Bonus Patreon Upcycle - KONY 2012

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: RedHanded
Episode: Bonus Patreon Upcycle – KONY 2012
Date: December 28, 2025
Hosts: Hannah Witton & Derbyshire

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Overview

This RedHanded bonus episode takes a deep dive into the Kony 2012 phenomenon—a viral social justice campaign that swept through the West in 2012. The hosts, Hannah and Derbyshire, revisit the campaign's origins, Uganda’s tumultuous history, and discuss the fallout of Western activism rooted in “slacktivism,” white savior complexes, and the complexities of charity-driven social media movements. The episode picks apart the cringeworthy highs, devastating lows, and lasting questions around digital virtue signaling while retaining their signature blend of irreverence, empathy, and unfiltered commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Internet Nostalgia & Viral Activism

[03:04] Derbyshire: Reflects on the simpler days of the internet in 2012—“YouTube was in its golden era. Image sharing apps like Instagram were on the rise...it was a simpler time online and in real life as well.”

• The Kony 2012 campaign is positioned as both a meme and a turning point for online activism.

[04:03] Derbyshire / [04:43] Hannah:

• Kony 2012 started as a “virtue-signaling social justice campaign” but became “a dumpster fire of scam, accusations, white saviour complexes and almighty fake news.”

2. Uganda’s Bloody History and Seeds of Conflict

[05:39] Derbyshire / [08:01] Hannah:

• Colonial roots: “As usual, it’s Britain’s fault.”
• British colonial rule created regional and racial hierarchies, exacerbating divisions.
• Post-independence chaos: successive dictatorships, coups, and civil war led to instability that gave rise to rebel groups.

3. Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)

[10:14] Derbyshire / [11:24] Hannah:

• Joseph Kony’s background: mystical claims, child armies, and brutal methods.
• LRA's atrocities: forced children to murder their parents and serve as soldiers or sex slaves—“He put machetes and machine guns in kids' hands, forcing them to murder their own parents.”

4. Jason Russell, Invisible Children & The Birth of Kony 2012

[12:53] Derbyshire / [13:31] Hannah:

• Jason Russell: “wanted to be a star,” theatre kid-turned-filmmaker whose original goal was to “make musicals.”
• Inspired by witnessing Ugandan children hiding from abduction, he created “Invisible Children” after capturing footage in Gulu.
• Early efforts had some measurable impact—“After a screening...Congress approved discussion of the Acholi people's plight.” (16:32)

5. The Campaign’s Tactics: Wristbands, Music Videos and Viral Videos

[17:39] Derbyshire / [20:37] Derbyshire:

• Cringeworthy outreach: “an absolute travesty of a music video” aimed at schoolchildren.
• Criticism but also defense: “I don’t feel like he’s causing any harm right now.” (21:12)
• Russell summarized the charity’s aim as “to have fun while we end genocide. It’s an adventure.” (21:41)

6. Balancing Awareness and Trauma for Kids

[22:14] Hannah:

• Nuanced discussion about how much global horror to expose to children—“There is something quite insidious about telling children too much negativity about the world.”

7. The Viral Explosion and Media Blitz

[25:15] Derbyshire / [27:08] Hannah:

• Kony 2012 video: “A 29-minute documentary revealing the situation in Uganda...urging viewers to help end the war by sharing the video.”
• Leveraged celebrities to drive awareness: “Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Ellen Degeneres, Justin Bieber, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Bono, and Mark Zuckerberg.”
• “Finally, everyone was talking about Joseph Kony.” (29:01)

8. The Backlash: Misleading Claims and Misinformation

[29:23] Derbyshire / [31:03] Hannah:

• Facts didn’t match the narrative: Kony hadn’t been in Uganda since 2005; LRA’s numbers overstated.
• “Invisible Children had managed to recruit an army of children in America to disband a child army in Uganda that didn’t really exist.” (30:35)
• The campaign ignored complexities—like oil conflicts and Ugandan military abuses.

9. The Pitfalls of White Savior Complex and Outsider Narratives

[34:59] Derbyshire / [35:10] Hannah:

• Complex legacy: “It is just a bit white savior complex, isn’t it?”
• But, “It completely undermines us as human beings who have the ability to empathize...” (35:26 Hannah)
• Input from Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumya: “another video where I see an outsider trying to be a hero rescuing African children.” (37:14)

10. Charity Scandals and Russell’s Meltdown

[42:09] Derbyshire / [43:28] Hannah:

• Accusations of Invisible Children being a scam; only 30% of funds went to African programs in 2011, 25% spent on filmmaking/travel.
• Russell’s viral breakdown: “He had a very public meltdown...stripping naked and wandering the streets of San Diego.” (44:05 Hannah)
• After immense scrutiny, staff and operations were massively reduced.

11. Lasting Impact on Online and Offline Activism

[47:40] Derbyshire:

• Kony 2012 as the dawn of clicktivism: “It was the first time the internet truly mobilized social guilt on such a scale, pushing us into action in the form of clicks and shares.”
• Precedent for future online activism: “Pointless online campaigns like the Ice Bucket Challenge...Blackout Tuesday in 2020, where everyone posted black squares and it actually just made everything worse.” (48:29–48:54)
• Acknowledgement of “virtue signaling” and the limits of awareness campaigns.

