Why did you start Second Life?

Mr Benn is an ICON!

Ok, I was such a jerk. About 2 months before I joined I saw an article about people spending REAL money in this game..not even a monthly fee, but all the time. I thought, "What a bunch of idiots!" A friend from another game disappeared and when she came back in one day she said, "you ought to come check it out". I blew her off, I wasn't about to spend REAL money on crap in a game! She said it was free and just come look, so I did.

I guess now I"m an idiot too....in spades.

My hubby saw an article in the newspaper last Sunday, and he said, "Hey, hon, this looks like something you might get a kick out of." I registered that very afternoon. To me, it's an escape. The article did state that there was a good bit of cyber-sex happenin', but I truly did join just for the cool stuff to do and places to visit!

I started SL because a friend on another forum posted about it and encouraged the rest of us to join. (No mention whatsoever of sex, lol)

Almost as soon as I joined, I realized another potential upside. My husband works 200 miles away and only gets home on weekends. I dragged him into SL after me, and now we can get together during the week and do everything from trail riding and dancing under the stars to discussing what "YOUR kid" did in school today.

It didn't take me long to find out that there IS sex in SL, but I had heard nothing about it before I started and it had nothing to do with why I did.

Initially it was because a friend wanted to have her friends online with her. So she asked a bunch of us, and I was the only one who said yes. I enjoyed it a fair bit at first, I didn't spend a lot of money, mostly all I did was fly around, and explore. I was fine with just having some prim-hair and no skin, wearing freebie crap for the most part. But then I started getting absorbed in my looks as I got involved with someone, and started getting a lot of her habits; I cared more about my shape, my hair, my skin, my AO, my clothes. Before I knew it all I was doing was standing around Ahern showing off how cool I looked.

I deleted that account sometime ago. I recently started this one up again, after a break from SL. I still care about how I look, but significantly less so. I don't go and buy new things every day, or even every week, and I take the time to explore a lot more, like I used to.

The only depressing thing is when I first started SL the lag was very very low. No flexi/light back then either. Now when I explore, if I go into a heavy-lag area it can be very frustrating.

Hi,

I heard about SL I think about 2 years ago. I was still living at home and I saw it on a program on TV that handles different kinds of topics and SL was one of them. I thought the people that spend so much time on SL didn't have lives . They spend to much money on a 'game' and I would never spend so much money.

2 years later (I'm now married for almost 2 years) I was bored at work and was surfing around. I didn't know where else to surf to and suddenly I remebered SL. So I looked at the website and found it interesting .

After a few days I signed up for a free account but with the Payment info on line. At first on the Newbie Island (as I like to call it) I thought it was fun to do. But as I went through the different tasks to do I was frustrated because I couldn't do it good fast enough. After the island I got in the world and started to look around. I almost immediately searched for gay (I'm a guy who's married to another guy) places to hang around, dance and meet new people. I always thought that there was sex in SL but I never thought it would be that much!

The first days I couldn't care I had newbie stuff all over my body (clothes, hair, skin was all very standard stuff). I looked around for a few days untill I got a bit bored because I didn't meet interesting people right away. So I filled those days with cybersex

After those days I wasn't very interested in SL. I had a lot to do in RL and I was a bit dissapointed in SL. But after a few weeks things slowed down in RL and I had a bit more free time on my hands. So I logged back in.

The first time I logged back in I wanted to change myself. So I bought a bunch L$ and went shopping. I shopped for 3 days (shape, hair, skin, shoes, pants, underpants, T-shirts, jackets, I needed everything) and my L$ spending amount went over 10.000 those 3 days.

I now want to find a good job as a dancer in world to cover my expences because it became an addiction. I'm on line at least 30 min everyday (most of the time to shop and have fun). I still have a lot of cybersex but not just with anyone I meet. I try to do as much cyber as I have fun (dancing etc...).

So, initially I didn't sign up to have cybersex. I just signed up because I was curious.

Now I'm on the verge of getting hooked. I can still fight it but it's becoming difficult.

Have fun everybody!!!

Love,

Camden
xxx

A friend bought me a basic account for my birthday a few years ago and I got instantly hooked on content creation. I wasnt even aware that there was a sex industry in SL and to be honest, even now the only exposure I have had to SL's sex industry is seeing the endless ad farms showing women with their knockers hangin out.

