@ChiffonOrange: I originally started in Active World, which was the 3D hang out place aside from IMVU. I tried IMVU when it first started but I kept meeting really creepy people so I never went back. Then Second Life came around and all the people that were hanging out in Active World started going to SL. I went to it, and my computer was such a brick that it wouldn't load textures and this was back when they had the tutorial world to begin with and you had to go through that first. I couldn't read anything because textures wouldn't load, and I thought it was just that area. I was like "This is what AW people are leaving for?" so I uninstalled it. It wasn't until like a year or so later, when my grandmother gave me her hand me down laptop to get a new one, was I able to actually accomplish the tutorial and teleport to other worlds. I still go to SL today, but off and on. I started in 2008.

@ChiffonOrange: Active World was the precursor to SL. You dropped in, in the Gatekeeper world, which was pretty neat. There were some paths and hidden secrets and you could drive around on jetskis and stuff, but you always came in as a "Tourist" in a stereotypical tourist outfit, and in order to change your avatar you had to become a "citizen". You could either pay for it or win one, during Friday Bingo. Each other places (like SIMs for SL) were called dreams. People who made things with textures and shapes and what not. It was good to basically hang out and talk to people, or explore other dreams people made.

Technically AW still exists, but it's very...different. When you come in, there's no Gatekeeper world anymore, you just drop into a sort of tutorial area and you just move about and choose your avatar from a selection and there are only a few people who actually still go there. I popped in for a bit and actually met up with someone I knew from when I was in AW from before. He never left. He didn't follow the Second Life trend.

@ChiffonOrange: AW was pretty limited when it came to avatar creation. When you paid or won a citizenship you got to choose from a variety of premade avatars. I think there was the ability to get custom ones made but that cost extra o/c. Second Life, (and the reason it got so popular) is the way you can customize your avatar with millions of different things. Even back in 2008 you could change your look with clothes/hair/skin and stuff but now there's mesh bodies and hair and you can literally look human in Second Life and not like some polygonal horror from an old video game lol.

Second Life has really improved since the beginning. New things being added and changed and upgraded all the time. The communities there (like with everything) can be toxic which is why I don't usually stay long. It's either a lot of X rated stuff, or people that troll. There are some really nice places you can visit if you just avoid people. With the upgrade to mesh stuff now, you can find places that look so realistic and pretty. It's not for everyone. Second Life for new people can be kind of terrifying if you're not used to the kind of place it is. As default you only get G and M places as far as SIM hopping. You have to have an account for a while or pay for a premium account before you can to go A rated places. So there are still places you can go that aren't ruined by bad people, since most SIMS have moderators to kick out bad people if they're doing A rated stuff in a G rated area.

Sorry for the wall of text. I just went on a tangent.

@ChiffonOrange: Back when I was younger, I used to go to a lot of the A rated places because I was naughty. I mean I was over 18 but I'm pretty much done with that kind of stuff, so I guess that's why I don't stay there long. I was also apart of the My Little Pony community there. People had avatars that literally looked like the cartoon versions. It was fun for a while, but that community can be very toxic, and I didn't need drama so I just kind of stepped aside and let them do whatever. I have a few friends still that I pop on and say hi to once in a while but most of them I have on Discord now, so no real need for going to SL at all.

@ChiffonOrange: I actually had Skype and MSN for the longest time, until MSN merged with Skype and then when my laptops went from Windows 8 to 10, Skype refused to work on either of my laptops. It'd work on my tablet but I hardly used that for communication. One friend I met on Second Life, told me about Discord. He said he got on Discord more than on Second Life, so I literally got the platform just for him, and then he went MIA for a long time. Luckily Discord became such a big thing, that everyone/everything seems to have a Discord channel so, it worked out in the end anyway lol.

@ChiffonOrange: Back in the early days I also had Yahoo Instant Messanger. That was like the first one that I was on. Then MSN. AIM didn't come in, until later for me. I remember back when YIM had chatrooms, but it was so dangerous for people since there was a lot of catfishing, and people pretending to be kids and really adults. It didn't last too terribly long. Fast chatrooms like that tend to disappear when there were a lot of bad things that came out of them. All the people I talked to in the early years, were people from College I met. Just to keep in touch after semesters ended.

@ChiffonOrange: I didn't get friends until I went to college. I went to a private school until the fourth grade then from fifth grade up through high school I was home schooled. We couldn't afford the private school anymore and they didn't like the public school horror stories, so right when they were about to go to public school, a branch of K-8 home school opened up in town. Basically all my school work was home work. I'd read the books, and my mom would give me tests and then we turned in all the work to the teacher in the K-8 building once a week. Then I'd get the next weeks' assignments. I did that through high school as well but 9-12 grade was considered "Independant Learning" so you were your own teacher.

By then they figured you were old enough to get your stuff done. When I was doing the independent learning in the one town we lived in, I kept getting Cs, because I would have to take written tests once a week and I don't do well with written tests. When we moved to a new town and I transferred to the center there, they'd give me oral tests and I'd pass like 100% most of the time. So I basically went from a C student to an A student all with the change of written tests to oral. When I went to college, that was like my high school experience. I met a girl in 2003 in an art class and we're still friends today.

Up until this Covid stuff happened, we'd hang out a couple times a month, and text each other to keep in touch etc. So if it wasn't for me going to college I wouldn't have a Real life friend, only online ones.