Not so much to do with us
by Tateru Nino 
Aug 23rd 2008 at 4:00PM
Filed under: News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds
While the story of Kimberly Jernigan really has nothing much to do with the virtual environment of Second Life, you're probably going to read and hear a lot over the next week or two from people who would desperately like you to think that it does.
Jernigan from North Carolina and an unidentified older man from Claymont, Delaware met online, but their relationship didn't last out in the physical world. Jernigan reportedly became increasingly unstable when things didn't work out and then allegedly stalked and attempted to kidnap her ex-boyfriend at his home. Jernigan posed as a postal worker in order to obtain information about his home address. Charges include attempted kidnapping, burglary and aggravated menacing.
Just what is the lesson here? People from North Carolina can't be trusted? Watch out for people who seem to be postal workers? That you should always remember that everyone behind an online avatar or toon is an ordinary person? Actually, probably the lesson is that many ostensibly 'respectable' media agencies would walk through fire to demonize your online pastimes, interests and hobbies unnecessarily. Pay attention to whom.
Probably, at the end of the day Jernigan's ability to get the man's address by posting as a postal worker is the really scary part here. If you've ever had a stalker, that alone will give you the chills. Privacy and anonymity are only the thinnest of shells, and can be pierced by those who are determined.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ronald said on 4:08PM 8-23-2008
Read the article, this woman is twisted.
She waited at his apartment with a taser and a bb gun.
She duct taped her little dog because it was making too much noise.
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recursive said on 8:11PM 8-23-2008
There's some craaazeh people out there. I guess that's the lesson. If it has to do with us, it's because we happen to be people too. Damn people.
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Pavig Lok said on 6:37AM 8-24-2008
The lesson here is about the news media itself. News provision has shifted in the last hundred years from a predominantly public service model of information provision to a competitive model of competition for views - thus shifting more towards entertainment.
In the process the trustworthiness of "news value" has diminished. Corporate law makes it a criminal act for a corporation such as a news provider to act in a way which diminishes value for it's shareholders - so in a fight between traditional news value and profit, the latter will win. This battle between truth and corporate obligation is best illustrated by the Florida court ruling of 2003 that the media can legally lie and falsify news in order to protect it's own interests. (More info at http://www.foxbghsuit.com/ )
When market forces dictate the news value it will naturally tend towards entertainment value rather than informative reporting. The way this effects balance in reporting on issues of public importance is a complex matter for discussion elsewhere. The way it over-values and skews reporting on gonzo gold such as the Kimberly Jernigan story is what I'm getting at.
Let's imagine (extremely conservatively) that one in ten thousand folk in any population, are fruitcakes and potentially dangerously unhinged. (Talking to any local police officer about their callouts would probably give us a much higher figure.) I probably pass a couple on the tram on the way into town. Second life has probably seen about 500 of them through the doors in it's short history. Right now there's maybe 1000 potentially dangerous fruitcakes leveling up in WoW. Sooner or later something is going to happen.
When small towns can have their own dead bodies in barrels and mall massacre stories it's unsurprising (in fact expected) that an MMO would have it's share of stalkings and kidnappings. It's a numbers game, and the larger the number of people the more likely it becomes.
Almost every week someone wins the lottery, even though the chances of winning it are vanishingly remote. That's not front page news because it is expected - yet our news providers arbitrarily decide that a quirky domestic violence issue has news value above all other cases due to some tenuous link to a virtual world. The key news indicator here is a marginal culture. If the protagonists belonged to a small funny little religious sect it would probably have the same attractiveness as a story. If however, like the vast majority of cases of domestic violence, the perpetrators were entirely unremarkable average folk, we'd never hear about it.
The canonical example of news value is stated thus; dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news. One of the key indicators of news value is novelty. The inclusion of second life in this story tells us that it is still considered as a novelty for the general population, or the newsmakers themselves. That they need to rely on such a tenuous link in order to interest the public implies to me that they're scraping the barrel.