My RL husband joined SL back in November of last year. At first, it was a problem for me. I would watch him, and at first he just checked out clubs, etc, which of course meant a lot of cute little female avies coming onto him!...lol But I was also fascinated by it. I met my RL online originally, he was in England, I was America, so technology has always aided our relationship and communication. When he eventually opened a store, I became more interested. As soon as we got our second computer up and running and networked with the other one, I was off! MY RL husband is my SL partner, and we enjoy making things, socialzing and exploring. Do we use the sexual animations and pose balls? Of course we do!!! But it's more fun than tintillating, and besides, we can do that in RL anytime!...lol Mostly it's an escape from RL, we can go out to a club together without ever having to worry about getting a babysitter for the kids.
Sex is only a small part of what we do on SL, but SL has definitely provided a different way for us to spend time together. We're ourselves, but slightly different.

I joined in October of 2005 because my friends in TSO talked me into it. A lot of them had slowly started moving into SL and showing up in TSO less and less. By that point I had aquired all kinds of mystic trees and rares in TSO, was sick to death of making jam, pizza and gnomes...lol... I was told about how in SL ppl could have HUNDREDS of outfits and shoes and hair styles..that was all it took. I was in TSO for damn near 3 years and made some great friends, I was hoping to come to SL and make more friends and I did. Now that I have been here for as long as I have been, I cannot figure out why in the world I was in TSO for so long....*laughs*

I joined for many reasons:

Came across it on a game developer's website. I had lost my job a few days before that, so I had the time to spare. Now I wish I'd lose my crappy job just so I can spend more time in SL.

Another reason: Not a bunch of 14 yr olds running around screaming "PWNED" or *insert inane preteen online rambling here* and no"LFG!! +10 Sword of Smiting". Just mostly adults having fun, cutting lose. Ok, so some of the adults act like kids, some whine on the forums like lil' girls, but all-in-all I wouldn't trade it in for ANYTHING

Despite it problems & glitches, I still enjoy SL with all its growing pains.

I signed up so I could visit the _blacklibrary. Wandering Yaffle built it as a virtual mirror of his website, a way to access the collated works there- articles on gaming, audio, art, short fiction. I looked around for a day or so then left it for a month with a shrug. Then I decided to show up and hang out at the library more. That place was practically my home for over a year in SL, and I met some great people.

Who are you calling lil' girls?!? <sticks tongue out>

I'm another person who has been online since the early 90s. Basically the Internet is both a career and a past time for me.

I kept reading about SL in various articles and people would mention it in forums that I was on and I kept thinking to myself that I really should check it out. However, I just never found the time to logon. Then one day I mentioned an article that was on CNN about several companies setting up shop on SL to my wife. She hadn't heard of SL, but liked the idea of it since she use to be heavy into online role playing and suggested we both create accounts and check it out.

So that's what we did. We wanted to check out this place that everyone was talking on the news. While what I found didn't exactly live up to all the hype, what I did see was potential. I looked around and felt that this was the direction the Internet is moving towards so I need to be here and see how it develops.

As for the sexual side of SL, both my wife and I did hunt it out pretty quickly once we joined. We had both been on a text based adult role playing environment before we were married, so online sexual play wasn't a new concept to us. Now I'd say we both still participate in the sexual side of SL, but it definitely isn't the only thing we do nor what we spend the majority of our time doing.

My wife has gotten addicted to SL shopping. While she hardly shops in RL, she has the most gigantic wardrobe for her avatar in SL. When she isn't shopping, she hangs out with the many friends she's developed on SL. As for me, I like to explore different areas and I'm just about to branch out and open a gallery to sell and promote my artwork.

I read an Economist article in September 2006 about SL. I didn't quite understand the concept at first, but I could tell it was a new market with lax regulation and exponential growth. And after my first few awkward steps, I found it to be just that.

The day all the trees died.

When SL was young and I do mean young, like 8 sims, they were still working on the economy. Everyone was broke, we sat around on Linden land since you had to pay to rez prims and nobody had any money. Then If you did rez them you were taxed per day on them and you had a weekly stipend.

LL decides to change how the economy works and you got back money when you deleted a prim and prior to this you didn't. They do a quick update on the client and everyone logs back in. They made a small mistake and you were able to delete trees off the Linden private land and get back 10 bucks that didn't belong to you. Before long there wasn't one tree left in all the world.

i remember that