The Second Life Of Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is said to haunt the dreams of many Americans, so it’s not surprising she’s seeping into the lucid dream space of Second Life. Last weekend I ran a query of her name in SL’s search engine, and within minutes, two variations of Sarah Palin were standing in front of me. The first came outfitted in a chic but conservative red blazer, as if ready for the campaign trail. The second arrived in a fur bikini and a bearskin cape, clutching a musket in one hand and in the other, a baby chatbot named Bobby.

Victoria Lawless made the former Palin avatar on September 6^th, shortly after the Alaska governor’s widely-seen address at the Republican National Convention, which turned Ms. Lawless into a Palin supporter. “I thought she was great speaker, much better than what I had anticipated that night.”

A freelance content creator in Second Life, Ms. Lawless took up the challenge of creating an “average” looking avatar, as opposed to the fantastically proportioned women more common in the metaverse. The most difficult part, Victoria tells me, was crafting Palin’s face, especially her jawline and cheeks.  “Sarah has some pretty distinct features,” she says. “I'm used to making more round and smooth featured faces, and while I could just make a square head I wanted to try for something more realistic.” She pretty much kept her Palin avatar’s body generic. “I can only guess as to what type body frame and build she has.”

“It's hard to tell her body shape,” I note, “she wears pretty loose clothes.” 

“Yes,” she says, “or bundled up.”

This observation might surprise the many people who believe Sarah Palin has been photographed in a tight leather skirt, or toting a rifle while wearing a US flag bikini— but these images were in fact Photshopped and mass distributed across the Internet very shortly after her vice presidential nomination. Because of this, and her relative obscurity before then, the Sarah Palin you find across the wider Internet already resembles an avatar, an identity that’s partly real, and partly a projection which people have shaped according to their political leanings.

Which brings us to the Sarah Palin in the fur bikini, which its creator, Cymbal Constantine, developed as a satirical riff off the notorious bikini Photoshop.

“I don't agree with her hunting views or her views regarding women's rights,” Ms. Constantine tells me. “I am highlighting her extremist views which I do not feel the media is doing a good job of [covering]. As a woman, Sarah is deeply insulting to me.”

It’s hard to concentrate on our conversation, because Bobby the chatbot baby insists on gurgling random sentences out loud. “You make me feel loved!” he babbles. 

Cymbal Constantine nods to him. “My child of course. Prop baby.”

“So you think a kid with Down's Syndrome is an appropriate target of satire?”

“I think having a baby as a prop is quite appropriate,” Cymbal answers. “As that is my view of how Sarah treats her children. She is running on the fact that she is a mother is she not? So what you have [here] is her huntress mode, and her mother mode.”

But is her Sarah Palin avatar a sexist caricature?

“Sexism is offensive to me,” she says. “However I am not being sexist in my own representation. Now if I portrayed Sarah as a slave, or a sex slave, or something such as that, then yes, perhaps that would cross the line. However, she promotes her own stance as a hunter and as a mother, and the media has hyped on her ‘hot librarian’ look. All of these things have been portrayed as positive, not sexist or negative.” 

These are not the only Second Life iterations of Sarah Palin, I should say. For example, there’s a “Sarah Palin Shooting Range”, a slapdash target gallery surrounded by notorious billboard-sized Photoshopped images of Ms. Palin, unlikely to actually appeal to a seasoned riflewoman such as she. At least two other Residents, Debra Bekkers and Caebrianna Champollion, note that others have recently pointed out that their avatars’ resemble the governor. “I’ve looked like this for two years now,” Ms. Champollion tells me, laughing, “but it's only as of late that my friends started saying, ‘Do you know.... you look just like Sarah Palin’?”  Making them, so to speak, post-facto Palins.

For her part, Victoria Loveless says she has no intentions to sell her own version of Sarah Palin, certainly not until mid-November. “I wouldn't want to sell it or give it out at least until the elections are over,” she explains. “I wouldn't want anything that could potentially be harmful for her character.” For that reason, she’s reluctant to be in-world while embodying Sarah Palin, and when she does, tries to keep her appearances positive. 

“I was very timid to go out at first,” she says. So far, though, the reaction has been complimentary, and not particularly political. (She did however appear at a Second Life charity event as Sarah Palin, and another guest responded by adding an “Obama for President” tag on their avatar.)

Cymbal Constantine also says she rarely appears in-world as Palin, just on occasions when she’s discussing American politics. Then there’s a chance she’ll suddenly transform, mid-conversation, into her version of the vice presidential candidate, becoming a literal incarnation of a Sarah Palin that can only exist here.

“[B]ut,” she adds, “it is not something I do often really.”
 

