What made you join Second Life?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

I saw a newspaper article about a virtual school on my grandma's newspaper when I was 10-11.

I got one foot on the zoomer side and the other firmly stuck with boomers.

[Cali Souther]

I started in AOL chat, moved to VP Excite,  and finally Voodoo chat --- somewhere in there (approx. 2007)  I tried Second Life for the first time.

I managed to fly at the first place you res (welcome island?) ...   and I flew into the ceiling and could not figure out how to stop.   I got frustrated and quit.

Voodoo was going down the drain (like it's predecessors)  so,  with a friend's help - I gave SL another try (2010).   

It was a LOT easier with someone to show me the ropes and a couple of other chat friends learning at the same time.   Those were some good times!  

 

[rasterscan]

I too read the anshe chung story and joined to become a millionaire. Still waitin'

[wedge Falta]

It ran on linux

[Lysistrata Szapira]

I found a magazine article (maybe Newsweek or Time) sometime between 2003 and 2008, and I was really intrigued.  Unfortunately my PC couldn't handle it, so I had to wait until I had one that could.  I joined in April 2008. In that interim period, I found another virtual world that my PC could handle, but it was, shall we say, only for adults.   I got bored with its limited avatar options and bottomless supply of HNGs, so I jumped ship to SL and never went back.

I tried IMVU, but I felt stifled by it. 

I didn't get any help aside from LL's Orientation Island, but I figured it out on my own.  Even back in 2008, doing a search for Second Life freebies provided lots of places to go.  I'm surprised that noobs today don't automatically do that.  I was a frequent visitor at The Free Dove and the Gnubie (spelling?) Store. My first hair store was Sirena Hair (she even had animations in her flexi hair even at that early date!).  I think my first purchase with RL money was a skin (possibly Laqroki/now LAQ).  I stayed because it gave me endless opportunities to play dress-up and then to go hit up clubs and wander around marveling at beautifully landscaped sims (I know the Lost Gardens of Apollo was one of the first I visited).   

I stayed (and still stay) because of the endless opportunities for change: changing my avi, changing my clothes, changing my house, changing my landscaping and home decor, and changing destinations.   I have loved watching the progression of clothes from goofy system layers to flexi to sculpty to mesh and watching the evolution of styles (the progression from the initial forays into mesh clothing to what is done now is quite astonishing).  Even something as simple as color HUDs was rather revolutionary at the time.  SL is always evolving, and so am I. 

 

 

[Gopi Passiflora]

The whole avatar customization aspect, the focus on socialization, and the ability to explore a virtual world.

[Annalise Evergarden]

I joined (the first time) when I was a teenager, so roughly 17yrs ago.  I was on the teen grid and thought it was fun but then some stuff happened and I left SL.
I came back ten years ago when I remembered SL existed after being frustrated with IMVU and the inability to actually have fun with people and walk. pose-hopping can only be fun for so long before it's like a "yeahno." thing, well between that and having a relationship go sour after meeting the person RL but that's a story for another time. Right now my main SL account just kind of sits and chills, it serves as a pervy-deterrent when I want to just chill in adult sims.

[Shaharazad Humphreys]

Saw a CNN article saying I could get rich make real money in new a virtual world. They lied. But I stayed

[cunomar]

You won't like it but i'd never heard of second life until bored and watching adult vids i came across a virtual section , shrugs never seen that before , one stated "made in second life". Hmm whats second life arrrgh one of them online games - hey i can try for free . Shall i give it a go or go back to wasting time browsing ebay for old junk i like but will never buy .

I was a fish out of water so i just wandered around trying to work out why people appear and then vanish ,where do they go ? has to be more than this here ?

Being stuck on a platform in the sky with no idea how to leave turned it into a puzzle so i kept coming back to solve it . I obviously did but it was still at least a month before somebody spoke to me giving SL some sort of purpose .

Assuming the question relates to how to attract more users i will say this , I can't even begin to estimate how many hundreds of people greet me by name in RL , and i don't actually know of a single gamer amongst them , a phone is for making phone calls and a computer is for finding parts so you can repair stuff .

I can't imagine any of them not giving it a go if they knew about second life . They will never see a full front page ad on computer wizards monthly magazine or any such thing but they might chance upon the same ad while watching random funny youtube vids or something else that might appeal to people who usually spend more time wishing they never had a computer than enjoying it .

[colleen Criss]

I saw a post on Wired. Then someone from another platform said I should try SL. I did, still here with a few breaks along the way.

[Chris Corvinus]

I knew about SL way before I joined. But it looked ancient and primitive (no pun intended) so I never bothered until mesh came along. And by mesh I mean Aesthetic. Thank god things have evolved since then lol. 

[Alazarin Mondrian]

I remember seeing an advert back in the day of a guy playing a guitar [a Flying-V... I actually own two in RL] to an adoring crowd in Second Life. At the time I was feeling at a bit of a loose end and not really connecting with an audience in RL so I thought I'd give it a try. The first hurdle was that my computer graphics card wasn't up to it and I wasn't until a year later in 2005 that I finally was able to take the plunge and join. Meanwhile depression and burnout put a stop to me doing anything related to music and it wasn't until 2006 that I did my first show in SL. I credit the SL and the people who badgered me into doing those first few shows to getting my mojo going again. I have recorded 9 albums, done countless shows as well a live streaming them to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter since then with plenty more on the horizon. So, thank you Second Life and your weird and wonderful world for being here.

