Stop Picking on My Little Pony!

Wow - Second Life is getting some tremendous free advertising. Last week we learned it was the place to go if you wanted to experience a virtual terrorist attack with nuclear weapons. Now we see it's the place to go to see John Edwards' campaign headquarters vandalized by anarchists or conservatives - depending on your conspiracy theory.

From the Edwards campaign blog:

Shortly before midnight (CST) on Monday, February 26, a group of republican Second Life users, some sporting "Bush '08" tags, vandalized the John Edwards Second Life HQ. They plastered the area with Marxist/Lenninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obsenity, and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harrassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obsenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular.

I witnessed this event, taking names and photos, including the owners of the pictures. I also kept and saved a copy of the chat log. I have filed an abuse report with Linden Labs, and am awaiting their investigation.

Yeah - I'm with you. I wish Marcotte was still the blogger, too. It would have had a lot more flair.

John Brownlee at Wired offers this comment:

This is the modern-day equivalent of hippies freaking out the squares. You see countless news stories about this, over and over again: the gray humorless drones of political parties or corporations rushing to establish a presence in Second Life because it's the thing to do, only to find themselves staring directly into the collective Goatse.cx of the Internet's soul.

The alternate reality that is Second Life offers a great haven for Democrats by the way. Given their discomfort with the world as it is - with George Bush as President, and troops in Iraq, and all the rest - maybe they can make a home in Second Life. Over there, John Kerry can be President and John Edwards can succeed him. I bet Dennis Kucinich is already President in part of Second Life.

Heck, maybe they can even make Al Gore President over there as well; I bet his virtual home over there in Flatland wouldn't use near as much energy as the one in our plane of existence.

They just need to be willing to swallow the Red Pill...

Hat Tip: Glenn