12. Final Reflections: The Role of Youth, Online Discourse, and Self-Awareness

[50:08] Hannah:

• “It is the prerogative of youth to be idealistic and to fight the good fight against the establishment. You’ve got your 30s and 40s and the rest of your fucking life to be jaded…”
• The importance of free expression, debate, and not expecting “safe spaces” from activism discussions—“The world doesn’t owe you emotional or psychological safety.” (52:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Kony 2012’s simplification:
  • “It couldn’t be simpler. Kony was the baddie and we were the goodies and we could stop him…” – Derbyshire [26:03]
• On charity marketing:
  • “We are on a mission to put Uganda deep inside your mind / It needs attention, and a dance to make it sparkle and shine.” – Derbyshire, quoting the music video [20:37]
• On the cringeworthy viral efforts:
  • “This made me want to support Kony. Rumor has it Joseph Kony dropped dead from cringe induced by this video. And finally this video turned me into an African warlord.” – Derbyshire, on YouTube comments [21:12]
• On White Savior Complex:
  • “It is just a bit white savior complex, isn’t it?” – Derbyshire [34:59]
  • “It completely undermines us as human beings who have the ability to empathize...” – Hannah [35:26]
• On modern activism:
  • “Kony 2012 transformed our relationship with the Internet from passive enjoyment to moral obligation.” – Suzy Weiss, quoted by Derbyshire [47:40]
• On online activism’s double-edged sword:
  • “Does online activism really make a difference? I think sometimes…It’s something that’s very easy to fling, it’s a hard one, but something that we’ll just have to ponder for the rest of our lives because it’s not going anywhere, is it?” – Derbyshire [49:44]
• On tolerating dissent and discomfort:
  • “The world doesn’t owe you emotional or psychological safety...Physical violence is different, but words are not violence. Silence is not violence. Violence is violence.” – Hannah [52:38]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Uganda’s turbulent history & Kony’s origins: [05:39]–[11:24]
• Kony’s crimes & LRA child soldiers: [11:24]–[12:53]
• Jason Russell’s journey & Invisible Children: [12:53]–[17:39]
• Music video & youth activism tactics: [17:39]–[22:14]
• The viral video’s tactics & celebrity campaign: [25:15]–[29:23]
• Online backlash & misrepresentations: [29:23]–[34:59]
• Charity finances & Russell’s public breakdown: [42:09]–[45:37]
• Kony 2012’s legacy for online activism: [47:40]–[50:08]
• Final reflections on youth, free speech, and safe spaces: [50:08]–[52:47]

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains RedHanded’s signature:

• Candid, irreverent, and often humorous—even when confronting grave topics
• Willingness to pause for nuance, self-critique, and debates on ethics
• Pop culture references and playful banter, balanced by sharp social analysis

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Concluding Thoughts

The hosts ultimately frame Kony 2012 as a pivotal, flawed case study in Western online activism—one that reveals the seductive danger of oversimplified narratives, the complexities of aid and empathy, and the uncertain power of virality. The conversation closes with a call for both skepticism and understanding—toward idealistic youth, self-appointed saviors, and ourselves as “slacktivists” in a perpetually connected world.

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Transcript

[Hannah Witton]

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[Derbyshire]

Hello.

[Hannah Witton]

Hello.

[Derbyshire]

We're going to take a walk down certainly memory lane for us, but if you are a youth you probably will not remember quite so we're going to invite you to cast your minds back into the depths of the Internet to 2012. YouTube was in its golden era. Image sharing apps like Instagram were on the rise. I was sleeping with the captain of the rugby team so no one could tell me nothing. And it was a simpler time online and in real life as well. If you were still in nappies, you can fuck off. But us millennials were at university and my concerns were not really to do with the Internet back then.

[Hannah Witton]

No, not at all. Not at all.

[Derbyshire]

No.

[Hannah Witton]

I was just wrapping up Uni in 2012 and nope, couldn't have been further from my mind. The Internet, no.

[Derbyshire]

But today's topic. I was aware, I saw the stickers. I had no idea and I didn't care to because I was busy with other things. But suddenly in 2012, the west got a new mission which was to make a Ugandan warlord go viral.

[Hannah Witton]

Would we say one of the earliest absolutely viral infections?

[Derbyshire]

Totally, totally, totally.

[Hannah Witton]

To spread around the interwebs.

[Derbyshire]

Yes. Us in the west, we're convinced that it lay upon our shoulders and our thumbs to save the whole world.

[Hannah Witton]

Now you probably remember Kony 2012 as a meme gathering dust at the back of your mind. But what was it actually all about? Well, the true story is even wilder than you might think. What started as your classic virtue signalling social justice campaign to topple a Ugandan warlord quickly imploded, becoming a dumpster fire of scam, accusations, white saviour complexes and almighty fake news, and an all singing, all dancing, high School Musical style video that was so cringeworthy it made Glee look like some sort of gritty HBO drama. Its squeaky clean founder's reputation was left in tatters, and we're still reckoning with the questions it raised about problematic online slacktivism. Right now in 2025 hashtags at the ready. Let's dive in.

[Derbyshire]

To understand what happened with Kony 2012, we need to understand Uganda first. And it has a particularly bloody history. As usual, it's Britain's fault. Prior to British colonization in the 1860s, Uganda was separated into powerful kingdoms with well structured societies, trade networks and political systems. Until we got there and ruined it. And we decided to divide it all up in different ways, as we so often like to do, and just sort of dole it out to people who had no business having it in the first place. Under this colonial system, southern regions, particularly the prosperous former kingdom of Buganda, got a better deal than those in the north. While power, commerce and trade were concentrated in the south. The Acholi people of northern Uganda were largely pushed into military roles. And then the Brits added fuel to the fire by inviting about 32,000 Indian nationals, also at the time part of the British Empire, famously to build railways and manage businesses. And this created, as it usually does and has done all over the world, a racial hierarchy within the country, with the Brits at the top, Indians in the middle, and the native Ugandans right at the bottom. Uganda gained independence in 1962. But after that happened, things got very messy very quickly. Its first independent government, an alliance between politician Milton Obote and Bugandan King Kawakamutese II, went up in flames. And by the late 60s, there was a military coup. Abuti ditched his democratic ideals, abolished the country's kingdoms and declared himself top dog. People were not particularly happy about this.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

And it was in this climate of.

