Kony2012 – a social experiment

I bet that 90% of the blogging community have mentioned this topic at least once in the last 7 days. I am no different to them, however; I will not be contemplating whether or not Joseph Kony should be killed or captured. I will not be discussing the legitimacy of the movement, the Invisible Children or the LRA.

What I want to try and achieve is to point out something that 99% of the online world seems to have missed from the Kony2012 video. I have even attempted to research my own thoughts to see how many of them are shared by other individuals, yet my search has yielded nothing. Zip, zilch, zero. How can it be that so many are blind to it? Or perhaps I have just read too much into this and have my own crazy conclusions. I will let you read and be the judge of it.

Did you watch the video and immediately “like” it? Did you “share” it? Were you one of over 40million people who watched the video and responded by posting it on your social media networks, shared with friends, family, colleagues? The new neighbours who moved in just moments ago?
Did you also then follow it? Research it? Did you donate to the cause? Buy their “cover the night” pack?

If so, you are no different to many others. I myself shared the video with a few friends because IF (and that’s a strong if) “Kony” is indeed committing these crimes, then he needs to be stopped. The methods and means are not for me to debate.

BUT! How many of you REALLY paid any attention to the video?

I have infront of me a transcript of the entire video, including footnotes of the scenes played. Right at the beginning, the narrator puts an idea into our heads, planting the seeds for the “experiment” he is conducting.

Yes, I said “experiment”. The entire video, the consequences taken by us, the public and the subsequent “campaign” is nothing but a social experiment. They want to see how we would all react to something, pushing the boundries of social media and determining just how powerful the “regular” people of the world can be. If anything, it has so far been a success, we have as a collective, followed them blindly in the masses, pledging allegiance to something we have very little knowledge about, and many of us are probably not even overly concerned about the LRA’s affairs as it doesn’t directly affect us in any way and is unlikely to make a single impact on our lives. And yet still we shared the video, ranted and raved about the travesties committed in Uganda and whether or not the Invisible children were legit. Hundreds of blogs have been popping up, stating that the I.C are scammers, that they’re only out for the money. Others have said that Joseph Kony is dead, that he was killed years ago.

I say that no matter what, the I.C and the Kony2012 campaign is genius. The biggest social media experiment that the world has ever seen.

Why do I think this has been an experiment? Well, because they told us, it’s just that no-one seems to have been paying attention.

Let me demonstrate the points that SO many people seem to have missed..

00:02 – 00:07    “Nothing is more powerful than an idea who’s time has come”

00:24 – 00:32    “Right now there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago”

00:35 – 00:44     “Humanity’s greatest desire is to belong and connect. And now we see each other, we hear                       each other.

Right here. This is where it starts. The narrator is putting ideas in our heads, telling us that this video will be about Facebook, the social media and how we connect.
IF the video was all about “Kony” and his “capture” then why wouldn’t they start with that? Normally when we watch a video, the first 30 seconds is what grabs our attentions, the way our minds are programmed to take a snapshot of the information – the initial “opening” is ALWAYS designed to introduce the topic. So why, in this video, did they decide to spend the first minute talking about social media and the human desire to interact with one another? Let me explain further…

01:34 – 01:43      “The next 27 minutes are an experiment. But in order for it to work, you have to pay attention.”

How many of you missed this crucial information? How many of you let this 9 second segment of a video pass by without a second thought? Did everyone get too swept up in the emotive music? The way that “Gavin” was used in the video? It takes a total of 8:45 before the narrator even mentions Kony. Even then, his name is only mentioned 45 times in the context of the half-hour long video, which strikes me as a little odd as the entire point of the video is to raise awareness.

Point number 2:
How many people had even heard of Kony before this? I know I hadn’t. My friends hadn’t and I’ll be willing to bet that the majority of you hadn’t either. In order for an experiment like this to work, you would need a subject which will have maximum impact; Something that would make people feel emotion. Afterall, emotion is the catalyst for most of our actions. The greater the emotion, the higher the response – it’s a common tactic used in psychology and something that the charities use to gain support. (All those commercials you see on the t.v. asking for donations to help the sick dying children, or the animals etc etc etc.) For most of us, this video was the first time we’d heard of Kony and his actions. Then we are shown shocking images, fed statistics which appear to be legitimate. All of this is intended to gain a response from us…

But an experiment also needs direction. It needs somewhere to progress to and something we can quantify with results. How do we do that with a video? Sure, we could get 70million people to “share” it. Sure, we can have popstars, actors and well known officials “support” the cause, but did any of you stop and think why those particular people were chosen? George Clooney? Rhiannah? Why did they choose people who everyone would recognize, as opposed to say – Benedict Cumberpatch or, Matt Bellamy? (Who are they I hear you cry!)
By picking out faces that 99% of the public could recognize, they’re adding weight to the emotional response. Afterall, if “popular” role-models do something, we’re bound to follow right?
Sure we are. Like sheep. But where is this direction? How will they measure the success of their experiment?

