What This Cause Needs Most

Since the first step toward influencing national legislation is a large percentage of our population clued into the problem of Islam, what we need most is to educate more of our fellow citizens more effectively.

We have plenty of good writers and speakers. What the anti-Islamization movement needs most is animators volunteering their time for the cause. For example, look at the animation in this little video:

The True Story of True

The video is completely unrelated to the counterjihad, but it's a good example of animation bringing ideas to life. What would otherwise be a dry, academic subject (the history of the word "true") becomes interesting to watch because of the animation.

The use of animation can take a video of someone talking, which might get shared a little, and turn it into a viral video that is shared a lot, just because the animation makes it so much more appealing to watch.

We need animators and graphic artists, and it might be the most important thing the movement needs. Ali Sina and Frank Burleigh say what we really need is a good, full length, high-production movie about Muhammad. It would be the modern equivalent of Common Sense or Uncle Tom's Cabin or Silent Spring — something that changes the world. And I agree with them. But in the meantime, YouTube videos can also reach a wide audience and would be easier to do (with fewer hoops to jump through).

We found out that YouTube videos have far more reach than articles. About five years ago a group from Sweden calling themselves The White Roses made a YouTube video based on three Citizen Warrior articles. Read more about it here. The video has been viewed two million, seven hundred and forty-seven thousand times so far, and is still being shared. It has been translated into German and Spanish. It had far more reach than the articles it was based on.

Here's a good example of what we need animators to do: The video below is about what we could do to the global jihad movement if we stripped oil of its strategic status:

How to Achieve Oil Independence

The simple animations in the video not only make the message more entertaining, they make the message clearer. Here's another one — this one is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The Middle East Problem

Again, the animations make the "lecture" far less boring, but they also help illustrate the message and make it clearer. The animations make the video far more watchable and shareable.

Imagine it: An animator could take Sam Harris's monologue on Charlie Hebdo or Eric Allen Bell's The Drain or Pat Condell's videos and turn them into viral powerhouses that reach millions. Animators have done this with old recordings of lectures by the late Alan Watts (like this one, illustrated by the creators of South Park) and given his message new life and a viral contagion. Animators could do the same thing with Bill Warner's and Geert Wilders' speeches. And given what the creators of South Park have been through, they might be among those willing to volunteer.

We also need illustrators. We need graphic artists to create viral memes for Facebook. We've learned that images with a little writing on them are shared far more often — have much more reach — than plain text or articles or even videos. A simple meme is less of a time commitment. People are sometimes motivated to read something by its sheer brevity, and if the image is interesting or intriguing, even more so. And, for the same reasons, people are more motivated to share it.

The difference in reach is important. Look at a comparison. Here's an image created by the iphone conservative (click on it to see it larger):

That is a good one. It contains a powerful message. But when I posted it on Facebook, it was only shared 53 times and reached 2,965 people. I thought I might make it more contagious, so I took the same information (edited slightly) and created this:

That was shared 4,208 times and reached 242,816 people. My tweaked version made the message simpler, clearer, easier to read, and has an image that makes you want to look. And I'm not an artist. Imagine what a graphic illustrator could do with it.

We could turn the tide of public opinion in our favor much more quickly with an army of animators and graphic artists on our side. We could reach far more people far more effectively.

If you know any animators or graphic artists, take particular interest in enlisting them in our cause. And connect them with writers so the writers and artists can collaborate on the creation of videos and memes that can penetrate our culture on a massive scale. And if you've ever been interested in drawing, this is a call to fulfill your heart's longing and serve this great cause with what we need most.