Everyone boarded the mad-wagon. "How dare they kill Cecil, a lion we've known and cherished for many years!" we screamed in disbelief.
via Reuters
Despite his sudden notoriety, most of Zimbabwe's population was far more concerned about being eaten by lions than mourning one that was ganked -- and that's if the ridiculous poverty didn't starve them to death first. And while I'm not denying that Cecil's death was needless and tragic, I'm also betting that 99 percent of the people reading this had no idea who he was. And we all played along -- because once we stuck to that first narrative, it seemed almost impossible to escape that tunnel vision. And this is the mark we miss every goddamn time.
Hey guys, remember Kony 2012? I'll give you a moment to dust that one off in your mind attic with this handy reminder:
That T-shirt superstar is Joseph Kony -- the leader of a group responsible for more than 100,000 deaths in Africa, as well as the kidnappings of 60,000 children. Back when America gave a shit about that, we took it upon ourselves to pilot a massive hashtag campaign that included an awareness day on April 20, which coincided with one of Kony's most horrific massacres. While that sounds reasonable on paper, the problem was that the entire Kony 2012 movement was so blindly centered on the perpetrator of the attacks, that they forgot to consider what plastering this guy's face everywhere would do to his victims. As one Ugandan citizen pointed out, this was the equivalent of the rest of the world using Osama Bin Laden on all their T-shirts, posters, and party accessories to honor 9/11.
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