Cover the night.

There’s one more thing that any stable experiment needs. Time. You need to allow your “experiment” to propagate. To stabilise and so that you can effectively judge the long-term effect that your tests yield. Even in Chemistry, we allow a substance <i>time</i> to dissolve . We give reagents <i>time</i> to react with each other. The Kony2012 experiment needed “time” to react, with a goal at the end (much like the goal of mixing hydrogen and oxygen is to end up with water). Cover the night is being planned for the 20th April.. A full 6 weeks after the launch of the video.
To date, the video stands at a whopping 73,999,551 views. (As of 14:42 12/03/2012) and has been active for 6 days. If we were to take the growth of the video as steady, that would result in 12,333,258.5 views per day, 86,332,809.5 per week and a staggering 517,996,857 Views in the 6 weeks between when the video was posted and the “cover the night” campaign.

There are currently 6,840,507,003 people on our planet. Now imagine if just under 1/10th of the entire world’s population were to “cover the night” as they suggested. These figures are just astonishing. Numbers like these could easily be quantified and as such, the experiment concluded. Numbers are needed to evaluate an experiment, and the best way to gain these numbers and statistics is by following the post count, the comments, the “followers” on social media networks. Even I keep track of how many people view this blog via my stats –  I expect the I.C team are no different, and they must be pleased with what they have seen so far.

I guess that their end goal is irrelevant, but they are testing us all. Testing our ability to follow them without even thinking about what the KONY movement is. They have set the wheels in motion. They have even TOLD us that we are part of an experiment (those of you who have studied psychology and sociology will know that you will yield different results when conducting experiments on “knowing” participants and “non-knowing” participants) What the I.C have done here is very clever. They have optimized their results by making us knowledgeable about the experiment, but then taken away the response of such information by overloading us with emotive language and imagery, designed to provoke us into making a spontaneous response based on what we have seen in the video. Everything that they have done has been designed to track us, to get real-time statistics of how “well” their experiment is doing – they have been giving out “numbered” bracelets.. (Numbered?! What purpose would that serve for US? nothing. But to them? It’s merely another way of checking the progress of their experiment) They have said we can “geotag” where we are “covering the night” (Another quantifiable method of tracking their progress.. How many people will “check in” I wonder?)

Throughout the entire video, the narrator makes continuous references to Facebook, to social media. He veers off the topic of him and his organisation to discuss Mark Zuckerberg, give statistics of social media and its role in current affairs. Very rarely are statistics given as to the number of people they CURRENTLY have following their cause. Very few are the mentions of current legislative bodies supporting them and very very very sparce is the information as to what they are physically doing. Instead, they are asking US, the “social media masses” to participate and “make him famous” …

And then there’s the countdown that pops up every so often, this is supposed to remind us of the “time” left in the initial phase of the experiment, the “idea” phase. Once the counter is at 00:00:00? The narrator repeats his first opening statement “Nothing is more powerful than an idea who’s time has come”, followed by saying “there are 3 things that you can now do” … Yet not ONE of them is “nothing”

This is yet another trick used in social experimentation, particularly in psychology. You give the public “choices” of what they can do, but don’t tell them that they can choose to do nothing. When faced with a choice as outlined in the video, MOST people would choose one of the options shown rather than searching for an alternative. It’s a very powerful way of ensuring participation whilst ensuring your participants are willing (or at least making them think they are)

The I.C have made a VERY substantial experiment out of us all. They have followed all the necessary steps, given us many chances to participate or not. Yet they have been very clever and done it in a way in which many of you didn’t even realise that you were part of the study.

Kony2012, Social experiment or not? I am inclined to believe that the entire thing is just a set up, that we are all just pawns in a giant game where the only intention is to see how willing we all are to follow a group of people and expand and react on an idea which we have very little information. If you knew it was a social experiment, would you still “share” the video? Would you still comment? Would you “Cover the night”?

Afterall, if a small, unheard of group such as the I.C can invoke such a heavy response using subtly played emotive tactics, who’s to say the next government won’t do the same thing? How long will it be until we vote based purely on video views and social media strategies? It won’t be long until the current generation of electorates are in the past and our “social media” generation are running for presidency. There are already campaigns growing ahead of the next election, in a few years time, we may see the results of such an experiment playing in the big-time leagues, prompting us all to vote in a certain direction. To decide on laws and mandates to be passed.

Social media has the power to do great things. But never, EVER forget – That which has the power to do good, also has the power for evil if we allow it.