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

Empire’s middlemen

From Portuguese Goa to colonial Kampala, Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book shows how India became an instrument of empire, and a scapegoat in its aftermath.

À qui s’adresse la CAN ?

Entre le coût du transport aérien, les régimes de visas, la culture télévisuelle et l’exclusion de classe, le problème de l’affluence à la CAN est structurel — et non le signe d’un manque de passion des supporters.

Lions in the rain

The 2025 AFCON final between Senegal and Morocco was a dramatic spectacle that tested the limits of the match and the crowd, until a defining moment held everything together.