Kony 2012 and other flop-movements

[flarty]

OWS.

Bunch of hipsters on their iPads and coming up in their 1-2 year old Bentley's complaining that other people have more money than them and they're suffering. Maybe you'd suffer less if you shoved the iPad where the sun don't shine.

This article is for you my friend. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Whatever happened to the money from Kony 2012 anyway?

The last thing i heard was that the guy who ran the charity was so happy to get all this money he started running out in the street masturbating, or something along those lines.

Well, he can't have gotten that much money, if he couldn't afford hookers.

I heard rates for a good hooker have skyrocketed lately, the the public masturbation was probably as much out of stress after finding out about the prices

CHEAPER HOOKERS 2013

HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS, LET'S GET THIS THING ROLLING

SEND ME 100 BUCKS AND I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT, I PROMISE

IM THROWING MONEY AT MY SCREE BUT NOTHINGS HAPPENING

 

[GistoftheFist]

Somewhat off topic, but I really hate when commercials use the word "revolutionary" and "groundbreaking" to describe their product. Yes, your juicer and hair treatment formula are going to cause a revolution. People will stand up and take to the streets and overthrow the government in it's excitement over having slightly more hair than they used to.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

The Kony 2012 thing was an unfortunate case of an otherwise very admirable cause (motivating Ugandan authorities to capture Joseph Kony) being dragged down by the media's attention on the personal failings of its adherents (the fact that some of the charity money was probably used for bribes, and the masturbation thing).

It was really kind of stupid to watch. On the first day, everyone's talking about Kony and how he really should be caught. On the second day, everyone's gossiping about the fact that the guy who made the video was a fundamentalist Christian or whatever, and a month later he's caught masturbating in public and then that's all everybody talks about, and we're not paying attention to the guy who enslaves children to use as cannon fodder and prostitutes.

He is literally worse than the bad guy from Far Cry 3, and he actually exists, and somehow we forgot that because we're all headline-addicted scandal whores.

I've been trying to think of a way to say this for the past few months, yet I've never been able to find the appropriate words. Very well said.

The cynics got so caught up in the smugness of dismantling a cause that got popular for an all around decent reason, and proceeded to absolutely destroy it. Sure, maybe the people behind Kony 2012 weren't the most reputable people in the world (and God forbid they be Christians), and maybe the dude was batshit insane.

But it truly was remarkable how many ears this thing reached, and how many people were willing to donate money towards it. And when it fell through, it not only destroyed the Kony movement, it's going to have negative affects on quite a few well-meaning similar causes in the future because of a lot of people's reluctance to be associated with something similar. Nobody offered any suggestions on what else they could do besides trusting that organization. Now nothing is going to get done in Uganda, at least in the near future.

 

[Gizmo1990]

Snip

You think your prime minister is bad. We have David Cameron. He would have to increase his charisma by 500 mill to have the charisma of a 2x4.

 

[Tom_green_day]

He was caught masturbating in public? Well that definitely wasn't a flop...
Ouch, that's a bad'un.

 

[N3squ1ck]

I have to go with that whole business surrounding Amanda Todd, everybody said "there that's why bullying is bad" and then returned to normal business, without even trying to achieve anything.

Nobody is helped, the bullies were not punished, the stalker got away (afaik) and a lot of people felt better because "they would never do such a thing"

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Snip

You think your prime minister is bad. We have David Cameron. He would have to increase his charisma by 500 mill to have the charisma of a 2x4.

I've seen David Cameron give some surprisingly cracking speeches before he became Prime Minister, and I can tell you; compared to Julia Gillard, he's Cicero.

Then again, the Right Hon. Gillard had more spunk in her before she became PM. Maybe it's something to do with the office?

 

[Soviet Steve]

Alright I'm pretty sure you guys remember the whole Kony 2012 thing, and it's got me wondering, what do you guys think was the biggest flop-movements of 2012.

In my opinion it was, as the title says, Kony 2012. This movement basically showed how easy it was to siphon money from the public for a cause that they do not even do research into, and when everything starts to fall apart, none of the "activists" spoke of it any longer.

Yabba my icing.

The only thing approaching Kony 2012 would be Romney 2012. The schadenfreude at the results of "Romney landslide" on YouTube is delicious.

Maybe you'd suffer less if you shoved the iPad where the sun don't shine.

That's one grumpy cat.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Tropes vs Women in video games. $150,000 worth of flop right there for you. There was supposed to be a video out by now, if I'm not mistaken, and the only public update is that she's bought lots of games.

 

[thiosk]

Kony 2012 never stood a chance against Obama. The GOP was foolish to run him, although its clear they avoided running better candidates because of obamas clear strength as early as 2010.

 

[Hoplon]

Tropes vs Women in video games. $150,000 worth of flop right there for you. There was supposed to be a video out by now, if I'm not mistaken, and the only public update is that she's bought lots of games.

Irony is she's now addicted to WoW as a night elf.

 

[Servbot 24]

He was caught masturbating in public? Well that definitely wasn't a flop...
Ouch, that's a bad'un.

I'll have to pick you out of the bunch because puns just tickle me pink, regardless of how bad they are.

