On March 5th, 2012, a 27-minute YouTube video dropped and within six days, 100 million people had watched it. Every celebrity shared it. Oprah. Beyonce. Everyone. The premise was simple: make a Ugandan warlord named Joseph Kony so famous that the world would have to stop him. It became the fastest viral video in history. But in less than two weeks, the whole thing completely collapsed, ending with the man behind it, Invisible Children founder Jason Russell, having a very public naked breakdown on a street in San Diego. 

This is Just The Gist (MINI) of KONY 2012: the viral video, Jason Russell and Invisible Children, the slacktivism scandal, the Lord's Resistance Army, and the spectacular public meltdown that ended it all.

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Kony 2012 Full Video (YouTube, Invisible Children, 2012)

Kony 2012, Ten Years On (The Guardian, April 2022)

Why I Couldn't Stop Thinking About Kony (Narratively, 2022)

'We're in Bad Times' Invisible Children super cool music video (YouTube, 2012)

Kony 2012 and Interventionism (Jacobin, March 2025)

Jason Russell on His Public Breakdown (Oprah.com, 2012)

Kony 2012 (Wikipedia)

Invisible Children Website

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