Second Life Was Never Just a Freak Show—I Visited My Old Online Self
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Second Life Was Never Just a Freak Show—I Visited My Old Online Self
More than 15 years ago, I spent quite a while in Second Life. My avatar still exists today. So I took a little trip back through the online world that once helped me through a rough patch.
I’m not exactly sure why—but today I had the odd urge to check whether Fiesta Online still remembered my level 82 warrior. More than 14 years ago, I’d spent months turning that little bruiser into a monster-slaying menace. But now, in 2026, he’s gone. Deleted by Gamigo. Only the 16:9-stretched login screen and its music survived the grind. Tragic? Nah, not really. I wouldn’t have wanted to play it again anyway.
"Maybe I left traces somewhere else," I thought. In Second Life, for example? My avatar would be even older than that tiny warrior, over 15 years old. Nothing ventured, nothing gained: email address? Check, still exists. Account? Still there too. Avatar? Well, I’ll be damned: still around after a decade and a half... unlike the world I remembered.
Well, that’s wild: my Second Life profile. Exactly as I left it sometime in 2011.
A watery comeback
When you resurrect yourself in Second Life after that long, the chat is dead, of course. Nobody there to greet my long-haired rebel avatar in The Exploited underwear, studs, and chains. Then again, my old friends would’ve beamed straight into the sea with me—glug, glug. That’s because the island I used to rent had been swallowed by the water. Melting polar caps? Second Life probably has poles too. It has, uh, had everything.
Unlike in real life, I even owned a house in "Linden World." And by Second Life standards, a pretty nice one—you can see it below in the 15-year-old screenshots. No wonder I saved those moments, because I must’ve thrown a few hundred bucks into Linden Lab’s hungry maw. If you lacked self-control, Second Life could burn through a lot more money than that. Luckily, I had self-control.
My little home from 2010. Naturally, you could make love on the furniture—because that was, and still is, Second Life.
As a respected homeowner, I was also part of a Second Life family, of course. 🙂 My "mother" was an always yellow-blonde, extravagantly styled model avatar, expertly controlled by a very nice Englishwoman. She was a mother in real life too, and not for much longer than she had been mine. In other words: barely any time for "real" social contact, and that’s why she was in Second Life. It happens.
Mum brought two girls into the family as well, also English, who then became my sisters. At least after we’d spent a while sniffing each other out. So if you just thought, "Oh, the only guy in a group of women? With Second Life being Second Life?", nope. My SL family was simply an online family. People who, for various reasons, didn’t get parental warmth or close friendships in real life—and so they "started a family" online.
Weird? Maybe at first glance. When my SL mother offered to take me under her wing, my first thought was: "Uh... what? Family? Online?" But hey, the three of them were kind, and I was open to new things. My avatar didn’t get a pacifier shoved into his mouth, and nobody put him over their knee either. Nothing really happened to him at all, except that he now had steady people in his life online. A home, basically. That’s a good thing, right?
The thing with (online) love
My next move was to check my saved landmarks—the places I’d grown fond of during my Second Life days and kept returning to, just like bookmarks on the web. And? Well, the world changes. My favorite dark club: gone. My werewolf clan’s headquarters: gone. Giant roller coaster, haunted house? Gone and gone.
This is what my former plot looks like today. The holiday island is gone, just like so much else from my active years.
It’s a shame the teleport also failed for a place that meant a lot to me back then; a spot where Beethoven could’ve written the Moonlight Sonata. Night, cliffs, a waterfall, lanterns on the water, and the quiet moon. A romantic place, yes. It would’ve pulled me right back to my online girlfriend at the time, with whom I spent hours sitting high up on a cliff, watching the huge waterfall. It was beautiful, though looking back, also a little tragic.
She lived in a culture where women were mostly expected to stay at home. She was rarely allowed to leave the house, and I’m sure you can guess why Second Life appealed to her. I know all this because most of my Second Life contacts weren’t shallow. I met some fascinating people who didn’t fit the user-generated world’s bad reputation at all.
And, if I may say so, neither did I. 😉
Not a romantic sitting spot, but still waterfalls—and more than 15 years old.
Second Life made my real life bearable
Which brings us to the question of why I played Second Life in the first place. Well—obviously because, in 2010, I couldn’t have been happier with my real life. Sarcasm off. My girlfriend at the time had just dumped me out of nowhere, which hit me hard. Not only because I never saw that slap coming, but also because I truly thought she was different.
And there was more: depression, a nasty anxiety disorder, and the aftershocks of burnout were my constant companions back then. Add a fun little medication dependency, and my dream life was complete. Sure, on some level I was feeding the cliché that Second Life was only full of "lost causes." But lost causes can get back on their feet. And maybe Second Life players aren’t as "done" with the world as some people like to think.
Nutjobs—actual nutjobs—exist everywhere. Linden Lab’s early "metaverse" only looked especially unhinged because humanity’s ugly side was more visible there than it was on the web. The web has plenty of dark corners, some of them not freely accessible. It’s also unimaginably bigger than Second Life, where sick and criminal ideas were often just one click away. Or, though I hope not, still are.
Either way, I’m convinced my online life back then kept me from falling into an even deeper hole. I don’t see games like Second Life as completely embarrassing, awful, or perverse just because they also attract guys who’d be better off swallowed by the glitch. "Social" online worlds clearly have the potential, at least to some degree, to catch people during difficult phases of life. And we shouldn’t forget that whenever Linden Lab’s spiritual successors start making the wrong kind of headlines too.
Sometimes the mere presence of another player lifted my mood—like this Bavarian floating under the ceiling.
So now what?
The closing thought has basically already landed, but one question may still be unanswered: Will I play Second Life again? My situation today is completely different from 2010. I’m standing tall, healthy—knock on wood—married, and happy. So I certainly don’t need Linden World anymore, but my late return did spark a few small urges.
So, honestly: I don’t know. In principle, I do kind of feel like dropping into a virtual club again. Or just exploring the world. Gamers are gifted builders, as long as they’re not called Alex Nitschke. We’ll see. At least I wouldn’t have to change my avatar’s look.
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