Newt Gingrich's Second Life: The Leading GOP Presidential Candidate Visited the Virtual World With All-Female Avatar Bodyguards, Suggested Congress Meet in SL Too

Newt Gingrich, who may very well become the next President of the United States, has a second life. No, I don't mean his second life as a lobbyist, I mean literally, a second life: A few years ago, the leading GOP candidate for President created a Second Life avatar and gave a long lecture on the steps of a virtual Capitol building, where he proposed that Congress itself meet, all while being protected by a squad of all-female avatar bodyguards, and protested by a green fairy with wings who called him a fascist.

This was back in 2007, when the 3d virtual world was in its period of maximum media hype, and Gingrich was not even the only nationally prominent political figure to dabble in SL. In 2006, for instance, when Mark Warner was considered a leading Democratic Presidential candidate, the then Virginia governor (now Senator) made a short whistle stop appearance in Second Life.

Unlike Warner and most others, Newt went whole hog on virtual reality, not only making an appearance in SL, but praising it as the future of Internet, lecturing more generally about the Metaverse, and then to top it off, proposed that America's political leaders meet on a Second Life island called Second Legistlation.

Here's what he said:

I regard Second Voice... Second Life, as the beginning of a very different kind of system that let's exactly what you see in front of you happen, which is people from all over the world, can come together, and be together, and share ideas... I think it's very important to look at how this technology is going to evolve.

And evolve it did, though contrary to what Newt predicted, Second Life hasn't become the main way for people coming together online. That title more firmly belongs to some website made by a college droupout who used to share the stage with Second Life's developers. Maybe political reporters can ask Newt about his current platform position on the metaverse. He even wanted Congress itself to be in Second Life:

Newt talked about creating a "Second Legislation" sim [in SL] where legislators from the national and state levels could come together to share views on important subjects and bills, without the need for expensive travel. This was pretty far-fetched, but definitely interesting.

Newt is full of interesting ideas! And those bodyguards? They were the Metaverse Modsquad, and they were hot:

And you can read more about how the Gingrich appearance came together here, and also here. As for why Newt came into Second Life at all, he's always been an advocate of information technology, so it's not totally surprising. Though one wonders why he seemed so amped on Second Life itself, a virtual world with a lot of amazing creativity, but also a lot of strange characters, from roleplaying vampires and physically impossible sex fiends to furries, people who enjoy roleplaying as anthromorphic animals. Unless...

Wait a minute. Wasn't there a recent photo on Boing Boing of Newt Gingrich's wife Calista where...

Oh. My. God:

Newt, oh Newt... is that you in there?

Photo of SL Gingrich by Rikomatic. SL Gingrich protest photo from Ana Herzog's Flickr stream.

Comments

[DD Ra]

Woaw, Hamlet, stop posting such articles ! Now I believe in Newt, I want to vote for him because he is a fan of SL AND has a furry loving wife !

I think I will vote for him... in Second Life at least :)

(PS: no I wasn't serious, keep posting, this was informative and fun ^_^)

[Missy Restless]

Awesome post with excellent links and funny pics. I gotta say tho, Gingrich was right on spotting SL as a way for people from all over the world to come together and share. Yeah, ok, Facebook won but it really only won the "re-connect with your forgotten High School classmates" competition. How many people from Japan or Australia or Brazil do you chat with on FB everyday ? Second Life still rules the international scene and Newt was clever to perceive this. As easy as it is to laugh at Newt with his all-female bodyguards, he may in fact have a few seriously good points.

[Scarp Godenot]

Newt Gingrich will NOT be the next president, you can bank on that. He is just another flavor of the minute.

He divorced his first wife when she had cancer and was in the hospital while he was having an affair with his second wife.

And don't forget he was screwing his MUCH younger staffer while at the same time impeaching Clinton while married to wife number 2.

Eighty-four ethics charges were filed against Speaker Gingrich during his term AND hew was fined $300,000. He admitted he violated federal tax law and had lied to the ethics panel in an effort to force the committee to dismiss the complaint against him.

Too much baggage for that guy to overcome.

[No fancy avatar]

Could someone from Atlanta look into the public records and find out who initiated the divorce. His daughter says it was mom. Is it more of a sin for a Congressman to have an extramarital affair than for an Arkansas Governor to deny his. No wonder Slick Willy said he got along well with Newt. Neither one was being very nice to women.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

I volunteer to be Newt's SL fashion helper.