[hikaricolors]

I tried some years ago after one of my favorite MMORPGs shut down servers in my country. I wanted a huge community, but didn't want to actually play a traditional goal orientated game at that time either. I found out about Second Life via Youtube. So I joined...and I couldn't understand it. At all. I quit after a day, maybe two. I was super impatience then. Rejoined recently after boredom and the want for a virtual community arose again. I'm taking more than two seconds in trying to learn stuff (and for the most part am understanding things), and so far I am enjoying myself. 

[EnCore Mayne]

heard about SL from a TWiT podcast in 2006. fudged joining right away since i didn't have the system requirements. got a brand new EuroCom laptop for school, signed up, and never looked at the world the same.

[Sannah Evergarden]

My honest answer isn't exactly PG, I'm afraid. I was a newly turned adult and very...ahem frustrated. I saw SL advertised somewhere...maybe an ad or Youtube, somewhere. Regardless I remember the source playing up the romantic fantasy portion of the community. Of course I had to join after that.

Younger me just wanted to bump uglies with everyone. 

Current me just wants to pretend to be an elf and go shopping. 

Oh how time changes us. 

[cunomar]

One of you with virtual love story turned real could probably boost the numbers of UK users by sending your story to "take a break" magazine . There seems to be one of those in every waiting room i ever sat in lol .

[archangel969]

I was here in the early days when it was a real hype, but somehow it didn't stick. I lost interest and didn't come back untill many years later. I thought SL was dead. But in 2019 I read in a magazine that this virtual second world was alive and kicking. I decided to write an article about it and was planning to spend a couple of weeks in SL for that purpose. In the meanwile, I bought land that I called Dutch estate and from time to time did interview series with residents: 'Second Life : our passion.'

Well, I guess I stayed a little longer then a couple of weeks...

Edited April 1, 2022 by archangel969

[Harper Held]

A woman from THERE talked me into joining.

[Eddy Vortex]

My colleague gave a presentation on SL as an education platform in 2008.  I never bothered to make an account because my old computer wasn't up to snuff and promptly forgot about it.  A couple of years later another colleague mentioned about having a classroom inworld. So I created Gregorian Chant and went in to take a peek.

[LadyShad0wz Greymoon]

I started out in Yahoo chat, then moved to Excite Vp chat, then Halsoft VP Chat, tried a few others after Excite closed down, namely voodoo then in 2010 I decided to try Second Life when I was doing some research for a para forum RP community I was running with Vampire the Masquerade , and saw that I could become a vamp, so I came here and ended up in Bloodlines, then tried another one around late 2012- 2013 then just became myself afterwards. Walked away from all forms of RP. Still apart of Bloodlines but not active, and don't care to join up , Now I just come in to travel around and just hang out mostly with my RL partner, some friends I made as a Vamp, and as a DJ, that didn't care I wasn't doing that stuff anymore. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, LadyShad0wz Greymoon said:

I started out in Yahoo chat, then moved to Excite Vp chat

Well I'll be. So did I. Except after Excite I went to AW, then SL.

Small world some days.

[LadyShad0wz Greymoon]

6 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Well I'll be. So did I. Except after Excite I went to AW, then SL.

Small world some days.

So very true. Back then I had one of them funky names like daywalker15_15033, then eventually became xXx_Vampyr_xXx.. Excite had some crazy names for sure.

[niko89bg]

The first time I learned about SL was from that CSI episode around 10 years ago. I know...  

Later, I started feeling very depressed because of some personal drama in my life and I decided to make an account but the beginning was too off-putting for me, so I stopped very quickly. 

And later the pandemic happened and I was even more depressed thanks to the isolation. I desperetely needed some connection and in 2020 I had planned to travel around Europe, I really wanted to go to Italy and I scheduled a trip in the middle of March but  the country closed in that time because of Covid and that didn't happen. I started feeling even more sad because of the situation and this was the time I decided to give Second Life a second chance. 😎

 forgot my previous account info, so I created a new account and here I am, 1 year and 7 months in SL. I know that I am relativey new compared to the other players but it really grew up on me, I started customizing my avatar, invested in it, started renting a house and made new online friends. 

Thanks to Second Life I am feeling way better now and sometimes even happy. I am so glad that I play it and I enjoy it. I found my life again thanks to the awesome community and SL in general. 

Thank you so much SL for helping me in these horrible times that the whole world had to go thru. 

❤️

[Juliana Jaxa]

Long distance relationship. SL was a place to interact and spend time together. We payed a couple of MMORG. 

Very long time ago, 2006. 

[Coffee Pancake]

7 minutes ago, Juliana Jaxa said:

Long distance relationship. SL was a place to interact and spend time together.

being in an LDR was what kept me interested and invested in SL, even when we did other things online, it was the cornerstone that held our relationship together while RL caught up.