Earlier on Boing Boing, Cory blogged that President-elect Barack Obama has appointed Net Neutrality advocates and “virtual worlds nuts” Kevin Werbach and Susan Crawford to co-chair his FCC transition team. Okay, so we might know the guy as Kevin Werbach out here in meatspace, but to his Terror Nova Guild buddies, he’s better known as Supernovan Jenkins (the first name presumably a reference to Werbach’s Supernova tech conference series), and he’s a Level 70 Tauren Shaman. Livejournaler Waltermonkey opines on the deeper meaning of Werbach’s WoW identity:
What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.
1. – CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as “the good guys”, but students of history (both ours and Azeroth’s) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.
Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.
Read the whole thing: victory or death! yes we can! (Waltermonkey; thanks Drew Coombs of Project Lore! Recompense of phat lewt, reagents, and pizza await thee.)