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    #26
    #StopKony

    Charlie Brooker on Kony 2012.

    I can't say I'm too surprised. You don't get to mobilise hundreds/thousands of shiny happy people into posing for those choreographed crowd shots without some sort of church youth movement behind you.

    By the way, the two things that shocked me most, about the original film, were 1) the film-maker's pronunciation of 'Ugaaahnda', and 2) the film's ultra-saccharine aesthetics, reminiscent of a 1970s Coca-Cola commercial.

    Edit: yeah, some joke or other about 'propagaaahnda', make it yourself.

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      #27
      #StopKony

      That's how most Americans pronounce Uganda. I don't know which way of saying it is closer to the proper Swahili (I'm assuming) pronunciation.

      The aesthetics of the piece are interesting, though, because they were the reason many of my friends were suspicious of the organization when the video started circulating. I don't know if it's true in other countries, but in the U.S. there's a strong correlation between bad design and bad politics.

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        #28
        #StopKony

        Renart wrote:
        That's how most Americans pronounce Uganda.
        It is now. I expect there are research projects at Phonetics departments at Ivy League universities dedicated to tracing the growth of the 'Long A' in American pronunciation of foreign names. It hasn't always existed. It's quite new. I'd say it's happened in the last 20 years, certainly. If you found an old Frank Sinatra or Bette Davis or Fred Astaire or Jane Russell film which mentioned Milan, no way would they have said 'Milaaahn'.

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          #29
          #StopKony

          Renart wrote:
          The aesthetics of the piece are interesting, though, because they were the reason many of my friends were suspicious of the organization when the video started circulating. I don't know if it's true in other countries, but in the U.S. there's a strong correlation between bad design and bad politics.
          Hmm, this is interesting. Depends what you mean by 'bad'. The design in Kony 2012 is arguably too good, if anything. ('Good' as in 'expensive, slick, high production values'.) Feels like a Scientology video, and immediately sets your alarm bells ringing.

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            #30
            #StopKony

            True, but that old "trans-Atlantic" movie accent was created by the Hollywood studios and their locution coaches. Nobody (or very few people) actually talked that way in the U.S. during their daily life.

            The triumph of the "ah" a is largely a triumph of the accent of the (Mid-)Western states accents over the Eastern seaboard and industrial North, I suspect, just as it is also spreading rhoticity eastward. I also suspect there might be a Hispanic influence on our pronunciation of a as we get more and more used to hearing Spanish and pronouncing Spanish words with an "ah" a. Don't know about Uganda, but in the case of Milan, "Milaahn" is closer to the Italian pronunciation, isn't it? (Incidentally, there's a town called Milan in Ohio whose residents pronounce it "My-lun".)

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              #31
              #StopKony

              Spearmint Rhino wrote:
              Hmm, this is interesting. Depends what you mean by 'bad'. The design in Kony 2012 is arguably too good, if anything. ('Good' as in 'expensive, slick, high production values'.) Feels like a Scientology video, and immediately sets your alarm bells ringing.
              These things are very hard to put your finger on, but the video seemed "too" slick, and immediately reminded me of Christian broadcasting, which can be quite canny about adopting contemporary style, but almost always does something slightly "off" or "wrong" with it. Largely, I suspect, because they're only interested in design as a way of luring people in to their message, not as something interesting in itself. As propaganda (propagahhnda!), in other words.

              A friend of mine (who lives very close to where Russell had his meltdown) wrote this right after the video started circulating, and mentioned how their aesthetics had always bothered him. I'm not suggesting that people reject anything with poor aesthetics (there are certainly left-wing organizations I support who could do with a better design program), but I think it is often a good signal to prompt further investigation. I've often been able to identify likely Christian, right-wing, and libertarian front organizations simply from design cues. (The "Pass It On" billboards here in the states, for instance.)

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                #32
                #StopKony

                Porn star and erstwhile Charlie Sheen "goddess" Bree Olson has made a video of herself writhing around in a bikini interspersed with often disturbing photos from the Ugandan war and commentary on why this is a great way to raise awareness for Invisible Children. (Semi-NSFW, depending on where you work.)

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                  #33
                  #StopKony

                  Everyone can do their part in different ways.

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                    #34
                    #StopKony

                    Uganda isn't a Swahili word (it's a different Bantu language called Ganda, I think). locally it is pronounced with a long "a", though not quite as long as the one SR's on about.

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                      #35
                      #StopKony

                      Garamczy Antal wrote:
                      Uganda isn't a Swahili word (it's a different Bantu language called Ganda, I think). locally it is pronounced with a long "a", though not quite as long as the one SR's on about.
                      Ah, thanks, I was just guessing since Swahili is an official language. (I think?)

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                        #36
                        #StopKony

                        I thought that "long a" meant the sound of a in, for example, lake or say. I'm guessing that's why Renart called it the "ah a."

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                          #37
                          #StopKony

                          That's how I learned it in grade school. "Long a" is as in lake, "short a" is as in cat. What SR is talking about is more like the difference between the way somebody from Southern England would pronounce "bath" and the way somebody from Manchester would, "bahth" and "baath." (Unless I've mixed up my English regional accents, which is entirely possible.) Anyway, I don't know what the linguistic term for this is.

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                            #38
                            #StopKony

                            Linguistically it should be "flat/broad a", but Brits often refer to it as "short/long a". Lots and lots of background on Wikipedia.

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