Fifteen years ago, I went online with a group of friends to try out this new, strange "virtual world" called Second Life.

[Ouchie Dumpling]

Fifteen years ago, I went online with a group of friends to try out this new, strange "virtual world" called Second Life.  Imagine a "video game" with no goal, no points, no rules on how to play.  Just log in and... exist.  We had a HILARIOUS time "getting high" and chasing each other around in weird, crazy places.  For most of us, it was not really anything beyond a place to goof around with friends occasionally when we were tired of shooting each other in Unreal Tournament.  For a small few of us, it became a lot more.  It was a place that transcended physical distance and allowed friends and lovers to "be close" and share time and experiences with each other.  It rapidly became an integral part of my life.  I fell in love with someone in a way that I didn't think was possible and which many of you reading this probably still think is impossible.  But even more, I fell in love with this "place."  It is so much more than a "video game."  It's a place where you can choose what experiences you want, surround yourself with what enriches and excites you, socialize and explore when the constraints of real life prohibit you from doing so.  Yes, Second Life is still "a thing" and yes, I still am there.  Over the last 15 years I've been a landlord, a homeless wanderer, a burlesque dancer, a swanky ornament in a vintage jazz ballroom, and now a blogger for a Second Life shopping website that gets over 2 million page views a month! And there have been times these past 15 years when I wasn't in it very much at all, but I still always had that pull.  I still always thought about the possibilities, great things, and beautiful people that are still there.  The pandemic forced social isolation on us all, and during that time I felt that pull again to go back to Second Life and rededicate myself to the things that initially lured me in.  And that is where I am today.  In between doing my real life "job" of taking care of my kids and my mom, I can sit at my computer and "escape" for a while.  I can meet with friends, see beautiful places, decorate my house, and do some serious shopping with what I earn from my blogging job.  It's been a hell of a ride and here's to 15 more years!  All the talk about Facebook's Metaverse is nothing compared to what Second Life has done and is STILL doing. Love, OD

[Lindal Kidd]

This is a very good post. It says it all, which is likely why there are no replies to it yet.

I'm only replying because I want it to stay on the first page!

[Ags Falconer]

18 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

This is a very good post. It says it all, which is likely why there are no replies to it yet.

I'm only replying because I want it to stay on the first page!

@Ouchie Dumpling and @Lindal Kidd, these words resonated. Everything you said, Ouchie!

And Lindal, agree, getting immortalized on the first page of a thread is of course always a goal. 🤣

[Hymn Celestia]

Cheers to all of that and to the next fantastic fifteen years! ❤️

[PheebyKatz]

Same thing happened to me when I passed through New Orleans once on a Greyhound bus. I ended up living there, and have lived there for 30+ years now. I can't imagine being anywhere else. And the same goes for SL. The first time I actually tried it out and went inworld, I immediately saw the glory of SL, radiating through the lag, the noise, and the intentionally deformed avatars that liked to push me off of things, and I never looked back.

Congratulations on staying stuck for so long, in this best of all virtual worlds! I hope you never get unstuck~! ^-^

Edited November 7, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Lewis Luminos]

@Ouchie DumplingI relate to all of this.

Second Life is the only hobby I've had in my entire life that I've participated in constantly, without any break of more than a couple of weeks, for this long (14 years in my case, but will be 15 next summer). I have other hobbies I've had for longer, but always with breaks of months or years where I don't participate in them at all. (I blame ADHD, which I've recently discovered that I have; oh yeah that explains a lot).

On my first ever day in SL, on my first account, I met someone random who taught me how to build a prim chair and then he took me for a ride in his helicopter. I was blown away by it.  I've been hooked ever since.

[Jackson Redstar]

there are alot of "old people" in SL now. Sitting around the SL Old Folks swapping stories... 'Back in my day we didn't have no mesh and we liked it"!  "Back in my day the guys had peckers the size of baseball bats"! LOL

[Charolotte Caxton]

I remember the night I discovered Second Life by accident. I'm not a gamer so to me it was a virtual world. I immediately met someone and we got free fairy wings and she said fairies forever right? I said yes, fairies forever. That was twelve years ago and I don't know where her Second Life took her but still, fairies forever.  

[Lindal Kidd]

17 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

"Back in my day the guys had peckers the size of baseball bats"!

They still do.

[Jackson Redstar]

I been doing this since 2007, and sometimes I wonder what life will be like after SL. It is only, a company after all, and while surprising its has remained a going concern all these years, I suppose there will be a day when a Microsft makes a insane offer for a MySpace, or a TimeWarner bids on a AOL Online. I mean SL has lasted longer so far than most RL marriages do. I look over my youtube and realize i have videoed over 250 wedding since about 2015 - there are just so many memories and it has been such a part of life for so long it's hard to think it could, one day, pretty vanish in the blink of an eye

[PheebyKatz]

30 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

...there are just so many memories and it has been such a part of life for so long it's hard to think it could, one day, pretty vanish in the blink of an eye

I think that's part of what makes our time with friends inworld so precious. It's all ephemeral, and could poof out of the blue, with little more than an announcment on a web page to say it happened.

The whole world is on fire, someone said once. It's all burning up as we look at it. I treasure everything in my virtual life, even the things I know I take for granted. One day I'll either miss it all terribly, or I'll be gone and my friends will be missing me.

You can't hold on to it, any more than you can put a river in a bucket, but swimming in it is a pastime I hold to dearly.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

On 11/5/2022 at 6:34 PM, Ouchie Dumpling said:

All the talk about Facebook's Metaverse is nothing compared to what Second Life has done and is STILL doing.

And our toons have legs too!  Probably be ages before FB's so-called virtual world gets lets if it doesn't crash and burn first!!

[Akane Nacht]

14 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

I been doing this since 2007, and sometimes I wonder what life will be like after SL. It is only, a company after all, and while surprising its has remained a going concern all these years, I suppose there will be a day when a Microsft makes a insane offer for a MySpace, or a TimeWarner bids on a AOL Online. I mean SL has lasted longer so far than most RL marriages do. I look over my youtube and realize i have videoed over 250 wedding since about 2015 - there are just so many memories and it has been such a part of life for so long it's hard to think it could, one day, pretty vanish in the blink of an eye

Many places I used to visit daily, and friends I used to chat with daily, are gone for one reason or another, so in a way my "old SL" is already no more, but it was a part of my life in a very real way. I feel a bit like it's passed on to a new generation these days, and I hope that continues and they get as much fun out of it as I did.