Kent State Invisible Children held a screening of the viral video Kony 2012 in Cartwright Hall Wednesday night. Supporters of the 30-minute video campaign that went viral last month gathered in order to show dedication to the cause.

Kent State Invisible Children had originally reserved the Michael Schwartz Center for the screening but had to raise funds for Cartwright when the RSVP for the event shattered predictions.

Even with the record-breaking turnout at Kent State Invisible Children’s meeting following the video’s release, the organization failed to fill the Cartwright Hall auditorium, though RSVP for the event was more than 250 on its Facebook page.

“We were hoping that the turnout was over 300,” Meghan Baker, Vice President of Kent State Invisible Children, said. “We had a few fundraisers and people threw a potluck to raise funds for the event.”

There was initially much criticism of the Kony 2012 campaign, claiming it would fizzle out after a while, and according to Google they may have been right. Google Trends shows how searches for Joseph Kony drastically decreased after the first week of its debut.

This could be attributed to the criticism that supporters of the campaign are “Slacktivists,” a term that describes supporters of a social cause that has little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction.  

“I think that this applies to some of the (Kony 2012) supporters, you know, if it’s just reposting a video or something.” Mike Lucas, junior anthropology major said. “But the term describes someone who is self-important and I also think there is more to this cause than that.”

Regardless of how many supporters the campaign has, many students have been fighting for this cause for several years and don’t intend to give up. Kent State Invisible Children is still looking forward to see their hard work pay off.

“I’m excited to see Kony be put on trial and be brought to justice,” Baker said.

On April 20, Kent State Invisible Children will be holding a Cover the Night – Kent edition, in which students will go out and cover the campus with Kony 2012 posters in an attempt to draw more attention to the cause.

“At the moment, we don’t have any decisive plans, but we do plan to cover Kent in posters,” Baker said.

Invisible Children, Inc. is a worldwide organization that aims to draw public attention to Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, which is accused of using child soldiers  in an attempt to overthrow the Ugandan government.

Contact Chrissy Suttles at [email protected].