The HONY-KONY Effect

Today, I worked on creating a commercial for the MUN-sponsored Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. Being a STACie, I felt the insistence to make this commercial creative. I tried to use cool looking clips, hip music, and speedy editing.

However, as I was working on this commercial, I realized that it was starting to look a lot like KONY. I felt like I was disrespecting the impoverished children by making a commercial more focused on its coolness factor than on genuine emotional appeal. It was as if I was saying, "Give money because this commercial looks awesome!" and not "Give money because it helps children in need." It seemed more KONY than HONY.

And thus, I created in my mind, the HONY-KONY effect.

HONY stands for Humans of New York. It is a street photography blog that includes brief quotes from people that someone manage to capture their essence as human beings.

If a cause is depicted in a genuine way that makes you feel emotionally connected with the people involved, it is HONY.

Humans of New York

"I'm going to be an inventor. I already have some good ideas."

"Oh yeah? What are they?"

"I had an idea for an electronic cigarette with a whatchamacallit in it that makes mist so you feel like you're smoking but you really aren't. And also a toothbrush where you put the toothpaste in the bottom and it comes out the top when you're brushing."

"Those are some solid ideas. Anything else?"

"A fart gun."

KONY is a Ugandan warlord who became famous through a thirty minute video created by the charity Invisible Children. The campaign has been widely criticized for being patronizing to Africans, politically outdated, and oddly focused on one individual in the scope of world issues. Not to mention, the charity's finances are questionable and the man who directed the video was arrested for public masturbation.

If a cause is depicted in a way that complete ignores the people involved and only tries to make the donors feel trendy and shallowly self-rewarded, it is KONY.

NY Times

Updated | Saturday | 12:13 p.m. As my colleagues David Goodman and Jennifer Preston explain, a viral marketing campaign to raise awareness of the suffering inflicted on African children by the warlord Joseph Kony has dominated social media conversations this week, despite concerns that the young Americans behind it might be spreading factual inaccuracies and wasting donors’ money.

While much of the backlash reported in the American news media this week cited objections raised by development experts in the United States and Europe, several African bloggers and activists have objected to what they see as more fundamental problems. Among them, the possibility that the “Kony 2012″ campaign reinforces the old idea, once used to justify colonial exploitation, that Africans are helpless and need to be saved by Westerners.

In the end, I created a generic commercial, but at least it is not offensive.