[Derbyshire]

Political instability that notorious tyrant Idi Amin pulled off a military takeover in 1971, plunging Uganda into years of dictatorship and chaos. The country's 40,000 strong Indian population were sent into exile. And it also spelled bad news for the northern Acholi people as well. Targeting them for their military links to Milton Oboti. IDI Amin ordered the execution of thousands of Acholi soldiers and civilians in brutal purges. Achole land would bear the scars of this treatment for years to come.

[Hannah Witton]

Amin was finally ousted from power in 1979 during the Ugandan Tanzania War. And there were some massive evil dictator boots to fill in his absence. Milton Obote was placed back in the hot seat. But not for long. During the 80s, a bloody civil war raged across Uganda, led by a guy called Yoweri Museveni and his insurgent troops, the National Resistance army, or nra. The rebellion, dubbed the Bush War, saw the deaths of countless civilians and sickening human rights violations on both Sides of the conflict. Rebel leader Museveni took power in 1986 and has remained in charge ever since. But not everyone was too happy with Museveni at the helm. In Acholand, an unlikely rebel force emerged, fronted by a formidable spiritual guru named Alice Lacuer. Lacuerna, whose followers called her Mama Alice, started the Holy Spirit movement known as HSM. And this was in 1986. Now, we know you're all thinking of High School Musical again, and weirdly enough, it's not the last time it'll come up in this episode, because High School Musical, hsm, just in case anybody.

[Derbyshire]

I actually didn't connect those dots, so there you go. But thank you for illuminating it.

[Hannah Witton]

You're welcome. Now, Mama Alice claimed that she had divine powers and set forth a guerrilla army to fight against Museveni's regime. She told her soldiers that holy oil and stones would protect them from bullets, which, surprise, surprise, they didn't. And it sounds very familiar to the story we did, of course, of the Haitian dictator Papa Doc, who did something very, very similar against the Americans in Haiti. Well worth listening to that episode that we covered a while back on Red Handed. So, yes, Mama Alice was full of shit. Still, though, thousands of Acholi citizens threw themselves into battle at her command before the resistance was crushed by the ugandan army in 1987.

[Derbyshire]

That's not where it ends, though. After the failed HSM insurgence, Alice Lacuerna's distant cousin, a little guy called Joseph Kony, set his sights on a rebellion of his very own. And it seems like craziness ran in the family, because just like Mama Alice, former altar boy Coney also claimed to have mystical powers. You kind of have to.

[Hannah Witton]

You might as well.

[Derbyshire]

He professed to be a spokesperson of God, possessed by 13 surprisingly multicultural spirits, including the ghost of an imaginary Chinese general named Ying Chu, who advised him on military matters.

[Hannah Witton]

Wow.

[Derbyshire]

His ideology stemmed from a bizarre mix of Christian fundamentalism, mysticism, and Acholi centric nationalism, blending the Ten Commandments with local folkloric tradition, which in Africa is really not that rare. Kony began leading his lords Resistance Army, LRA, in the late 80s and initially preached the same goal as Mama Alice. To crush Museveni and restore Acholi pride after years of persecution.

[Hannah Witton]

But the LRA soldiers weren't your average cadets. They were children. As Acholi citizens grew disillusioned with Kony's increasingly batshit ideology, he didn't take rejection well.

[Derbyshire]

What a surprise.

[Hannah Witton]

So instead, he started using the LRA to raid homes Massacre civilians and round up any children who were left alive. Kony and his troops put machetes and machine guns in kids hands, forcing them to murder their own parents. Before joining the LRA ranks as so called freedom fighters, young male recruits, usually aged between 10 and 14, but reportedly sometimes as young as eight or nine, would be forced to serve as soldiers in Kony's bloody uprising. As for the girls, well I'm sure it doesn't take much of an imagination to guess what happened to them. They were taken in as sex slaves for Kony and the lra. Now you might be thinking why choose kids? Why target the children? Well Kony reportedly believed that their souls were purer. But reading between the lines it's pretty obvious that they're just far easier to brainwash, groom, control. Also, once they've killed their parents, who have they got but you? There's no doubt that this would have been a far bigger part of his reasoning.

[Derbyshire]

And you might be listening to this thinking, how was all of this allowed in the 21st century? And that's exactly what one bright eyed and bushy tailed young American filmmaker named Jason Russell thought when he took himself to Uganda in 2003. When he saw scores of Ugandan children sleeping on the streets in the city of Gulu, terrified of being abducted by the LRA in the night if they slept in their rural villages, Russell was appalled and vowed to make a difference. But charity work wasn't always the career that Jason Russell had in mind for himself. He wanted to be a star. He'd grown up deeply involved in the Christian Youth Theatre organization that his parents co founded. Christian Youth Theatre is in itself a hysterical thing that exists. But I also saw an all white production of Hairspray at some high school in America.

[Hannah Witton]

Oh wow.

[Derbyshire]

And I was just like what? Instead of like so there's a line in the Courtney Collins like obviously the whole idea being that like there are the white kids and there are the black kids and the black kids only get one day a month where they're allowed to do the stuff. So it's like nice white kids who lead the way is the line. And in this all white production it was like nice polite kids lead the way. Oh golly.

[Hannah Witton]

Anyway, at least they didn't black up.

[Derbyshire]

No, I mean that's true, that is true. That would have been much worse. But also just do another show, like why do you have to do Hairspray?

[Hannah Witton]

This is true, this is true.

[Derbyshire]

Russell grew up in all white productions of Hairspray I would imagine. And he said that he became a filmmaker because he wanted to make musicals and he had to abandon this impossible dream because, quote, at the time, nobody was singing and dancing on television. In the movies, fair enough. Glee and High School Musical were not a thing. Yet theatre kids were at the bottom of the social pecking order. The band is below the theatre kids. Come on. Anyway, Russell told his origin story at Liberty University in 2012. Vice President Johnny Moore joked that it was like, I can't do musicals, so let's do genocide. And he's not wrong. That's exactly what happened.

