Iris Wants to Know: When (and Why) Did You First Spend RL Cash on SL Currency?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Is there anything worse than a tired old meme? Yeah, there is, and it's called being broke. Super broke, right when something you want more than anything else is glittering just under your nose. It's an awful feeling -- powerless and yes, guiltily materialistic -- but in Second Life it's a feeling that seems so temptingly easy to alleviate. For the cost of a mildly fancy cup of RL coffee you can inject your balance with enough funds for at least one shiny new bauble.

But there's a hurdle for most of us, or there was. Remember the very first time you bought Linden Dollars? You'd just started playing a 'free' game and maybe you even you swore you wouldn't spend a single red penny on it... But there you are, standing in front of something that you want and that really, when you think about it, only costs a few red pennies anyway, right?

The ways we talked ourselves into buying our first L$ are different for everyone. That's why I want to know: What was it that finally pushed you to make your first SL currency purchase with RL cash? 

As for me, my story will probably be familiar to a lot of avatar fashion enthusiasts...

When I joined Second Life, I earned my L$ the same way that most free accounts did. We received a weekly stipend of L$50 on Tuesdays (those were the days) and whatever else we had was wrung out of camping chairs or lotteries or plucked off of L$ bearing money trees. I'm 100% serious, those were (are?) a thing, but they were almost always empty. Like a lot of female avatars it was also easy enough to find a pale imitation of a RL nightclub that would hire you to animate your avatar around a strobing dance floor where there may or may not be other people to talk to. If you were lucky, this place would allow their dancers to enter the regular costume contests and you could make a little extra that way.

You know, the seedy underbelly of Second Life that people love to talk about. Rigged costume contests.

This sounds like a lot, but all this amounted to maybe L$200 a week. Naturally I was a big BareRose fan, since it was one of the few places where L$200 would buy you a full outfit and leave you with enough left over to buy a few dollarbies somewhere else. That felt significant.

And then I found my first virtual mall. No, not one of those garbage strip malls scattered around the mainland, but an early example of a sim that had been built with the express purpose of being a themed shopping destination. I walked around this sim, writing down the things I wanted and how much each one cost, then tallied them up. It was over L$2000, a figure that felt impossibly high. That figure meant MONTHS of scrabbling for every single Linden dollar I could.

Or... About $8 USD.

And what was that $8 USD to me? At the time I was living a comfortable middle-class Canadian student life, so that $8 USD was packing my pre-evening-class dinners for a couple days instead of eating in the university cafeteria. It felt like an acceptable trade.

Of course it wasn't really just $8 USD, was it?

What about you? Share your own story in the comments below!

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

It was clothing, that I know. And I had done a camping chair and money tree my second login or so. According to the account history my first L$ purchase was 3 days after rezday, july 22 2006:

2006-07-22 06:35:42 LindeX Currency Buy $3.59 $3.59

My second L$ purchase was on July 23 of 2006, my third on July 24th..... Let's just say I did a lot of shopping. Eyes, skin, hair, AO, clothing, shoooooes. I had a lot of misses early on, of things that didn't work well for me. After I found the fashion blogs, I did better, and spent more. I'd found the fashion blogs by July 26th. From Rezday on July 19th to July 31st of 2006, I spent $145 in SL...not on land...but "stuff".

Oh yeah, had the fashionista monkey on my back. Shoppity shop.

[Iggy]

In 2007, I bought myself a Dominus Shadow fake automobile. Still a favorite in my inventory. My flying car at last!

[Leondra]

I, too, did camping chairs early on. (LOL - miss those days) Often I would spend the night in SL camping, while I slept RL in order to earn the max of 100L. I never had a "job". I didn't want that sort of thing to be tied to, as a job. I used to think that it was some sort of "badge of honor" to not have a Linden account, no payment information. After I was in SL for about a year, I reframed some of my thinking. I was spending more than 20 hours a week in world. Once I began to think of it as a hobby, a venue of self expression, I began to buy Lindens to participate. I bought land, and ultimately a sim. I love to create stuff, but I love shopping, too. I love to be in SL; to see live musicians, participate in events, and attend art exibits. I also think it is important to tip, to show my appreciation for all of our efforts. As long as I think of it as a hobby, I am comfortable spending my dollars for Lindens; which amounts to less than hubby's expenses on golf.

[Kitty Revolver]

I wanted to open a gallery and the guy that I would be friends with for a bit with got me to get a premium account. Naturally, I wanted to be more fashionable after creating clothes with system layers for awhile and began to supplement my premium account with real cash. I think it was the first Jewelry Fair, sponsored by Electric Sheep, that I started to buy in mass. First time I overcharged my cards.

