The Alphaville Herald

Obama Puppet In Teh Metaverse

by Pixeleen Mistral on 01/04/07 at 4:58 pm

audio drop outs, no Q&A from SL, and Barak’s B-cup

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

By now I should know better – but there is always the chance there will be an interesting and effective real life political event held in Second Life – someday. That day was not Saturday.

John Edwards supporter – and SLNN reporter – Redaktisto Noble recently wrote a story hyping an “authorized simulcast” of Barack Obama’s saturday living room conversation media event. Mr. Noble may well be smiling now – the Obama SL show ranks high on my list of all-time lame SL media events. Perhaps Redaktisto can steer the Edwards camp away from Obama’s metaverse simulcast media mashup mishaps?

Rik Reil’s video shows the very beginning of the Barak show, but after the first few minutes – and after the end of Rik’s video – the audio stream was half dead-air drop outs – creating a finely diced word salad that somehow consisted only of catch phrases:

“…change does not happe …[dead silence]… nd that it happens …[dead silence]… we’re going to hold you accountable …[dead silence]…”

The event started on a dissonant note as the real life Barak Obama mentioned via the audio stream in SoHo sim that they had moved to a library rather than using the living room as originally planned. So – the charming simulated midwestern living room in SoHo was the wrong stage set. The 30 or so residents in attendance could only hope that Forefront Media had not put too much time into the faux-living room.

There was no way for residents of SL to pose questions – raising the question of how effective a passive push-media event is in the metaverse – wouldn’t TV or radio be a better choice? At least we could see the right stage set and the mesh limitations of SL avatars would not make real life Barak look like he had breasts.

The mood of the “crowd” of avatars in SoHo was mixed – a sizable german contingent seemed bemused, the political fanboys were trying hard to believe this was an historic event. Khadijah Shan wondered aloud if the sim had been created by republicans and asked why the Obama avatar had boobs. That didn’t really seem fair – they were no more than a B cup, and potential presidential “package” *cough* was also quite restrained by SL standards.

Helpful Rik Riel has provided what appears to be a heavily edited transcript of the text chat from the event. In Rik’s transcript, all those germans have gone missing along with a number of unflattering comments about Rik’s favorite candidate. For instance, one portion of my transcript says:
[13:10] Hacker Kyong: STOP WAR MAKE LOVE !!!!
[13:10] brian Miles: PEACE
[13:11] hasdrubal Celt: sorry
[13:11] Khadijah Shan: why does this Obama av have breasts?
[13:11] hasdrubal Celt: brian, du hast shorts an
[13:11] Hacker Kyong: ^^
[13:11] Shylah Garmes: come on folks, let’s show some courtesy and respect please
[13:11] brian Miles: oh ^^
[13:11] brian Miles: immer noch?
[13:11] You: ok – this is officially hopeless – there are too too many drop outs
[13:11] brian Miles: kann do net sein ^^
[13:11] hasdrubal Celt: ja
[13:11] You: and he is not really here
[13:11] LailaLei Mathilde: /what do you mean, pixeleen?

In Rik’s world what was said is:

Hacker Kyong: STOP WAR MAKE LOVE !!!!
brian Miles: PEACE
Pixeleen Mistral: ok – this is officially hopeless – there are too too many drop outs
Pixeleen Mistral: and he is not really here
LailaLei Mathilde: /what do you mean, pixeleen?

Mr. Riel was not the only helpful resident. Apparently Forefront Media volunteered its 7 person staff to create the set, event, and Obama Oh avatar for free. I spoke with Andrea Humphrey of Forefront Media about this

Andrea Humphrey takes time away from her “Let’s Get Naughty” podcast for Mr. Obama

Pixeleen Mistral: how much did this all cost?
Andrea Humphrey: Forefront media did not pay for the rights to do this. We did this through correspondence with the Obama ’08 campaign.
Pixeleen Mistral: so this is a free contribution by Forefront media?
Andrea Humphrey: It is free
Pixeleen Mistral: I was wondering how this fits with campaign contribution laws
Andrea Humphrey: Donate directly on the website. We are not accepting donations for the Obama campaign.
Pixeleen Mistral: yes – but YOUR WORK is a donation to the campaign
Pixeleen Mistral: I want to know what the value of that in-kind contribution is
AndreaHumphrey: is typing…
Andrea Humphrey: Our work is no more than providing another medium for production of today’s message.
Pixeleen Mistral: so you cannot put a value on that? the avatar creation has no value?
Andrea Humphrey: we do not figure out that kind of thing
Pixeleen Mistral: how many staff worked on this?
Andrea Humphrey: The entire Forefront Media team.
Pixeleen Mistral: what is your web site again?
Andrea Humphrey: This is www.barackobama.com
Pixeleen Mistral: no – the Forefront media’s web site
Andrea Humphrey: It is down for maintenance
Pixeleen Mistral: I was hoping for some background for my story – oh well
Andrea Humphrey: Well i am one of the owners of FM – happy to provide information but unfortunately our site is not up at this moment
Pixeleen Mistral: how many people work at forefront media?
Andrea Humphrey: 7 at this time but we are working to increase our staff
Pixeleen Mistral: So SL is really an afterthought here – we cannot ask Obama questions, we have to leave SL to donate, and the work here is not being declared as a RL campaign contribution
Andrea Humphrey: SL is being used as a medium to broadcast the simulcast – just as if you were to turn on your television and tune in to your local network broadcasting the simulcast.

It seemed important to Ms. Humphrey to maintain the idea that this is simply a simulcast broadcast media – it will be interesting to see how american campaign finance laws deal with SL as an advertainment media – with the going rate for metaverse consultants it is hard to argue that these are trivial expenses – even if the contribution is all “free”.

Mr. Obama’s avatar had intermittent knee issues

When I tried to learn if Ms. Humphrey’s free set, avatar, and simulcast service is available to other candidates, Ms. Humphrey said, “We are working on future opportunities but unfortunately I am not at liberty to discuss them at this time”. Fair enough – someone needs time to work on Barak’s knees anyway – unless this was a one-night stand.

Here’s hoping when Hillary decides to jump in-world Tenshi and I can take her shopping. Ms. Clinton will want to project a more macho image than Barak, and I know just the place for some cyber goth babe outfits that are really presidential – and we can stop by Armory Island to court the conservative vote, too. Or maybe a transgendered furry would be more appropriate? Hillary – we are ready when you are!