Then again, as the election gets ever closer, she’s likely to be joined by other variations of Palin, each embodying a facet of the phenomenon, some respectful, some scathing, some up for interpretation, all of them part of a new kind of political conversation that takes on 3D form, in Second Life. Prepare for a metaverse beset by Palins— for the next several weeks, or depending on how things turn out, perhaps the next four years.

Comments

[Ravishal Bentham]

Let the unbridled misogyny begin!

[rikomatic]

Where's that French caricaturist guy's version of Palin?

[BJ Tabor]

So what Victoria Lawless can see the Moscow sim from her sex bed. What is her qualification to be a virtual Sarah Palin; Were does she stand on prim baby deletion? The Torley Doctrine? Did she or did she not support the bridge to Shermanville?

[Corcosman Voom]

Where is poor old Joe Biden's avatar in all this? Buried at 768 meters below sea level on a void sim somewhere on the edge of the grid, maybe? Camping? Dancing?

[BJ Tabor]

Oh this just in; McCain avatar says SL Grid status as never been better!

[truthseeker]

BWAAAHAHAHAH indeed, Ravishal!

Let the Republicans' squealing & crying about mysogyny (which they've had exactly ZERO problem directing at Hillary these past 20 years) BEGIIINN!!

o wait it already has...

[Christophe Hugo]

Look-alikes are boring and by definition un-creative, as their only goal is to mimick.

Oh wait, perhaps the only goal of that SL resident was not to be creative, but to make beaucoup $$. In such a case bravo, "Victoria", you just got yourself some free advertising in New World Notes, congrats! No creativity but a real sense of business.

As you sadly censored your readers, Mr. Au, here's a pic for them:
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/392/palinforqm4.jpg

PS: so what happened, Mr. Au, you didn't find my Palin when searching SL? Or perhaps one has to kiss your b** to get a visit from you? It is a sad day when a blog decides to "play it safe".

[Balthasar Bookmite]

Interesting, i never thought that Sarah Palin avs wold show up. While personally Im not a fan of Palin, I think it is interesting to see the differences in viewpoints where we do have the more realistic and then the more conceptual. As for the ethics of selling a Sarah Palin av, or in fact any politician or celebrities there are many questions, and i just begin to barely answer the questions, that i posed in my blog post.
hmm.

[Patch Lamington]

Bridge to Shermerville... priceless

:-D

[USpace]

.
These Leftist women are really losing their minds. Rosanne wondered on Bill Maher's show whether McCain would take away women's right to vote. Even Maher's audience thought that was a nutso thing to think.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never elect a woman

who's a conservative
she's just a gender traitor

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
just HOPE to pay more taxes

DREAM about high fuel prices
CHANGE PROGRESS to move backwards

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
NEVER ELECT a woman

OR a minority
if they are Right of center

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All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech, there can be no real freedom.
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Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
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Help Halt Terrorism Today!
.
USpace

:)
.

[Victoria]

In response to Truthseeker

I feel your representation of me is a little skewed. I don't have any attentions of selling the shape at all, nor do many of my works ever earn a dime.

The avatar came from when I was wanting to make just an average avatar to mess around with one of my male pig (no he doesn't wear lipstick) friends that enjoys big busted curvy shapes. While debating what would be average Palin just came to mind and I figured it would be fun and was.

Think what you want, but I had my fun with it and nothing more. And for the record, I didn't even know of this blog, it was Au that contacted me.

Love and Peace!

[Truthseeker]

Ummm....wha??

I'm thinkin you're barking up the wrong tree, Victoria.

I have no feelings one way or the other about your avatar, and strongly support your right to do whatever you want with it.

My comment was, in fact, a direct response to Ravishal's zingy one-liner: "Let the unbridled misogyny begin!"

It was a knee-jerk-Liberal moment on my part, and was entirely about my annoyance with the extremely hypocritical "AAAIIIIEEEEEE SEXISM!!!" tactic the Republicans are using in defense of their woefully-inadequate VP candidate. It's a ploy I find to be cynical beyond measure, with the 'bonus' effect of muddying any real discussion about issues of gender-inequality in our culture.

Now, in all fairness, the intent in Ravishal's comment is a bit unclear and thus, wide-open to interpretation. I fully accept the possibility that I'm projecting into it an 'enemy' that isn't there.

But still...

[Thinker]

RE: "Look-alikes are boring and by definition un-creative, as their only goal is to mimick."

I happen to know one of the avis mentioned in the article ... just so happens that was her look before Palin ever hit the scene, so to speak. So your slam of those who happen to resemble Palin fails to recognize that these avatars were not being "un-creative" ... there is a coincidental resemblance.