How did you find SL?

[Reese Wicken]

It's my rl birthday today (june 22nd incase this thread lives past today), I want to know.. How did you come across secondlife?

 

I was just 13 years old and came across this place back when there was a teen grid but it was time locked, I found it through an ad looking for places to socialise as I was home schooled and being ignored by my parents.

I've been here on and off, lied about my age at one point and then quit all together and joined IMVU.. Which was a mistake, and then I came back.

[FairreLilette]

I've spoken of how before, I saw Phillip Rosedale on a television news show talking about the virtual world created by its residents, called Second Life.  Just looking at it, I knew I wanted to visit.  So, I did and loved it.  I've been on and off SL for about 17 years now.   I really liked the idea of "created by it's residents" part.  

Happy Birthday, too!

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Pixie Kobichenko]

Happy Birthday 🎁 🥳 May this trip around the 🌞 be your best year ever! 

I had an account-avatar prior to Pixie 2005ish but I could not understand the point of SL.  Everywhere I went people were sitting on big cushions, camping for lindens.  No one was talking in local- just nothing.
I don’t remember how I discovered SL that first time.  But I’m pretty sure I saw SL advertised while playing games in Club POGO (all my games I loved like Squelchies are gone now that they removed their Flash games 😭) & came back in 2009.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Pixie Kobichenko

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I used to play the various "war" and other games on Facebook, and had a lot of friends there. One of them joined SL, and she kept showing some of us photos and telling us we needed to give it a try, too. So I came to SL ten years ago with a half dozen or so friends, not intending on staying, and here I am, still on my original account. 

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Back in December 2006, it was all over the news, in every news outlet:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070102230439/http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4336

I was like: how cool! Let's check out this Second Life!

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

I think it was either an internet add or a tv add that lured me here back then. I was also a member of imvu but not entirely impressed with it. or maybe it was something someone said on irc.. I dont really remember.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

How did I find SL,   wow,  I think it was 2003, when I first heard about it,  I was unable to actually do anything at that time,  in 2006, I was given a computer of higher standard than what I had,   I saved some, replaced it's psu and then installed a 64mb mx400 video card into it,  it only had 256mb of ram at the time for system ram,  but on march 17th 2007,  moe here was born and I've been here ever since,   I believe in all that time, I have only taken 3 months off in total, my in world time has dropped heavily though,  I was on 14 hours a day or moe,  but I work 12 horus a night now, so,  my days and times are limited.  

[Pixie Kobichenko]

11 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Back in December 2006, it was all over the news, in every news outlet:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070102230439/http://www.somethingawful.com/index.php?a=4336

I was like: how cool! Let's check out this Second Life!

Did you already know how to make virtual things before SL or did you learn while here?  Your pool & scrabble boards are in my homes everywhere I move to

[Ardy Lay]

I followed the art and it led me to Luskwood on Second Life.  There I found various woodland creatures preparing for a party.  They were playing music and dancing and kicking griefer ass the moment I arrived.  They seemed to be in control of the area and they welcomed me to join them.  I think my first days in SL were better than what most experience.

[Velk Kerang]

Long story short I was relocating a Fleet/Guild/Clan of 500+ members to another mmo platform when Star Wars Galaxies officially shut down and was trying to find an mmo with the aspect of the player economy that was on the same level as SWG was. Second Life was one of many we vetted, but wasn't able to fit the bill and pass all the criteria required to even match or surpass it on a number of levels. While it failed in regards to what we were searching for there were aspects to it that I found that I personally like. So I remained active with it off and on over the years.😎

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

40 minutes ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

Did you already know how to make virtual things before SL or did you learn while here?  Your pool & scrabble boards are in my homes everywhere I move to

Nope. I started learning Blender pretty much two years into my SL when I accidentally walked into an in-world sculptie course by the founder of the Hobo community. And then around 2012-ish I had to learn to make mesh in order to keep up with the times. But that's still a decade of practice.

However, from 1998 an on, I played with this little ray-trace program called POV-Ray. It's an old freebie ray tracing engine that has a text-based, programming language-like interface:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POV-Ray

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Orwar]

   The waiter approached one of the guests, and asked;
   - "How did the gentleman find the beef?"
   - "Ah, I just moved on this here potato and, hello, there it was!"