[Hannah Witton]

So Russell originally traveled to Central Africa in 2003 with some filmmaker pals, Bobby Bailey and Lauren Poole. Inspired by the story of photojournalist Dan Eldon, who was beaten to death whilst trying to document the famine In Somalia in 1993, Russell admits that his goal was to capture a tragedy of some kind, though he didn't know what that would be yet. He and his merry men went to South Sudan where they heard some batshit things were going down. But their caravan was attacked by LRA rebels at the border, forcing them to retreat to northern Uganda. And this diversion proved to be a defining moment for Jason Russell because here in Acholiland, he stumbled across the genocide of his dreams. Russell and his crew captured harrowing footage of the children in Gulu developing a documentary that they called Invisible Children. And they shot this across the next few years. As the cameras rolled, a clear villain emerged. Joseph Kony. The film presented an irresistible narrative of a power crazed warlord terrorizing children in the African bush, tugging more than a few heartstrings.

[Derbyshire]

At first, Russell's efforts seemed to be doing some genuine good. After a screening of the documentary's rough cut In Washington D.C. congress approved discussion of the Acholi people's plight. At the 2006 Human Rights Caucus, Russell launched an NGO charity called Invisible Children, dedicated to supporting vulnerable youth in northern Uganda and Central Africa. But the bulk of Invisible Children's activism was done on home turf in the us Jason Russell toured high schools and colleges to raise awareness of the situation in Uganda. And you might be thinking, why would American teenagers need to know about that? But I think that's important. So far I'm with him.

[Hannah Witton]

Yeah, I think it's very easy to be like skeptical of this kind of thing. But we also know that if these films aren't made, these situations aren't brought to light, then how would anybody know what was really going on? And it has to be done in a way that's like it can cut through the noise to the masses. Because if it's just like an article in the fucking Times, how many kids are going to read that? Right? You have to speak to them in the way that makes sense to them. So so far. So far so fine.

[Derbyshire]

And Jason Russell thought that these shaggy haired adolescents were the key to saving the world one wristband at a time. Invisible Children's Whistle Stop tour also brought an absolute travesty of a music video with it in which Russell Bailey and Paul sing and dance about the war in Uganda.

[Hannah Witton]

Okay, let's have a little something. Okay.

[Derbyshire]

It's not great, but at least it's not, thank God it's them instead of you.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yes.

[Hannah Witton]

And this is the thing again. It's like if you are going to cut through two children, I would say that's probably pandering and talking down to children because children aren't as stupid as, you know, society likes to make them out to be. But I do think I don't, I don't love it, but I'm not like offended by it.

[Derbyshire]

No. Watch it yourself. Unoffensive, but very cringe.

[Hannah Witton]

Yes.

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[Alice Levine]

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[Hannah Witton]

Our latest series has a very loose, festive theme. It's about the other virgin's baby.

[Alice Levine]

But we're not talking cosy stable in Bethlehem. We're talking roaring 1920s London, where Christabel Russell is living her best life.

[Hannah Witton]

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[Alice Levine]

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[Hannah Witton]

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[Derbyshire]

And the lyrics are quite special as well. They are. We are on a mission to put Uganda deep inside your mind. It needs attention and a dance to make it sparkle and shine.

[Hannah Witton]

What is it just him trying to rhyme things?

[Derbyshire]

It seems that way, yes. And we've had a little look at the comments below this video as of today and here are some of the the top brass. This made me want to support Kony. Rumor has it Joseph Kony dropped dead from cringe induced by this video. And finally this video turned me into an African warlord.

[Hannah Witton]

Look, it is super cringe. It is super cringe. But maybe I'm looking at this right through the lens of somebody who is alive in this day and age and has become very angry and frustrated by, particularly within the true crime genre of people who say that they want to help families and say that they want to help solve a case and insert themselves unnecessarily into something and cause active harm. We're going to obviously continue down this road with Jason Russell, but, like, I don't feel like he's causing any harm right now.

[Derbyshire]

No, I don't think so. And I do think he, at this stage, it's in the right place. His heart's in the right place. But the music video wasn't quite what the Invisible Children team were aiming for, and neither was its reception. But at the time, it was a part of their wholesome, somewhat naive, but still mission to raise awareness of what was happening in Uganda in a way that would appeal to kids. Jason Russell even summarised charity's aims as being to have fun while we end genocide. It's an adventure.

[Hannah Witton]

It's so tricky, isn't it, because. And I might get rinsed for this, right? But whatever. I do think there is something quite insidious about telling children too much negativity about the world. I think people who like, tell their children all about, like, things like, oh, my God, the world's going to end climate crisis, like, if we don't. I'm like, you are giving these children anxiety. Like, it's like the same as, you know, do you sit down if one of you lose your job and tell your kids, like, we don't know how we're going to pay the mortgage this month. You don't say that of course not. Because kids need to be protected from certain things. And while I think it is important for children around the world to understand the plight of other people in the world, like what was going on in Uganda, I don't think it would have been as good if they'd have literally just been like, here's video footage of just like a bunch of children being forced to massacre their parents. That's going to create a generation of kids who are. And yes, you might be like, well these western privileged kids, yes, of course they are. But like, it doesn't benefit anybody's society that they're all fucking traumatized and develop anxiety disorders because they see how scary the world is. And I get it. Some people might disagree with me, but that's what I think. Yeah, if I ever have kids, I'm not going to tell them all the scary things in the world. Age appropriateness I think is important.

[Derbyshire]

Well, this is like they're going to get fucked by it eventually. Like, let them have their years of like, thinking that we're not all fucked.

