Thursday, Mar. 29, 2012

Kony 2012

Age: Not applicable
Occupation: Advocacy film

Kony 2012, a 29-min. video released on the Internet in March, was created to shine a global spotlight on the atrocities of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan rebel leader. With the film's 100 million–plus views and a deluge of contributions to the cause, the mission succeeded. Jason Russell, co-founder of Invisible Children (the group that made the film), became as famous as Kony himself — in fact, critics found the project to be more an exercise in self-aggrandizement than activism. Russell ended up hospitalized for psychosis brought on by stress.