Surely there must be more interesting and relevant things for them to report on.
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Samantha Poindexter said on 2:16PM 8-25-2008
"in the last hundred years"? This has been the news model all the way back to cave paintings...
TigroSpottystripes Katsu said on 1:02PM 8-24-2008
is it really that easy or she did some hardcore tricky stuff to manage to find him and such?
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Tateru Nino said on 1:03PM 8-24-2008
Many of the details are a bit obscure at the moment. Many reports seem to incorrectly state that she was actually a postal worker, rather than having posed as one.
Prokofy Neva said on 8:37PM 8-24-2008
No, you have to take ownership of a situation like this and realize that Second Life is not just some neutral platform, but an enabler. It makes unstable people think they can form a stable romantic relationship and deceives others into thinking they are stable. It is directly at fault. It's important to understand that, and not shirk from it. It's important to learn the lesson from it, that people who are unstable even before SL have an opportunity to amplify, accelerate, and metastasize that instability in ways that could powerfully hurt you if you meet them in real life. It's a lesso on online safety, and a lesson in "buyer beware" for SL romance.
To try to blame the messenger for delivering that message, and blame the mirror for your crooked face is immature.
Pavig Lok is spouting socialist nonsense about news corporations, when all they did here was report the news, and report it because it had a really bizarre element -- this women could become crazily in love and obsessed *because of* Second Life. Face up to that. She could never have met someone in another state and formed that much of an intense and deceived relationship if she had met in real life, or even online in a chat room, where eventually people ask for photos, phone convos, etc. In SL, they tend not to ask for them and not seek rationality and live in a fantasy realm.
No media report said she was a postal worker, that is what SL blogs and forums said because of the phrase "going postal."
Even if SL had not been involved, the story of a federal crime, an interstate kidnapping attempt by someone this violent and crazy, is news. Sorry, but you're all off here.
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Jay said on 2:23AM 8-25-2008
> No media report said she was a postal worker, that is what SL blogs and forums said because of the phrase "going postal."
Really, so this is imagination:
"Jernigan, a North Carolina postal worker, returned the area and found out the man had moved, police said."
- http://www.nbc10.com/news/17266191/detail.html
Melissa Yeuxdoux said on 8:27PM 8-26-2008
Any technology can be misused. Unstable fans become obsessed with stars; are TV and movies "enabling"? Ditto for the post office--long ago, they would have been sending each other letters.
The only person at fault here is the perpetrator. The media pounce on SL because it's a convenient story hook, and will let the average person feel superior.
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elle said on 4:21PM 8-26-2008
So, Prokofy...are you suggesting that if Ms Jernigan had met her intended abductee in a reading group at the library, that her inner crazy wouldn't have still risen to the surface? I don't disagree that SL is a great place for the crazy folk to convene, BUT so are city parks, subways, playgrounds, etc.
Yes, this story is newsworthy regardless of the SL factor...but these news agencies sure have honed in on the SL element...turning it from 'sad story about attempted kidnapping' to 'holy crap, look what the internet has done!!'
Absolutely, this is a dramatic reminder of internet dangers and I do hope anyone in SL takes precautions and makes decisions very carefully when deciding to cross the line into RL...but I do not agree that SL can be blamed.
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Co-Worker said on 11:37PM 8-27-2008
She actually IS a postal worker. I know this person. She is a Rural Carrier in North Carolina. She may have been able to use her knowledge of the Postal Service procedures to illegally obtain his address. Who really knows?
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Isadora Fiddlesticks said on 1:21PM 9-14-2008
Elle and melissa both has a point. SL is JUST ONE of the many ways for disturbed people to unleash their mayhem.
It used to be that SL is this closed community, now it is very easy to get into SL. The age of innocence in SL has long been over, but the after effects can only be felt now. Not everybody in SL can now be trusted.
And yes, news like this, no matter how or where it happened, is ghastly news.
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