Interview with Arianna Huffington in Davos
By Adam Reuters
REUTERS ISLAND, Second Life, Jan. 24 (Reuters) - Bureau chief Adam Reuters interviewed author, columnist and blogging entrepreneur Arianna Huffington on Wednesday at 10:15 am PST, the first in a series of interviews from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Huffington is an author, columnist, radio host and lately a blogging entrepreneur, as the founder of the popular Huffington Post. She has written several books including last year’s “On Becoming Fearless.”
The following are selected quotes from the interview, as Arianna detailed her views on:
Second Life and marital therapy — A lot of people who want to explore different possibilities, they can now do it in Second Life instead of, say, leaving their wife — fulfilling some other fantasy. Why not experiment? I think Second Life will save marriages.
The first blogger — I was having an argument with Ben (Hammersley of the Guardian) who created this wonder blog, and he argued that the first blogger was some anonymous guy in Mesopotamia. Of course I set him straight and posted out that the first blogger was Homer — the Odyssey was his blog!
The 2008 U.S. presidential race — I’m sure Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will have avatars in Second Life soon. If you look at how quickly mainstream politicians running for president in 2008 have co-opted the Web, hiring blogging consultants, I’m sure the next step will be moving into virtual reality and Second Life.
I have written a lot about Hillary Clinton, even though I would love to have a woman president, suffers from the problem of inauthenticity. Everything is calculated, triangulated. I think the American people are longing for authenticity — a leader that will speak his or her mind instead of these prefabricated sentences.
There’s no question that Obama is much more connected to his heart. He’s definitely incredibly charismatic. He’s a new kind of African American leader also. He’s not fiery like Jesse Jackson, he’s articulate, he’s much more centered, much more contained. The question is will Obama allow his campaign to be taken over by Washington insiders and consultants, the same people who ran Democratic campaigns into the ground election after election, or will he be himself — let Obama be Obama.
Her avatar, Arianna Hera — I have two teenage daughters. When we first made my avatar, they were not happy with it — they said there was too much midriff showing, it was not appropriate. So we re-dressed it, made it a bit more respectable to make my daughters happy.
My avatar was named after Hera — I don’t know why I picked her, she had a terrible marriage. He was cheating on her all the time. Maybe if her life were more fulfilling in Second Life she might have left him.
On gender in Second Life — I think Second Life is absolutely unisex. You don’t even have to be metrosexual.
Adam Reuters: Maybe it helps a little bit.
AH: I think it would help your avatar costume.
AR: Don’t you like it?
AH: I love yours! It’s pretty conservative though. Let me give you some hair advice. I think your haircut should be either longer or shorter.
AR: Are we talking about me or my avatar now?
AH: I’m talking about you now. And then we’ll talk about your meaningful relationships. Are you now or have you ever been in a meaningful relationship?
(Adam displays his wedding ring)
You’re married! Do the women in Second Life know this?
AR: They know now.