[Hannah Witton]

That's what I mean. The question is, why was Jason Russell so determined to wake up the youth of America to the nichest of social justice causes? Because yes, it's very, very specific. Basically, he didn't feel confident that the usual routes like political lobbying and continuing NGO efforts on the ground were enough to fix the problem. In Uganda, the US had already designated the LRA as a terrorist group after 9 11. And Obama even sent 100 advisors to the region in 2011 to provide strategic advice for the Ugandan military in their bids to locate and capture Kony. But the issue never really gained traction as a political priority. It was more like a tiny bug on the windscreen of international affairs than something worth pulling over for. And despite the efforts of Invisible Children, Joseph Kony had still not been arrested by the time 2012 rolled around. So Jason Russell decided that the only way to change that was by doing something huge. So naturally, he turned to the World Wide Web. Russell had one to get everyone and their mother to know Joseph Kony's name. In his eyes, the only thing preventing Kony's capture and arrest was the fact that Western powers like the US just didn't know about him. And with enough online pressure, surely the net would close in on Kony and end his wicked warlord reign for good. And this goal neatly encapsulated the movement. Make Kony a household name, facilitate his capture, and then bring on the sunshine and rainbows. In Northern Uganda.

[Derbyshire]

In March 2012, Invisible Children uploaded a YouTube video with the title Kony 2012. It was a 29 minute documentary revealing the situation in Uganda with Joseph Kony urging viewers to help end the war by sharing the video to everybody that they'd ever met. And it's quite a slick production focused quite a lot on Jason Russell and his own five year old son who's called Gavin.

[Hannah Witton]

Gavin.

[Derbyshire]

I think Americans quite like that name.

[Hannah Witton]

Gavin.

[Derbyshire]

Yep. Darcy's nephew's called Gavin.

[Hannah Witton]

No, because I'm also like, look, if this was like from the 80s, I'd be like, sure, but he's five years old in 2012. That means he was born in 2007.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Okay.

[Derbyshire]

I think, I think Americans don't mind it.

[Hannah Witton]

Okay.

[Derbyshire]

But it is weird.

[Hannah Witton]

Okay.

[Derbyshire]

Anyway, so in the video, Russell shows Baby Gavin, 5 year old Gavin, mid sized Gavin, photos of their friend Jacob, who is one of the children who's escaped the LRA child army. And Russell uses him as a poster boy. Then he tells his son about Joseph Kony, who he describes as the bad man, forcing kids to do unspeakable things as acts of war. And quite heavily leans on children like you, Gavin. Just like you. The video shows invisible children's cause through the pure, unfiltered eyes of admittedly a white and blonde, but still child. And it couldn't be simpler. In its rallying cry, Coney was the baddie and we were the goodies and we could stop him doing all of his dastardly tricks and stuff. And even better, you didn't even have to book a plane ticket to Africa to end it all. All you needed to do was buy a $30 action kit, including a bracelet and posters to put up in your school. Or if you were too lazy broke to do that, you could just tweet a hashtag or change your profile pic.

[Hannah Witton]

The video urged viewers to target 20 so called culture makers and 12 policymakers online by tweeting the ever loving heck out of the Coney hashtags. On the list of these culture makers were celebs and billionaires including Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Ellen Degeneres, Justin Bieber, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Bono and Mark Zuckerberg.

[Derbyshire]

Of course, Bono was all over this.

[Hannah Witton]

He probably volunteered. I feel like the rest of them didn't want to be inundated with these hashtags. And the policymakers included ex presidents like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and John Kerry. The goal was to create an online tidal wave that would make it impossible for these influential figures to ignore the war in Uganda any longer. And it worked. Celebrities like Justin Bieber and the Kardashians shared their heartfelt support for the campaign, urging their huge fan bases to watch the Kony 2012 video. StopKony and Kony2012 trended for days, and the viral tsunami seemed tipped to spill over into the real world. It later emerged that Louis Moreno and Campo, then the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, had even liaised with Angelina Jolie and then hubby Brad Pitt about a potential honey trap, a plot to lure Kony out of hiding with a dinner invitation. Back home in the west, thousands of idealistic young Kony haters also signed up to participate in the campaign's planned Cover the night initiative on 20 April, where kids would take to the streets and paste actual kony 2012 posters over everything in sight.

[Derbyshire]

Calling anyone toAction on 420 yeah is really stupid.

[Hannah Witton]

I mean, it's not the day I'm gonna say people are gonna be the most motivated for change. Maybe, he thought, the kids won't be high, but all the adults will, and they'll just let them get on with pasting everything everywhere. I don't know. But Jason Russell had achieved his goal. Finally, everyone was talking about Joseph Kony.

[Derbyshire]

But then the tide turned. Rumors began to swirl in the cybersphere about the authenticity of the claims that Russell was making in the Kony 2012 video. It turned out that a lot of what Invisible Children were trying to suggest was going on in Uganda just wasn't true. Once upon a time, Kony had been the big bad wolf in northern Uganda. But he wasn't anymore. Kony hadn't even lived in Uganda since 2005 because he got exiled. He also wasn't dead, despite one viral video from a girl claiming that her African mum said everybody knew that Kony had kicked the bucket years ago. So he wasn't dead, but he was in exile and quite irrelevant by 2012. And while the LRA never disbanded, its numbers were nowhere near the 30,000 purported by Kony 2012. And that figure always referred to the number of child soldiers over a period of 20 plus years, rather than all of them at once. Which was another misleading claim that the charity made very loudly. Journalist Susie Weiss summed it all up, saying Invisible Children had managed to recruit an army of children in America to disband a child army in Uganda that didn't really exist. Those invisible Children, they didn't need saving from some warlord. Boogeyman Action aids. Arthur Lorack declared that while the campaign may well have been effective six or ten years ago, at the height of the LRA's reign of terror, priorities had since shifted to rebuilding and securing lives for children through education, sanitation and health.

