Unless you’ve been hanging out under a rock for the past couple of weeks or are just now coming out of your spring break coma, you’ve more than likely heard about a man named Joseph Kony.

The social media world has been set ablaze with a constant stream of status updates, tweets and posts about him.

This fire was ignited following the release of a video by an organization named Invisible Children. The organization has been working in Uganda since 2005 with staff and volunteers stationed internationally.

The video clearly and touchingly paints a tragic picture of life for children living in Uganda under the looming threat of being captured by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Although the LRA has moved from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, Invisible Children is still working to end Kony’s tyrannical reign and rehabilitate the communities devastated in the wake of his army.

Once its video went viral, the reaction was astonishing. As a matter of fact, as I’m writing this, the video has 71,242,675 hits on YouTube. I’d imagine that number has only increased (as of Tuesday night roughly 5.5 million). 

I’ll be the first to admit that prior to watching the video, I had absolutely no idea that Joseph Kony even existed. I didn’t know that he had an army. I didn’t know that he was kidnapping helpless little children in Uganda, and I definitely didn’t know that he was raping them and forcing them to kill one another.

BUT, you better believe after spending 30 minutes engrossed in the video, even I was ready to donate to the organization, receive my action kit, rock my T-shirt and join the cause to Stop Kony.

After doing a mini Google investigation on the issue, updating my Facebook status to one of the most heart wrenching lines in the video “Where you live should not determine whether you live,” forwarding the video to my friends and feeling like an accomplished and totally awesome advocate against this awful man, I realized that I hadn’t really done anything at all.

As wonderful as social media is for informing and uniting individuals against an issue, it’s hard to remember sometimes that truly making a difference involves more than clicking “like” from the safety of our cozy comfy couches.

I decided then and there that if I was serious about this cause, I was going to have to do more than post a few status updates and wear a T-shirt. I was going to have to get involved in a way that actually consumed some of my time and required me to get off of said cozy comfy couch.

I was delighted to find out that there were others at USI who felt the same way I did. A quick Facebook search led me to the USI Invisible Children Planning Committee, a group that has grown by 76 members in this week alone and is working feverishly to get the word out about Kony across USI’s campus. I was happy to call myself one of its new additions.

From there I was directed to an event called Cover the Night: Evansville, Ind. The event is going to take place on April 20 and it aims to unite all of those passionate about the cause across Evansville for an evening of posting flyers to raise awareness in the community. I will definitely be present.

While I may not have known who Joseph Kony was before, and I may have momentarily gotten a little carried away with my activist façade, I’m now happy to say that I will be doing my part in a real way to make a difference and hopefully help to stop Kony. My couch doesn’t sound quite as cozy and comfy now that I know there are innocent children dying for no reason.