KONY 2012: "Cover the Night" in Bemidji

BEMIDJI--Students at Bemidji State and citizens of Bemidji participated in the "cover the night" movement in effort stop Joseph Kony—head of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda—by making him famous.

"The idea that I could go my whole life without even hearing of this man was really disappointing to me," Danielle Proulx, a student at BSU said.

The idea of making Kony "famous" came from the half hour YouTube video that went viral in early March. The video titled "KONY 2012" uploaded by the Invisible Children group has over 88 million views, despite being a half hour long.

Kony has been abducting children since the late-1980s and training them to be murders. He has recruited between 60,000-100,000 children and has displaced over 2 million people since 1987.

"The fact that he is running around using kids that are my sister's age to fight for something is a really big deal," Proulx said. "I have been on this Earth for 21 years and he has been doing it for 23 or 24. How have I not known about this until now?"

Invisible Children, a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by Jason Russell, has faced its fair share of criticism for defending other military forces in Uganda.

Criticism was added in mid-March when Russel was arrested for having a "naked meltdown" in the streets of San Diego.

"To me, it is not about the Invisible Children group," Proulx said. "I am doing it for the kids and families that are affected."

The posters in Bemidji were mostly located downtown on store windows, street signs, trash cans, street benches, and the sidewalk. Posters were even found on Linus and Babe.

"We want to get the word out and make people curious," "We want to make him famous."

The two most popular posters in town were both red. One of the posters showed both the Republican and Democrat symbol and read "Something we can all agree on." The other showed Kony in the front, with Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler in the background.

This movement, regardless of Invisible Children's flaws, shows just how powerful social media has become in our society. However, awareness is only a beginning on the road to stop Kony.