[Hannah Witton]

Then there was the sticky matter of the video's rallying cry to stop the war because, as expert voices pointed out, there was no civil war in Uganda anymore.

[Derbyshire]

So embarrassing.

[Hannah Witton]

Yeah. Journalist Michael Wilkinson wrote that although it, quote, would be great to get rid of Kony as a matter of principle for his past crimes, it was unclear how millions of well meaning but misinformed people were going to help deal with the far more complicated reality of the challenges post war Uganda was actually facing in 20 in its pursuit of a clean narrative, Kony 2012 ignored a troubling resource war over newly discovered oil fields. And let's not get started on how the campaign glossed over issues with the Ugandan military, which had been plagued with accusations of rape and war crimes on its own people for decades, in casting them as the good guys in a black and white morality war. I think this is the problem. Russell is grossly misinformed and amateurish in his understanding of the complexities of the challenges in situations like this. It's rarely like we talked about when we talked about what's going on in Sudan when we talked about it on under the Duvet. The reason it's so complicated is there isn't one good guy, one bad guy. It's like everyone's bad and the people fucking suffering are the people of that nation. And I just think it is a really complicated thing, especially when you're very young and idealistic to cut through the noise and understand that sometimes. So yes, embarrassing, cringeworthy, misinformed, misguided, naive, amateurish. All the words that spring to mind.

[Derbyshire]

And I think what's most disappointing is there's no attempt to check yes, he doesn't go back to Uganda like he goes once and then decides a decade later that this is his moment. So yes, Courtney 2012. Fundamentally flawed, content wise. But if you're feeling kind, you might argue that Russell and the Invisible Children Charity meant well. But that again, is not actually that simple.

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[Derbyshire]

Because sure, everyone who tweeted or bought a bracelet or whatever probably had good intentions, but it is just a bit white savior complex, isn't it?

[Hannah Witton]

It's such a tricky thing because I really don't want to cast this as a, like anybody in the west trying to be aware of or raise awareness or help people who are not in the west is, oh, it's all white savior complex.

[Derbyshire]

Yeah, I agree.

[Hannah Witton]

It's all like, you know, modern day colonialism and blah blah, blah. Like, I find that also offensive because then I think it speaks to this idea when people are like, well, you couldn't possibly understand because you're white. I'm like, well actually it completely undermines us as human beings who have the ability to empathize, who have the ability to feel something for somebody else. Like, what is the point of saying we need more stories about what's going on in other parts of the world. We need more diverse voices. Oh, but don't watch that video and then think that you understand what's really going on.

[Derbyshire]

I totally agree. I think one, we are in very dangerous territory. When I've had loads of People message me on Instagram being like, well, you've just gone to the University of TikTok. You don't know anything. And I'm like, yes, I do. And I think I'm very wary of this. Like, well, you can't talk about that. I can talk about anything.

[Hannah Witton]

Yeah. And that's why I find that offensive. And it really does come back to this idea of, like, you can't argue for a more united world, a more connected world, a world where more diverse voices are told, but then simultaneously say, like, oh, women's voices should be heard. Children's voices should be heard. People of color's voices should be heard, even though I hate that term. But then also be like, well, if you aren't any of those things, well, then you couldn't possibly understand, because then it completely undermines a human's ability to understand and empathize and take that on. So, no, I find that offensive. But I also can understand that that does exist. White savior complex can exist, but I think you can also kind of remove the white. I think, like, maybe a misunderstood savior complex from a place of oversimplicity and misunderstanding can exist. That's not as catchy as people just say white savior complex, but, like, that can for sure exist. But is that always the case? And should everybody who wants to help somebody else in another part of the world be tarred with that brush? Absolutely not.

[Derbyshire]

Yeah, I agree. And speaking on YouTube, a Ugandan journalist called Rosebel Kagumaya, which.

[Hannah Witton]

It sounds like an alias for you.

[Derbyshire]

I know it's an anagram of my name, but with a K at the beginning, I was looking at that, and I was like, that meme with all of, like, the algebra symbols.

[Hannah Witton]

Rose Belle Caglio. That's what we'll call you when we eventually have to go hide.

[Derbyshire]

It's not as good as Susie Qanon.

[Hannah Witton]

It will draw less attention.

[Derbyshire]

Anyway. Rose Bell called it another video where I see an outsider trying to be a hero rescuing African children and pointed out that local initiatives were better placed to intervene in the issues facing northern Uganda, noting the courageous efforts made by politician Betty Begomi to draw out Coney from hiding. And I think this is, you know, the issue. If we're calling it White Savior Complex, what that actually is is someone like Russell who is. I will go. And I am better than all of these people because I am Western and more evolved. And I know and I understand, and I fix it, and then I'm the hero. I'm the savior. It's all about me. I think that's the difference between, like, that's a megalomaniac. Whereas someone just talking about issues is not the same thing. Yeah.

[Hannah Witton]

And I can take that on board. I think it's like. Yeah, it's a challenge. And that whole like sort of helpless Africa narrative. And even charities have, big charities have been responsible for this and have now changed the way in which they approach this. For example, the Red Cross, et cetera. There would always be those adverts that would be like, here are children dying in Africa. Flies around the face. Flies around. That's real. But it was this narrative portraying of like, look how. Fucking look how nobody here can solve anything.

[Derbyshire]

Yes. Yeah.

