Another spouse in DH's class posted the KONY 2012 video to our FB page with the tagline "Watch it...and become educated."
Now, I'm not against the KONY campaign, but something about an edict to "watch...and become educated" from a woman who has never attended any form of higher education and who, based on a conversation I had with her a few months ago, doesn't know the different between Egypt and Libya, really, really rubs me the wrong way.
I guess it's great that this video has gotten people all riled up about human right in Uganda, but I can't help but feel like the majority of the people who are all over this right now will get bored of it in a few days before they ever actually do anything to help. And I highly doubt that it will prompt most of them to look any further on their own into human rights issues in other places. It just seems a little...off. All of a sudden everyone is SO CONCERNED about Uganda, but I feel like next week no one will care again. It seems a little self serving to me.
That might be my flameful confession of the day.
**I'm not saying that there won't be a handful of people who are genuinely affected by this video and the publicity it generates to really do something and get involved in a helpful way. I just think that that population will be a minuscule subset of the group of people who are all "OMG UGANDA!!" right now.
Re: I may be bitter.
LOL thanks
This is a really, really good point.
I see what you mean, but unfortunately it's not the case here. I know this girl pretty well.
And also, Egypt and Libya are in Africa :P But I see what you meant.
Haha. I knew you were going to say that. I meant Central Africa of course, lol.
All very good points. I think the most annoying thing is that people think that "awareness" and "action" means re-posting things on Facebook. That's never going to do anything. Sure, revolutions in the Middle East and the Occupy Wall Street movements were caused by social media, but eventually it takes someone to DO SOMETHING besides just post a link and tell people to read it.
Can we come up with a new term? "Facebook Activists" for those people who jump on every cause, but only from the comfort of their computer chair.