But anyway, I have to agree KONY 2012 was the biggest "flop" movement. I'm guessing by "flop" you mean the one to fall hardest on its face because a week later, people had moved on already. It was also the biggest scam of the year and it just goes to show that anyone with a professional-grade movie editor and a cute child can convince 90% of a social network to give up its money to an empty cause. It just prompted a lot of people who knew absolutely nothing about Uganda and the situation in the nation to voice their opinion of "STOP KONY!". As mentioned in this thread, it even pissed off Ugandans themselves.

 

[MammothBlade]

The Mayan 2012 "prophecy", naturally. Your so-called apocalypse flopped majorly positively and absolutely. Failure with a clown on its head.

 

[vrbtny]

Snip

You think your prime minister is bad. We have David Cameron. He would have to increase his charisma by 500 mill to have the charisma of a 2x4.

I've never been a fan of Cameron, but he did earn a lot of respect from me when publicly stood up to, and curb-stomped Mitt Romney over the 2012 Olympics.

"We are organizing the olympics in one of the biggest, most populated cities in the world. It is going to be difficult.

I mean, it would be easy if it was in say... the middle of nowhere."

Boom. Mitt Romney's face in the dust.

Whatever happened to that guy? trololol

 

[Lusty]

The Kony 2012 thing was an unfortunate case of an otherwise very admirable cause (motivating Ugandan authorities to capture Joseph Kony) being dragged down by the media's attention on the personal failings of its adherents (the fact that some of the charity money was probably used for bribes, and the masturbation thing).

It was really kind of stupid to watch. On the first day, everyone's talking about Kony and how he really should be caught. On the second day, everyone's gossiping about the fact that the guy who made the video was a fundamentalist Christian or whatever, and a month later he's caught masturbating in public and then that's all everybody talks about, and we're not paying attention to the guy who enslaves children to use as cannon fodder and prostitutes.

He is literally worse than the bad guy from Far Cry 3, and he actually exists, and somehow we forgot that because we're all headline-addicted scandal whores.

I've been trying to think of a way to say this for the past few months, yet I've never been able to find the appropriate words. Very well said.

The cynics got so caught up in the smugness of dismantling a cause that got popular for an all around decent reason, and proceeded to absolutely destroy it. Sure, maybe the people behind Kony 2012 weren't the most reputable people in the world (and God forbid they be Christians), and maybe the dude was batshit insane.

But it truly was remarkable how many ears this thing reached, and how many people were willing to donate money towards it. And when it fell through, it not only destroyed the Kony movement, it's going to have negative affects on quite a few well-meaning similar causes in the future because of a lot of people's reluctance to be associated with something similar. Nobody offered any suggestions on what else they could do besides trusting that organization. Now nothing is going to get done in Uganda, at least in the near future.

It was a scam though. Even if it wasn't a scam, it's quite harmful to massively oversimplify a complicated issue like that. If they raised money to help rehabilitate former child soldiers, that would be a noble cause, but instead they created this bogeyman who has not been active for years an is probably dead, and conned a bunch of well meaning people to send them money. This money could have been used for something useful, but instead nearly all of it got used to make more weird videos and setup this weird event they were planning.

The whole thing was a massive con and, if it has a negative effect on similar causes in the future that is a very good thing. And if people are more cautious about spending money on dubious causes like this, and instead spend their money on a useful charity like Warchild etc, that's a good thing too.

 

[Azahul]

Anyway. I would say the Kony 2012, but I can give a regional example and point to the Australian federal government's hung parliament, which was heralded by several commenters in 2010 as bringing the possibility for discussion of more diverse policy issues into the federal arena. Everyone was talking about how this was going to revitalise Australian political discussion.

Unfortunately, the prime minister has the charisma of a 2x4 and the leader of the opposition is only good at making other people look worse than he is, so instead 2012 was a year of some of the most trivial, unnecessary, irrelevant, sometimes wildly illogical political shit-throwing that I have ever seen from an army of monkeys in expensive suits.

While question time has largely disintegrated (and claims, not exactly far-fetched, have been made that that was the plan on the Coalition's part all along), it should be noted that this has been one of the most successful hung parliaments... well, ever. Certainly in Australia. It's actually been able to institute a large number of laws that never receive media attention due to the Coalition frantically starting shit throwing matches to divert attention. So, uh, success there. Frankly, barring their cock-up on refugees (and the cynical part of me understands why they did it), I've been rather proud of this government and I rather hope they get re-elected as another hung parliament, to see if it works out as well as this one did.

And for all the complaints about Gillard, I don't give two figs about how good she is at public speaking. The fact is that she's an amazing negotiator that's managed to keep this mismatched coalition of independents, Greens, and Labor not just functioning, but downright excelling compared to any government Australia's had in the last 20 years. And you know what? I'll take that. If the end result is policies that benefit the population getting passed, I don't care that she can't deliver a speech like Martin Luther King. It's just really sad that the opposition (not to mention commercial media) has taken advantage of that fact to perpetrate this bizarre image of the government being incompetent and not getting anything done.


Anyway, on topic, it really is hard to argue with Kony 2012. Quite a debacle, that was.

 

[eels05]

I'm going to say 'Planking'.
I shudder with embarrasment at the thought of it.