[Hannah Witton]

And we have to do it. And I get it. It's so, so tricky. Like, I'm really. This episode is maybe more nuanced than maybe the Internet would make it seem. I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it's that simple, but it's really, really tricky. And of course, like, this has taken a whole nother realm, but like all of those situations in which. So as somebody who's come from like a different country, who's come from India, whenever I see cases in the news here of historic child abuse in particular, it always. My family and I will always say the same thing. It's so fucked. This happens everywhere. But imagine what is going on in countries where this isn't even talked about. Thank fck that in the uk, in the us, in the west, if even if these crimes are committed years ago, they eventually some of the time come to light, this wouldn't even happen in India. And it always makes me sad because there's a case I really want to cover of a woman called Kate Puzzi. Kate Puzi. But I'm struggling to because I cannot get enough resources on it. And if anybody out there listening to this episode has anything, knew her, knew anything about this, please get in touch. Because it's a story of basically people who go over to help in different countries, say, you know, in a country in Africa and they're working with children there if they want to be predators. It is so much easier to get away with it because there is so much chaos. People aren't going to notice what you're doing and they're just going to be so grateful for the help that those children are even more vulnerable. And basically Kate Puzzi was one of these people that was helping there with all the best intentions. She finds out that one of the guys she's working with is raping the children in this school that they're volunteering in, and he kills her because she's threatening to expose him. So those things are absolutely real. And a very, very insidious way in which that happens, in which there is no good intent, there is only ill intent to exploit that situation. So it really exists on a spectrum, this kind of thing.

[Derbyshire]

I think in this specific example, if Ugandans were telling their own story, they would have got the facts straight.

[Hannah Witton]

Yes, absolutely. And look, I don't take away from the people that are saying that. I will also say there is the challenge that sometimes an outsider coming in and telling that story can seem wrong, like knee jerk can feel wrong. But also maybe sometimes an external person coming in is able. And I'm not saying in this case. I'm just saying in some case, like take Sudan, sometimes if you are Sudanese and you're a part of that culture, your loyalties will lie somewhere. Right. Maybe it's with the people, which would be ideal, but maybe they're with one side or the other, one fraction or the other. And therefore you will leave out things that will make your side look bad. So maybe sometimes an external point of view that doesn't have that loyalty is a good person to tell that narrative. So, you know, I get the points, but I'm also like, it's not never helpful. But in this case, it wasn't helpful.

[Derbyshire]

Yes. What's far more troubling for Russell were the mounting claims that Coney 2012 and Invisible Children as a whole were actually just a front covering up a big fat scam.

[Hannah Witton]

And this is where any benefit of the doubts have gone out of the window.

[Derbyshire]

Critics quickly turned their beady eyes on how the charity was spending its funds. And charities, my friends, are very good at this.

[Hannah Witton]

When will people learn?

[Derbyshire]

If you think the CEO of Oxfam lives in a cardboard box on the M25, you are wrong.

[Hannah Witton]

Look at everything that happened with BLM.

[Derbyshire]

Yep. And what was it? Help for Heroes. That was the big one here, wasn't it? They're all fucking embezzling.

[Hannah Witton]

Yeah.

[Derbyshire]

Anyway, not all of them, but Invisible Children is one of them. According to public records, in 2011, Invisible Children spent 25% of its 8.8 million income on travel and filmmaking, and only 30% went towards programs actually on the ground in Central Africa. And considering that invisible children raised $32 million through the Kony 2012 campaign alone, people were just starting to ask the very obvious and very fair question, where were all those bracelet dollarydoos going?

[Hannah Witton]

The pressure was building for Jason Russell. His plan to go viral had worked, but not quite in the ways that he'd hoped for. Now the whole world was picking at his carcass, including speculating on his sexuality. All we'll say on this is that while Russell publicly professes to be straight, the theatre kid energy is palpable. But it's really fucking none of my business what his sexuality is.

[Derbyshire]

No. And also, you know, it's like being a boy at pony club, camp, meat market. Being a theatre kid is very smart for boys. Pick of the litter, mate.

[Hannah Witton]

Quite. But regardless of what team he bats for, because like I said, nothing to do with us. Russell was starting to unravel in the weeks after Kony 2012 went viral. He had a very public meltdown in March that year, stripping naked and wandering the streets of San Diego while gesturing wildly and yelling at strangers. The footage was captured by TMZ and is still available on YouTube. Just to warn you, though, it does make for some pretty uncomfortable viewing, rumours flew that Russell was masturbating and taking drugs. But it does seem that neither of those things were true. It was just a good old fashioned naked meltdown.

[Derbyshire]

That's so sad.

[Hannah Witton]

It is very, very sad. And this is the thing, it's like, it's so tricky because, yeah, some people will be like, he got what he deserved. I think in some ways also people like Russell, he didn't understand what the impact truly was going to be of going viral and then the scrutiny you are going to be under, which, yes, absolutely, he's mismanaging charity funds, which is always going to get you kicked in the fucking dick, as it should. But yes, as people who for the past near decade have been subject to online scrutiny, nothing of this level, of course, but online scrutiny nonetheless. Yeah, if you're already predisposed to not having a great time mentally, I can see why you end up having a naked meltdown. Now, Russell's wife claimed that this was due to a combination of extreme exhaustion and dehydration. I'm gonna say that's probably not everything. I think that the intense media pressure from Kony 2012 was probably what pushed.

[Derbyshire]

Him over the edge. Yeah.

[Hannah Witton]

Now, Russell, after this, was involuntarily hospitalized to treat his mental health and later told Oprah Winfrey that it took a fortnight for him to get back to his normal cell, which if it only took a fortnight, that's doing pretty good. And Russell has said, we just did not see the tsunami coming and it had knocked him off his feet just.

[Derbyshire]

A few Short weeks after it hit the Internet, the whole Kony campaign was dead as a dodo. In April, the COVID the night event came and went with barely so much as a ripple because everyone was smoking weed. Despite the thousands of sign ups, only a handful of people actually showed up. Kony's face was not plastered on every street in America as Jason Russell had hoped, but it was still lingering on the Internet in meme form. Essentially, Russell was completely milked dry.

