Say Anything Blog

Lately I’ve been messing around a bit with the online community Second Life.  I’m not much on computer games any more (not since about my sophomore year of high school), and I have enough trouble keeping up with my real life to spend any meaningful amount of time on a “second” life in some virtual world.  But when I heard about former Governor Mark Warner making an appearance in Second Life last year, and someone starting up a John Edwards campaign headquarters in Second Life (which was apparently vandalized), I decided I needed to sign on and check it all out.

So I did.  I created a character, got me a “Live Free Or Die” t-short for it, and started exploring.

It turns out that Edwards isn’t the only candidate with a Second Life Headquarters.  Barrack Obama and Wesley Clark each have one as well.  Obama’s is by far the most interesting, with video and campaign literature to check out, but none of them are all that interesting.  But what I was able to find out by talking to the volunteers manning Obama and Edwards headquarters (nobody was ever at the Wes Clark headquarters) was that none of these places have the official endorsement of the campaigns.  And probably for good reason too.  At the Edwards campaign headquarters there was a satirical headquarters for someone named John Edward.  Here’s a snapshot I took from the John Edward headquarters facing the Edwards headquarters showing a not-too-PC sign (click for a larger view, and yes that’s my avatar guy visible in the middle):

That’s right.  Literally a hop away from the Edwards campaign headquarters is another headquarters mocking Edwards and his supporters complete with a sign using the same slur Ann Coulter just used about Edwards.

Here’s an image of the “campaign” sign for the John Edward guy:

This satirical headquarters would be kind of funny were it not for the whole “faggot” thing.

And here’s an image of some freak that the Edwards headquarters:

I get Second Life.  I get why people would be interested in a fantasy world where they can act somewhat without consequences, make themselves look how they want to look and generally cut loose.  But as a platform political campaigning?  I just don’t think any mainstream politicians are going to be interested in it.  At least not until the candidates can exert more control over the way their message is presented.