Second Life
You might remember it as Linden dollars
This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.
2003·Early web, before YouTube
An online world in which people own land, make things and sell them to each other for a currency that can be exchanged for real money.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- SL
- Spread in
- 2003
- Made by
- Linden Lab, founded by Philip Rosedale
- What it said
- Rosedale, in 2006: “We don’t see this as a game. We see it as a platform.”
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A user-built virtual world with land, money and a functioning economy, taken seriously enough that embassies and universities opened branches in it. The first mass demonstration that people would live somewhere that did not exist.
Why it matteredWhat changed
By 2006 one person had turned ten dollars into a million inside it, and in 2007 countries were opening embassies there. It is still running.
TimelineIn order
- Made
It opens to the public.1
- Record
Ailin Graef, known in the world as Anshe Chung, becomes the first person to make a million real dollars there.1
- Mainstream
Sweden opens an embassy in it.1
- Record
A peak of 88,200 people are present at once.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things