Kony 2012 is a Parody

A number of comedy videos lampooning Kony 2012 are making the rounds on social media. Some are funny, some are asinine.

A screen grab from Tony 2012 (via Youtube).

Kony 2012, the failed hashtag movement to make Joseph Kony “famous,” is no joke. Millions of people still send money to Invisible Children and one of its first public critics, a Canadian student who runs a tumblr blog called Visible Children, has received death threats. At the same time, it hasn’t stopped the comedy and parodies.

Here’s a few floating around in our inboxes, or passed around on Facebook and Twitter.

First up is “Tony 2012: Stop the Tiger,” by a comedy group, who seem to specialize in frat boy humor. Of course they have merchandise. It is funny in bits. (It features the tiger cartoon from Kellog’s Frosted Flakes selling weed.

Then another comedian made a “response video” to the Tony 2020 comedy video because it is not Youtube if someone does not make a response video. It is meta.

The Australian “rap news agency” Juice Rap News, made one of those “sing the news” videos. They have good politics too. Watch.

Finally, since Invisible Children compared Joseph Kony to Adolf Hitler, you knew someone was going to remix that “Downfall” scene where Hitler berates his commanders for not following his order. Instead the person who made the “Hitler reacts to Kony 2012” is a supporter of Kony 2012 calling it “awe inspiring.” It is all over the place, has bad politics. and downplays some of the crimes of  the Nazis. If you still want to see it. It is here.

Further Reading

Procès et tribulations de Rokia Traoré

Détenue en Italie puis en Belgique pendant prèsde sept mois, la chanteuse malienne est engagée depuis 2019 dans une bataille judiciaire avec son ex-conjoint belge pour la garde de leur fille. Entre accusations d’abus et mandats d’arrêt, le feuilleton semble approcher de sa conclusion.

Requiem for a revolution

A sweeping, jazz-scored exploration of Cold War intrigue and African liberation, Johan Gimonprez’s ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ lays bare the cultural and political battlegrounds where empires, artists, and freedom fighters clashed.

On Safari

On our year-end publishing break, we reflect on how 2024’s contradictions reveal a fractured world grappling with inequality, digital activism, and the blurred lines between action and spectacle.

Rebuilding Algeria’s oceans

Grassroots activists and marine scientists in Algeria are building artificial reefs to restore biodiversity and sustain fishing communities, but scaling up requires more than passion—it needs institutional support and political will.