Democratic senate candidate defamed by Republicans for being a gamer

In the past, role-playing has come back to haunt political candidates. Live action role-playing is usually not detrimental unless there is photographic footage, like Ohio Republican congressional candidate Rich Iott who was condemned for role-playing a Nazi. But now role-playing has once again been thrust into the ugly political spotlight thanks to gamer-turned-Democratic Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz. Lachowicz is a Democratic challenger running for a Republican-held state Senate seat that encompasses the area between Lewiston and Bangor, and the opposition party has dredged up her World of Warcraft posts as evidence that she is unfit for office.
Lachowicz explained her bid for candidacy on her web site:

View slideshow:Colleen's World

"I believe that Senator Tom Martin is not addressing our concerns adequately. I believe I am better equipped to stand up for you and the people of Central Maine. I am running for this seat and will bring my knowledge of public policy to serve the people of Maine in the State Senate. Please support my efforts on behalf of all of us. Vote for me on November 6th because we deserve better, and because together, we can do better."

The Republican attack site, titled Colleen's World, was paid for and authorized by the Maine Republican Party. It explains:

Colleen Lachowicz is a Democrat candidate for Maine State Senate. In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below. Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.

The site goes on to characterize Lachowicz thusly:

Colleen Lachowicz, AKA Santiaga, is a gamer in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW), which takes place in the make-believe land Azeroth. Today, Colleen/Santiaga is an orc assassination rogue playing at level 85–the highest level one can attain. She and the members of her “Wreck List Guild”—Colleen/Santiaga’s WoW online alliance—post comments to each other on liberal online forums including the Daily Kos, where they discuss politics, military policies, and WoW battle tactics. Studies have found the average WoW gamer is 28, and spends 22.7 hours a week playing in Azeroth.

For a list of the comments cited, see the slide show. It says as much about Lachowicz as it does about her accusers. Curiously, it attempts to equate her persona as a rogue with her political affiliation, by making repeated references to "stabbing" and "poison." Also highlighted are a joke about her guild being "socialist," the fact that she is proud to know her fellow gamers, and most curious of all, a celebration of two orcs getting married. As I explained in my book, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Lachowicz's immersion (or lack thereof) is a double-edged sword -- her critics are attempting to conflate her character with her personality in an ironic reversal of the usual anonymity debate in massive multi-player online role-playing games:

This also applies to role-playing immersion, wherein certain players treat their characters as actual roles, while other players treat their characters as merely extensions of themselves. It can be as subtle as naming a character with an inappropriately name character like "Kermit the Barbarian" to discussing a real life football game in a medieval tavern. The membrane between reality and synthetic worlds is so porous that attempts to enforce any sort of continuity ultimately fail – the Coding Authority is unable and unwilling to intervene to preserve it.

Lachowicz rebutted the attacks on her web site:

“I think it’s weird that I’m being targeted for playing online games. Apparently I’m in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games. What’s next? Will I be ostracized for playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends? If so, guilty as charged!”
Lachowicz added, “What’s really weird is that the Republicans are going after my hobbies instead of talking about their record while they’ve been running Augusta for the last two years. Instead of talking about what they’re doing for Maine people, they’re making fun of me for playing video games. Did you know that more people over the age of 50 play video games than under the age of 18? As a gamer, I’m in good company with folks like Jodie Foster, Vin Diesel, Mike Myers, and Robin Williams. Maybe it’s the Republican Party that is out of touch.”

Her statement cites the Entertainment Software Rating Board's demographic breakdown of gamers:

65% of U.S. households
49% of 18 – 49 year olds
26% over the age of 50
25% under the age of 18
2 out of 5 people are female
average age of a gamer is 34
$24.8 billion industry

David Sorenson, communications director for the Maine Republican party, told ABC News:

“This is not about her playing video games, this is about the comments she made while gaming. These are all things that are unbecoming to a state Senator.”

The reaction has been vocal, as evidenced by Reddit's response. HungerSTGF summed it up:

"It's awful how something like a hobby and pastime can be misconstrued into something like this. Many people play video games because it allows them to do incredible feats that are not possible in real life; WoW is a fantasy world where players can explore and do as they please. It's a shame that today people still believe that video games definitely link to violence and all sorts of negative behavior. I like to think that we're beyond this mindset, but I guess we're not."

Saturday, October 6, 2012