Rawstorne throws tomahawk into Second Life
In today’s Daily Mail, Tom Rawstorne wrote a column titled: Living a Second Life, a fantasy world awash with sex and porn. An article that portrays Second Life as a pool of virtual sleaze and immorality.
As if taking up the baton from the late Mary Whitehouse, Rawstorne reports that Second Life is no more than a “computer arcade game and a hardcore porn film”. This he ascertains from the fact that he created an account with Linden Labs and from the moment he arrived in-world, where ever he went he was faced with explicit content and avatars indulging in simulated sex.
Tomahawk Tomsen, the SL name Rawstorne chose for himself (/me wonders if Tomahawk is a euphemism), found what he saw as “most worrying” but, of course, felt it necessary to investigate more. Well, he is a reporter, a professional one at that, right?
So, how did it happen that Rawstorne was presented with this offensive material? Did Linden Labs create a special “Orgy Orientation Island” to welcome him and then go on to set his default Home location to, an unheard of, “Adult Ahern”? No, no, no. Rawstorne found the Search button and actively pursued the content.
He claims that he found a whole catalog of sex orientated places in a list of the top ten most popular locations. I would assume from his statement that he is referring to the “Popular Places” tab in the Search window of the Second Life Viewer. But wait a minute, that option was removed months ago and replaced by “Showcase” which isn’t (supposedly) dependant on avatar traffic numbers. And when, today, I look at the list of places under the Showcase tab, I see the top 3 being Stanford University, Princeton and Harvard, respectively. These locations are followed by a whole raft of cultural, artistic, musical and fashionable locations - but no sex.
Rawstorne implies that he created a virtual persona to explore what he sees as “deeply disturbing stuff” and to write his article. However, his reference to “Popular Places” meant that he had been on to the Second Life grid sometime ago and upon checking his in-world profile you will see that he actually registered his alter ego on 30 January 2007. Which means this story was probably just sitting on his hard drive and was dragged out to coincide with the other story the Daily Mail ran today on a woman divorcing her husband because of his antics in Second Life. Or it was perhaps was as Crap Mariner proffers in his post, Signals, that Rawstorne had to quickly put together an article to cover up being caught in Second Life in work hours.
Either way his account of the virtual world has been written purely for sensationalism, is out of date and fails to recognise the diversity of the environment or the residents, It’s akin to creating a headline “London, a city awash with sex and porn” and writing an article focusing on what goes on in SoHo. I am not saying there isnt any pornographic content in SL (anyone can upload an image file) but, in my experience, it is about as prevalent as good governmental decision making.
In the world of public relations, when a spin doctor becomes the story, it’s time to move on. Now that Rawstorne’s story has made him the focus of attention maybe the Daily Mail will use this as an excuse to exit him from Derry Street. As for a new career, perhaps he can either get himself a job with Linden Labs as Anti-porn Linden or get a freelance hack position with a pseudo SL newspaper - they love to post self-serving, badly researched, no value, content free articles.
Oh and by the way Mr. Tom Tomahawk “Look at my Chopper” Tomsen Rawstorne, “transporting” is actually referred to as “teleporting”. It maybe splitting hairs but it further shows your article to be poorly thought through.
