Because I am bored and like talking to people.
I'm just a lowdown, no good, good for nothing. At least... that's what mom always said.
• Ask me anything
//Sometimes it goes another
//Sometimes it goes another
The Bandwagon
Firstly, before I say anything else, I want to say that I haven’t watched the Kony video. I understand what it’s about, and agree with the message.
I’ve seen a lot of things said for and against the new Kony 2012 campaign. And it concerns me. Not because I think that Invisible Children (IC) is doing anything wrong. Not because I think that people who speak against it are wrong. It concerns me because I think it’s too easy.
It’s much to easy to talk about this issue. It’s much too easy to copy and paste a link to a video. It is much to easy to give the illusion of compassion, while doing nothing. It’s so easy to not get your hands dirty. And yes, I do know that not everyone is meant to be there on the real battlefield in the war against sex trafficking and child soldiers.
With the exception of a select minority, the kind of people who are talking most about this whole thing are the kind of people who buy Tom’s shoes and say, ‘I’m changing the world.’ They are the kind of people who buy To Write Love On Her Arms shirts and tell people, ‘I’m helping people who self harm get the help they need.’ While both of these statements can be perceived as truth, and the respective companies are undeniably doing big things that are awesome, the fact of the matter is, you buy Tom’s because your friend has them. You bought a TWLOHA shirt because (insert band name here) is heavily associated with them.
It all concerns me because IC is trying to accomplish something really huge. They have a real goal that could literally change the world. And I’m scared that we’re all just jumping on the bandwagon for the wrong reasons. Because I don’t honestly know what copying and pasting a video does to stop a man like Joseph Kony. Because the people who repost this video do not strike me as the type to write their representatives, congressmen, and president to urge that we stand up as a country to make a change in the world.
If you’re reposting this video without the intention of really supporting the cause it’s preaching, you’re only doing more harm than good. You’re just on the bandwagon because it’s there.
I’ve said my peace.
Oh hey, hi. There are two songs in this video and I wrote them. Suck it.
Mommy wow, I’m a big kid now.
It was September, and I had just started my eighth grade year. Not only was I at the top of the middle school, but, in two weeks I would be fourteen, which would make me at the top of my class. I was growing up. As much as I wouldn’t admit it at the time, however, I was a child.
I still got woken up in the morning for school. I still had my laundry done for me. I still had to get told to eat my peas. I was the baby of the family. I was coddled. I still came home from school and played guns with my neighbor. Guns was a game where we ran through our yards using toy guns and shouting, “Bang!” at each other. One person was, ‘it,’ and the other person had to hide. When the person who was, ‘it,’ saw the hider, he shouted, ‘Bang!’ The hider then had to close his eyes and count to twenty-five while the other ran off and the roles were reversed. Basically, a combination of hide-and-go-seek and tag. We scuffled many times over whether or not the hider had been hit with the other’s, ‘bullet.’
I remember sitting in my first hour English class. My teacher, Mrs. Speers had just finished taking attendance. It was 8:15. A new girl, Alexa Avery, had come in late and caused some commotion as she was sitting down. There was an accident. A plane hit the World Trade Center. We were let out of class and were walking to second hour, right as the first tower was collapsing. A t.v. had been set up in the foyer. I can take you to the very spot my childhood died.
I remember very little about being at school that day. It was a private school, kindergarten through twelfth grade. The middle school wasn’t allowed to watch t.v. that day. One teacher, who understood the importance of the day, let us listen to the radio. It must have been hard as a teacher to know what to do that day. Go on as normal? Talk about our feelings? Or just let the class soak it in?
My mother showed up at lunch and took me out of school for the rest of the day. We went to my aunt and uncle’s house to watch the news. It’s funny, the things your brain remembers. My uncle had a bowl of popcorn. The t.v. and couch were set up in a way that I cannot reconcile with other memories. The channel was, well it doesn’t matter. Everything was the same. Over and over they showed the planes hitting the towers. They replayed the images of people waving their arms in the windows, people jumping, and finally the towers collapsing.
Is there something about that day that made us grow up? Suddenly I was seeing very adult images. I was apart of very adult conversations. Nothing was censored from me. Why? Was I suddenly on the same level as the adults? Did they see me as an equal, even if for this short period of time? I remember at our church service that night talking to other kids my age and thinking that they didn’t understand the gravity of was happening in our country. I had long had a fixation on the assassination of John F Kennedy and the impact it had on our country. I knew that this event, this act of war, carried far more weight than even that. Was it just me? Did I alone, out of all my peers, grow up that day?
Or was it even growing up? Maybe it was the opposite. Innocence was lost for me that day, that’s undeniable. The world was revealed to me as a cruel, wicked place. But did that equal adulthood? A big part of me thinks that maybe it’s just that everyone was on an even playing field in those days and weeks following the attacks. We all were at a loss for what to do. Maybe we were all children for that time. While the vanity in me wants to believe that I grew up that day, the logic in me says that this is the bigger probability.
I never used to be able to understand my the full impact of the JFK assassination. Why everyone got asked, ‘Where were you the day President Kennedy got shot?’ Why is that something you remember? Every couple years I go online and find as much information on that day as I can. I read the timeline, I watch the news clips, I listen to the voice mails and 911 calls. It’s torture. It takes me back ten years. I get sick to my stomach. But I’ll keep doing it. I feel like I owe it to them. I need to know, and take in as much about that day so that I can honor them. So that I don’t forget. So that some day, when they’re ready, I can help my kids understand what this day meant for their country, for their dad.
My parents officially got divorced today.
Taking it harder than I thought I would.
Remind me again why this shouldn’t be my entire night?
