The owners of Donald Trump’s unofficial headquarters in the virtual reality world of “Second Life” purchased a 100-meter-tall sign directly across from the simulated Sanders HQ so that avatars can teleport to it.
Second Life (Screen grab by “Comrade Kek”)
Vandals and some snoopy reporters were already banned from entering the private Second Life Trump Manor. But the Trump HQ, which debuted this weekend, will be more accessible, says Comrade Kek, who owns both “buildings.”
Kek — who says he won’t reveal his real name to protect his family — runs “Donald Trump Thinks Your Waifu Is Shit” on Facebook, and has drawn attention from video game blogs for his virtual Mar-A-Lago. The Facebook group has over 6,000 members, and features mostly satirical posts in support of the leading Republican presidential candidate.
Second Life was created in 2003, and, in its heyday, had a million users. It’s not really a game, but a virtual world where users use real money to buy fake property, and meet up with friends or interested observers.
In 2007, The New York Times published an article about an Obama for President headquarters — which was also unofficial — two months after “real-life Representative George Miller appeared there to mark the first day of the new Congress in avatar form.”
Second Life (Screen grab by “Comrade Kek”)
And, as Slate reported, the virtual HQ for former Sen. John Edwards was once digitally vandalized as well.
A few weeks ago, New World Notes was the first gaming website to do a story on the Second Life Trump Manor, located in the Lionheart Ahadi sim. But the blogger complained that just like the “real world Trump, virtual Trump doesn’t exactly like journalists.”
He wrote that “within seconds after starting to stroll through Trump’s mansion, a security robot booted me, depositing me back at my office, blinking in confusion.”
When the blogger tried to return, he discovered that “Virtual Trump had put up a big beautiful virtual wall to block out journalists and also presumably Mexicans, Muslims, and Megyn Kelly.”
A day later, SL Newser reported that the security system “had been set up due to griefers and less than reasonable political activists.” That blogger was also told by a schoolgirl avatar that his group wanted to do “something political in Second Life for the election.”
The security system was built, the “schoolgirl” said, because they “had some issues with various miscreant protesters” or griefers, “and even people just poking around without permission because of the Trump signs.” He added that his group includes “lots of furries” — people who adore animal characters — “I don’t know why furries like Trump, but a lot seem to.”
Second Life (Screen grab by “Comrade Kek”)
“As far as our security goes,” Comrade Kek told The Daily Caller, via Facebook and Twitter DMs, “so far we have an AI computer set up [that can] remove objects from anyone who is not on a set list,” and “it can also ban repeat offenders who spam objects.”
Comrade Kek further explained: “Scripts are enabled so potentially someone could use scripts to make swastikas come out of their bodies, for example, but this risk is minor. I am also friends with the estate manager on the land that I rent and any griefers would be dealt with swiftly.”
Asked if he intended to contact the official Trump campaign, he told TheDC, “not really, it wouldn’t really serve much of a purpose,” since “we aren’t asking for donations,” and only “using publicly available campaign material along with our own stuff we have created.”
However, “it’d be nice to have their blessing.”
“But I sort of fear asking because of what Republican Sen. John McCain’s guys did to his Second Life supporters,” before the 2008 presidential election, — “They DMCA’ed them.”
“We know that Trump knows we are out there, his ‘internet people,’ as he said once,” Kek explained.
“We will be making digital freebie versions of Trump Ice, Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, all for free, no charge whatsoever,” Kek said. “Just a tribute and a bit of a novelty item for everyone.”
Second Life (Screen grab by “Comrade Kek”)
Since opening this past weekend, the “HQ is getting 30+ visitors a day, like 10 people constantly hanging out there debating politics.”
SL Newser also visited the Bernie Sanders HQ in Caspoli sim, but the only virtual place the blogger could find related to Hillary Clinton was in Pandorus sim, which turned out to be “a dark, small, rusty place with barbed wire fence and a walking skeleton.”
Entranced with the virtual Trump buildings, Gawker Media’s Kotaku has since published three posts over the last week. The first story, largely drew from what was already reported, but in the second one, the Kotaku journalist was also “forcibly ejected by security.” In the third article, the reporter, “disguised as a pink Chocobo from Final Fantasy” thought that the “forces of chaos” had formed an anti-Trump rally, who “wandered over to the Trump auditorium to discuss how much Kotaku sucks and then crash the sim.”
But Kotaku didn’t contact Kek, the man says, and the reporter apparently got it wrong. The “forces of chaos” arent even anti-Trump, and they’re actually friends, Kek said.
“They’re with us, LMAO,” he told Daily Caller. “Trust Kotaku to not interview anyone AGAIN and get the whole story tits up AGAIN.”
Asked why he uses an alias, Comrade Kek said it was because he had a family and “in America, Trump equals Hitler to the small minded. People have been beaten up, had their shit vandalized, I don’t want that to happen to me.”
The wall built across from the Sanders HQ costs “999 Lindens a week, which equals at current exchange rate $3.04,” Kek explained, and it’s “worth every penny.”
He added that “it’s pretty petty, but it amuses me.”
Second Life (Screen grab by “Comrade Kek”)
“I like Bernie as a person,” he said, and “he seems like a swell guy, but he is economically illiterate and ignorant.”
The Trump supporter isn’t as genial about his candidate’s top rival, Sen. Ted Cruz. “Two words: establishment rat. He is exactly what is wrong with the Republican party.” Sounding a bit like Trump, he added, “Cruz is a slimey career politician who lies like it’s going out of style.”
When asked if he was based in New York, since his Facebook contact page includes a 212 area code, Kek admitted “that’s a slight bit of mischief on my part, it’s the number for Trump Tower.”
Kek works in the UK, but his absentee ballot is already filled out — presumably using his real name — so that he can vote for Trump in New York’s April 19th primary.
In June, he hopes to meet up with his team in California so that they attend a Trump rally, for the first time, in person, in real life.