The viral afterlife of a failed project
The piece is a ghost of an earlier media cycle, recycling quotes and images from 2015 without acknowledging that the mission it celebrates ended badly within weeks of launch.
In January 2015, former US soldier Kinessa Johnson gave interviews at a gun‑industry trade show about her upcoming work with Vetpaw (Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife) in Tanzania, telling an interviewer they were going to "do some anti‑poaching, kill some bad guys and do some good." Those clips went viral in March and April 2015, paired with photos of her posing with large firearms from her earlier work as a "tactical model," and the internet lionized her as a "poacher hunter."
By May 2015, the Tanzanian government had expelled the Vetpaw team, with the tourism minister saying he was "saddened" by the coverage and worried about the group's conduct. Johnson's contract with Vetpaw was terminated after about 35 days, and the organization's founder later told fact‑checkers that her interviews were unauthorized.africacheck+3
The Upworthy piece, dated 2019, presents none of that history. It simply recycles the same "kill some bad guys" quote and images as feel‑good content.
Why the original coverage went viral, and why it backfired
In early 2015, multiple outlets ran celebratory stories: The Independent, Military.com, Big Deer blog, and others framed Johnson as a hero protecting elephants and rhinos from "bad guys." The narrative was simple and appealing to certain audiences: American veterans with combat skills stepping in where African governments supposedly could not.
But in Tanzania the coverage looked very different. Officials saw foreign nationals talking about "hunting" and "killing" people on their soil, accompanied by a film crew, without clear coordination through the US embassy or with local authorities. The government deemed the group "high‑liability clout chasers" and shut down the operation.
Other anti‑poaching practitioners warned at the time that this kind of militarised, hero‑driven framing would damage trust and make long‑term work harder. Rosie Plaia, who runs another anti‑poaching group, said she tried to alert Vetpaw early on that the social‑media strategy would backfire, and was told that "even bad publicity is good publicity."
What looks like a harmless morale‑booster to one audience can look like a threat to sovereignty and an invitation to violence when read by the people living where the work happens.
White‑saviour mechanics and real‑world consequences
The Upworthy piece, and others like it that keep recirculating the same material, exemplify a recurring pattern in conservation media. Local people are either absent or passive, wildlife is in mortal danger, and the solution is foreign intervention by heavily armed heroes. That framing strips African communities of agency and casts conservation as a military operation run from outside.
The result, as the Tanzania episode showed, is not just bad optics but operational damage. Governments pull permits, local partners lose trust, and the very people meant to be working together end up resenting each other. The animals do not benefit from any of this. What the viral coverage reliably produces is clicks, brand visibility for whoever is featured, and a thicker layer of resentment between global north and global south conservation actors.
When foreign veterans talk casually about "killing bad guys" in rural Tanzania, it turns local people living alongside wildlife into enemy targets in someone else's action story. That white‑saviour framing strips neighbors of their own politics and history, and it invites audiences in the global north to see communities as obstacles rather than as people whose lives are on the line. It does little for rhinos or elephants. What it reliably produces is anger, distrust, and another layer of resentment between north and south, which makes long‑term protection work harder, not easier.
