the face of the movement - became detrimental to the movement itself.  The internet took the opportunity to capitalize on the fact that it takes real people to run organizations, and people are just people. Kristen from Rage Against the Minivan said it better than I can (and I encourage you to read her post about Jason Russel):

Video is here

The solution? "Jason Russell’s behavior shouldn’t change how you view the Kony 2012 movement.  If you agree with the film’s premise, then finding out one of the fimmakers has some serious personal issues shouldn’t change how you feel about the film’s premise.  I don’t know if Jason Russell is a drug addict or an exhibitionist or suffering from bipolar, but I do know that he’s human and shouldn’t be on a pedestal to begin with...  ...I think all of these situations illustrate why it’s so important to make sure our convictions are based on truth and founded in reason, rather than on the charisma of a leader.  As my friend Lindsey Nobles said, “Time and time again we put humans on pedestals and then shame when they fall down. That's our brokenness, not theirs.”

Doing something is exhausting.
Wait, I was actually supposed to order a package? Make a poster? Get creative? What?

Sorry to call you out little man, but my youngest brother was on fire for this movement, until he realized that it fell on the night of a party he wanted to go to, and "oh that was tonight?" and "oh that's still happening?" and "well I don't know anyone else doing it" and "I don't have any posters..."

The solution? We need to remind each other that doing something pays off. August 20 2012 has come and gone and the night, in some parts of the world, has been covered. But if you, like most of us who cared for 30 minutes and then forgot, think your opportunity has come and gone too... please know this: you're wrong.

What I figured out.
Joseph Kony - that man who you were appalled by during your 30 minute Invisible Children video-watching stint - is still enlisting child soldiers. The LRA is still moving. They haven't stopped. So even though you cared and then didn't, it's not too late to care again. If not about this issue, choose something else. You may not stand by the credibility of Invisible Children and that's up to you to decide, but the fact is, we can't remain isolated by our apathy. We can't stay slackers.