   On topic: Meh. Long-distance ex wanted visual pixel bumps and got me to sign up. I found SL had a lot more to offer than that though, so whilst the relationship didn't last, I stuck around.

[Sister Nova]

I had my first taste of online life in The Sims Online and moved from there to Star Wars Galaxies. I then went to Project Entropia and wanted something more.... found SL in Summer of 2006, but faffed around and didn't finally sign up until Oct 2006, thus missing the L$500 stipend but managing to squeak in on the 400... phew. 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Ardy Lay said:

I followed the art and it led me to Luskwood on Second Life.  There I found various woodland creatures preparing for a party.  They were playing music and dancing and kicking griefer ass the moment I arrived.  They seemed to be in control of the area and they welcomed me to join them.  I think my first days in SL were better than what most experience.

I got stuck in ambat for a week, because nobody showed me how to use SL, so I learned kinda quick people were jerks!  but I kept coming back.   but think 2010 I found lusk,  well I had found it with andi in 09, but what got me to stay and stuff was the fact I snagged a resident name and bothered a few people with what I snagged lol.    but all's good in the wood.

[Claireschen Hesten]

I've mentioned this before, i first became aware of SL through the news and stories of Kid av's virtual playgrounds and paedophiles, then i started seeing stories about people meeting and marrying in RL through SL. It was a magazine article that finally got me to sign up and these years later i'm still here

[Garnet Psaltery]

I've said this several times before, but one morning in April 2005 I was listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4 in which Second Life was described.  I signed up that day to a premium account, and have been inworld almost every day since (the exceptions being times of major surgery and homelessness).  It's far too late for me to escape.

[kali Wylder]

saw an episode of Imaginary bitches in 2009, and in it the main character(who had imaginary friends who were bitches) was on a blind date with a guy from 2nd life.  Her real life friends thought they might have something in common.  I was intrigued....

[MoiraKathleen]

I saw some videos of dances an acquaintance, in a group I belonged to on Facebook, had made.  She also had posted some stories about some of her experiences when she had been active in SL.  It intrigued me, so I searched around and found some other videos on youtube that showed some of the building and creating aspects.  I've always liked games where you could customize, to some extent, your avatar and home environment, so that was what drew me here.  

[Selene Gregoire]

People in Active Worlds were talking about the new upcoming virtual world (SL) where the graphics would put AW's graphics to shame. That was around 1999/2000. Then illume passed and the memorial was held in SL, the SO saw the graphics I'd tried to keep him from seeing (because I knew!), and I've been stuck with it ever since. Tried going back to AW a couple of times but it just wasn't good enough any more. 

[Pixie Kobichenko]

I wonder how many users signed up after seeing this episode of the office where Dwight did?  * for a long time I had Dwight Shelford on my friends list but he was never interactive to offlines & I never noticed the account being online.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Pixie Kobichenko

[Velk Kerang]

I'm wiling to bet we got more who joined after seeing these scenes.😎

 

And willing to bet we had some leave after they seen this scene. Lmao!!!!😎

Wonder how many people got so totally disappointed when they found out what it was really like? False advertising much? Lmao!!!!😎

Edited June 22, 2020 by Velk Kerang
Corrections.

[Rolig Loon]

I joined on a dare.  I colleague bet me that Second Life was going to be the next big platform for online education and I really doubted it. I came in to see what he was talking about and haven't left yet... 13 years and counting.  And I won the bet.

[Lindal Kidd]

I typed "secondlife.com" into my web browser, and there it was.

[Ardy Lay]

21 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I typed "secondlife.com" into my web browser, and there it was.

Amazing, isn’t it?  Now, would you care to share with the class why you typed second.com into your web browser?

[Lindal Kidd]

18 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Amazing, isn’t it?  Now, would you care to share with the class why you typed second.com into your web browser?

That's actually two questions.  The first question is "why?"

"Why" is a question that has consumed the cogitations and thoughts of countless scientists, philosophers, and thinkers for thousands of years, and it's simply not possible to do any justice to the answer in the brief time allotted to me.

"Did I type secondlife.com into my web browser?"

Yes!

(With thanks to the timeless humor of Professor Irwin Corey, The World's Greatest Authority)