I won't vote for the man IRL but he's an academic by training. I can at least lend a colleague a hand and get him some stylin' suits to go with his female body-guards.

At least we get him a better SL Power-tie. Or he can become a furry. Or both.

[Orca Flotta]

Ignatius wrote:
At least we get him a better SL Power-tie. Or he can become a furry. Or both.

Yes, that was the first thing catching my eyes: that tard isn't even able to edit his tie. What a loser. And of course in RL he's a terrible "politician", really more of a popularist and, oy vey, of course in the totally wrong party!
In most countries all over the world those republicans and their candidates would be under surveilance of our equivalents of "homeland security".
I won't say he's a fascist but he surely doesn't really believe in democracy neither.

[Moni Duettmann]

This is the frist time I get proof that a monster in real life uses a human SL avatar, usually we can only find it the other way round.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

He needs a cool group title for his avatar.

How about "Architect of America's Downfall"?

[Amy Pritchard]

Hamlet!!!! Mike and I were just talking about this a couple of days ago. We at Metaverse Mod Squad LOVED doing that gig. I have never been so nervous for an hour straight. The event even made CNN that night because of a "scantily clad" avatar that we asked to cover up.

I hope we can convince Newt to make another stop. We actually had a write up about the company in the NY Times a few months back and they talked all about how surreal the event was. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27meta.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

I wonder what happened to the "NO TO FASCISM NO TO FEDERAL CONTROL" gal????

--Amy Pritchard, CEO of Metaverse Mod Squad

[etchasketch]

Errr are you talking about Gingrich or Obama, the Marxist in Charge? That statement above must be about Obama.

[Danielle]

Given that Obama's net worth is around $5 million, I don't think he's a Marxist. More a captive of Wall Street and the 1%. They fund his campaign, just like all the other major candidates, in both parties.

The average net worth of *all* top government officials (Congress, Executive, and Judicial branches) is $6.5 million. Money begets power, and power begets more money.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Arcadia wrote:

He needs a cool group title for his avatar.
How about "Architect of America's Downfall"?

Um...Arcadia, George W. Bush's avie wears that one (with "Architect" misspelled). Newt is just "Somewhat independently minding former academic who would make W's rubble bounce."

Obama snagged the title "Well-meaning former academic who was over his head, delegated too much, and who found his spine too late when faced with a rising Plutocracy who are wrecking the planet while raking in the profits."

It's sad that the lunatic Aynbots see all non-Randians as Marxists..but hey, we're all on this sinking ship together, whatever our titles.

Welcome to the Age of Decline. It'll hoover up the fake and real worlds alike.

PS: My tabber reads "Bring back Nixon: the last Republican I respected."

[Pussycat Catnap]

@No fancy avatar:

Its par for the course throughout human history for rulers to have issues with monogamy. For most of human history it was considered wrong for them to be monogamous...

Find a world leader who does -not- have a 'slick willy', and you'll probably be looking at a country going nowhere.

Seems to go hand in hand. Alpha-personality and all...

We really ought to stop paying attention the dalliances of our leaders, and just to how they perform in their duties.

Which is not to condone the Grinch. He's a scumbag no matter how you cut it. But that's because his politics are bad...

[Leondra]

LMAO, Hamlet!

Great post. He's a RL cartoon, I'm so surprised Republicans have such a short memory of all his s#*^.

[Benoc Linden]

Wow, this is the funniest thing I've read all day. Thanks for making my saturday :)

[David Cartier]

I have met and rather deeply respect Dr Gingrich as an educator and author. Even though he has just as many, perhaps more, great ideas as he does truly awful ones, he is really just too close to Obama and too willing to compromise with the Democrats in Congress for many conservatives to stomach. I am going to be really torn if he gets the nomination. We shouldn't have to settle for the best of a bad lot when it comes to the Presidency.

[Dale Innis]

rofls! More posts like this! :)

[Pussycat Catnap]

You know there's a joke in there somewhere that the other would-be world conqueror to appear with all female bodyguards was Gaddafi.

Is Newt going to start appearing in funny traditional outfits and wild hair and rambling about his self-importance... (or does he already do some of that?)