[Hannah Witton]

Yeah. So what happened next? Well, npr, when they were still, you know, creating anything worth listening to, reported.

[Derbyshire]

In 2014, this American Life is a good show.

[Hannah Witton]

Okay, I'll give them that. I think the interview with their new CEO last year who said something along the lines of truth is, what I decide it is is, oh, Christ, yeah, is somewhat problematic. But Anyway, this was 2014, and they reported that Invisible Children was drastically affected by the backlash, cutting its staffing by nearly half since its Peak in 2012. Now they do remain active today with a thankfully fully clothed Jason Russell still at the helm, but have massively scaled back their operations both in the US and on the ground in Africa. And as for Kony, well, he's still out there somewhere. The latest reports have him hiding in South Sudan with his depleted child army. Local sources claim he is sickly from diabetes complications and doesn't have the same willingness to fight.

[Derbyshire]

Kony 2012, for all of its foibles, was a turning point for our modern engagement with social justice movements. It was the first time that the Internet truly mobilized social guilt on such a scale, pushing us into action in the form of clicks and shares. Reflecting on the whole mess, in her op ed for the Free Press, Suzy Weiss wrote that Kony 2012 transformed our relationship with the Internet from passive enjoyment to moral obligation. Now we were expected to be online combatants in a never ending war on evil. The following year saw increasingly pointless online campaigns like the Ice bucket challenge in 2014, which was for motor neurone disease. I was working at a stroke charity at the time when that happened, and there would be whole days where the CEO was like, we have to come up with something like the Ice Bucket Challenge but for stroke. And I was like, no one cares. Actually, there was a big push at that time to change it to brain attack, because stroke doesn't sound scary, but it is a brain attack. That's what it is. But also because it mainly happens to old people. No one cares that much anyway. We never came up with some sort of ice bucket challenge for stroke anyway, but it was a real thing. All the Charities were trying to do it. And whilst nowadays our attempt to virtue signal are less earnest, it is in the minutiae of online presences. What emojis we put in our bio, pass us on images, blah blah blah. Like Blackout Tuesday in 2020 where everyone posted black squares and it actually just made everything worse. None of us are immune. Is a human part to signal that we are good. But you know, are you just doing it to make you feel better? It's tricky. And of course there's something to be said about drawing attention to causes that you believe in and contributing to a safe space online that fosters tolerance. But I would argue that quite often people are doing it because they think that they should. Like that fucking woman on TikTok who says that we owe Casey Anthony an apology. No, we don't.

[Hannah Witton]

No, we don't.

[Derbyshire]

Does online activism really make a difference? I think sometimes. I think awareness raising is an important thing. You will always get accused of virtue signaling, even if you are attempting to do things properly and you're informed and all of the right things. It's something that's very easy to fling, it's a hard one, but something that we'll just have to ponder for the rest of our lives because it's not going anywhere, is it? But as for Kony 2012 disaster and.

[Hannah Witton]

I will end with just a little bit more nuance. I on the whole largely do not enjoy online activism and so called social justice keyboard warriors, all of that. But I will also say this in their defence, is that it is the prerogative of youth to be idealistic and to fight the good fight against the establishment. You've got your 30s and your 40s and the rest of your fucking life to be jaded and believe that you can't make a difference. So I do not wish for teenagers and people in their 20s to be less so inclined. And if we had had the Internet when we were that age, you can bet your fucking ass we'd have been doing something just as crazy with it. So it just is what it is. It is your 20s to be fighting that fight and they just so happen to have the Internet and that's why it's online and that's why it can have more good and it can also have more bad. And there is also just more opportunities for people to be misinformed, etc. But it is just the way of the world. Yeah.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

And I don't want to discourage people.

[Derbyshire]

From saying what they think. It's a really important thing to. Don't be Afraid to have thoughts on things and say them. And I think that's dangerous as well, because at the end of the day, like, there is like a big narrative of, like, well, who are you to say that? Blah, blah, blah. Politicians are just people who say things. It's a very odd conceit to me that I've never managed to quite get my head around, but it's everywhere.

[Hannah Witton]

But on the flip side of people who would say that of, like, well, then, you know, I should be allowed to say these things, which I wholeheartedly agree is then I do not believe in creating safe spaces. That's something I believe in because I'm like, you don't have a right to not be psychologically challenged. You don't even have a right to not be emotionally or psychologically upset by something you've seen or something someone has said. So if you're going to go in and fight the good fight on behalf of the activism you believe, then no one owes you a safe space.

[Derbyshire]

No, I completely agree.

[Hannah Witton]

Physical violence is different, but words are not violence. Silence is not violence. Violence is violence.

[Derbyshire]

I agree. I was actually talking to a friend of mine. Basically, she went on a date with a guy and she didn't like something he said. It was about comedians. And, like, essentially the argument was like, should there be things that are off limits in comedy? And I don't think so, no. You are well within your rights to never see that comedian again. Say you don't like it, but that does not entitle you to enforce a ban on what that comedian can make jokes about. You can not like it. That's fine.

[Hannah Witton]

That's fine. And you can tell all the world that you don't. But that person has every right to say what they want. The world doesn't owe you emotional or psychological safety.

[Derbyshire]

I agree.

[Hannah Witton]

So that's that, guys, I don't know, Go buy a wristband for something. I don't know, whatever. Do what you want.

[Derbyshire]

Save the pub.

[Hannah Witton]

Save the pub. That's mine. And Hannah's new community corporate outreach is Save the pub.

[Derbyshire]

Save the pub.

[Hannah Witton]

Because the pubs of the UK are dying. And that's sad. But no, that's it.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Go.

[Hannah Witton]

Go do what you want or don't do anything. That's also fine too. And we'll see you next week.

[Derbyshire]

Goodbye.