Teju Cole, a writer, coined the term “Savior Complex” after the Kony 2012 documentary was released as we comprised a series of seven tweets and an article for The Atlantic on the term. The Savior Complex in Cole’s concept refers to the effects a Western person who prioritizes an internal “big emotional experience” by doing small insufficient ignorant acts of charity or activism like “systematic oppression and corruption” that are too prevalent in many nations around the world and often created or instigated by the United States.

While Cole’s definition of the complex is largely focused systemically on the idea of white vs black and western vs African, he does acknowledge this “big emotional experience” is often achieved through small unknowledgeable acts of charity. When Americans try to fix issues that are systemically larger than anything their small act can change without the proper knowledge of the issue and without the understanding of what needs to be done to change it can often cause more harm than good.

One of the major criticism for international service is the savior complex and the potential adverse effects that unskilled volunteers can put on a developing community. While there are many forms of international service as it pertains to the savior complex, Bandyopadhyay makes the argument that whether the experience be for service, for religious awareness, or for modernity, they all utilize their postcolonialism and western-ness to create a power dynamic.

Another criticism is that people volunteer for the wrong reasons, and that the focus is always on the volunteer without consideration of the communities they are trying to help, and that the money they raise to go on these trips would better be spent by paying local workers to do the jobs. This then pushes the savior agenda by into the “colonialist-like attitudes that Western volunteers are the only ones who can “save” the communities.” This common stereotype often leaves a negative impact on the community, even with the best of intentions.