KONY 2012

This weeks most shared and talked about video made the world record of the the fastest growing views in 24 hours. I had taken a screenshot of the views on Thursday March 7th which was 7.3million views. I have taken another screenshot of the views today (Saturday March 10th 2012) which totals to 66 million views worldwide. For a video to gain views this quickly in only 5 days of its release, makes this the most viral video in internet history.

For those who don't know what Kony 2012 is, it's a film created by Invisible Children, a not-for profit organization founded in 2004 to bring awareness to the practices of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Central Africa, and its leader, Joseph Kony.

The goal of this film was to bring awareness to the LRA and how they perform actions that include abductions and abuse of children, and forcing them to serve as soldiers at a young age. The video asks the viewers of a small favour, the favour was to talk about "Kony" and to make him "famous". According to the narrator of the video, 99% of the population didn't know who he was a week ago. Their goal is to make him so internationally known that America will see him as threat and arrest him for his violent actions. In order to do this, the video and the not-for-profit organization Invisible Children ask us to "cover the city" in posters and stickers of Joseph Kony on April 20 of this year. There are twitter campagins and facebook groups gathering supporters for many known cities already (Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angelas).

The video was such a success, Invisible Children's website www.kony2012.com crashed shortly after it began gaining widespread popularity due to its intense exposure internationally. The video was the top trending on twitter for 2 days in a row and is still one of the trends today. The video has also seen by a number of celebrities agreeing with this message such as Taylor Swift, Bill Gates, Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna and Christina Milian.

The group has created action kits that include campaign buttons, posters, bracelets, and stickers to help spread awareness.If you would like to help spread awareness for Joseph Kony, you can visit their website at www.kony2012.com.