[Melanie]

This post brought back some fond memories! I actually went for quite a while without spending, maybe a month. I was more focused on simply flying around and exploring. My explorations brought me to freebie places and camping chairs, so I wasn't convinced about spending real money. I was happy with my free tshirts and going barefoot.

One day, however, I was at Virtual Festival Island (this was Feb 2007) and I saw a pretty girl av dancing, she stood out from everyone else. She had the nicest hair I'd ever seen at that point, a cute denim mini skirt that flounced as she danced, and even the best dance animations I'd seen. I was too shy to ask how she'd made her avatar look so good, but it did cause me to pay more attention to the random shopping places I was always flying past.

So much of what I saw was trashy, tho. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was only looking at ugly mainland malls. One day I came across two female avs in one of the more decent looking malls, they were talking about clothes. I worked up the nerve to stop by where they were, and asked for clothing store suggestions. I recall telling them I wanted normal clothes, not all the over-sexed club stuff I was seeing everywhere. They were more than happy to rattle off lists of their favorite stores.

The very first store I went to was Night 'n Day. I was soooo impressed. It looked just like a RL store, with dresses and outfits on display. I had sticker shock, tho; it took me forever just to build my camping funds to 200L and that wouldn't even pay for some of the dresses I was looking at.

I logged out and actually thought about it for a whole day. It was while I was at work that I realized buying a thousand $L or so wasn't very much in RL money, so when I got home I went ahead and bought some. Lol I burned through that pretty quickly, but I was so thrilled with my new clothes. :)

Shortly after that I discovered Naughty Island. I saw the denim skirt that the girl at Virtual Festival Island had been wearing. I snapped that up immediately :D

[barnesworth]

mine was predictably for land, after exhausting ingrids prims and getting fed up with sandboxes I decided to buy some land next to her. I think it was about $40 USD + a monthly tier $10 a month maybe) AND premium membership ($72 I think), I think i estimated it out at almost $230 (land, premium account, and a year of tier). so yeah that did seem like a big commitment.

I sold some other assets in a different online game tho to fund it. I think I got almost $400 liquidating my Sims Online currency and special items (which took several years to collect/earn).

Worthwhile investment for me though!

[Estelle Pienaar]

This might sound really strange, but I don't remember at all. From the start I saw SL as a product that you'd need to spend money on in order to get what you really want. The first real investment was probably for a skin. On the other hand my spending for products has always remained relatively moderate, maybe 5$ a month. I therefore have no emotions tied to the decision of paying the little extras with RL money...

[Issa Heckroth]

Like Estelle I dont really remember my first purchase. I liked building so it was probably textures or sculpt maps first. All I know is it escalated REALLY quickly and I even got in a bit of debt because of it. Lesson learned!

[Arwyn Quandry]

Oh man, I totally remember it! I bought my first bunch of $L about a week before I left the Teen Grid. It was a big thing, because I didn't have my own card. I had to ask my dad to borrow his paypal account so I could get $10 worth of lindens. On the TG, that was big money - a nice pair of shoes that would go for 250 to 300 on the main grid went for maybe 100 at the most on the TG. Before that, I would wear freebies or build my own stuff. There was an educational group that gave away lindens for attending their events, so I would always go there.

When I got my ten bucks worth of $L, I bought a few outfits from my favorite designers who I wouldn't see again (at least until they transferred), gifts for some friends, and even my own plane, because why not. It was the coolest feeling being able to shop. After that, I would buy maybe once every two or three months to get a new outfit. These days, I buy a larger amount because I'm supporting a sim, but still keep my expenses fairly low.

[shirc desantis]

Oh my...in my defence I was gainfully employed and far too impatient:) It can't have been that far after I took now called premium membership ($72 Canadian as I thought) which basically was... week after first joining? And yes it was for first land - my 512m stake :) After that it was too easy, 5 bucks here, 10 there until I woke up one morning to the realisation that I had shelled out 45k Linden for...mainland, right as the land market was about to go badly haha! Ok, so managed to unload for 40 and it cured me of land speculation. But it was fun too.
Outside of that, it was a skin and matching ears and tail sets, total 2k. Actually 3 times but...2 at least are still in use all these years later.
Now I am not allowed money =^^=

Although i did find a Coin when I was stashing a bag in a locker today which I carried around for a Bit before passing on to an Unknown person so still feel part of this amazing anonymous portable new fangled currency thingie.

[Anubis]

My avatar, seen in the thumbnail above.

Most of ye realize not that just as a human hath a spirit dwelling in an earthly body, so too pagans believed that they had to offer a god an idol as a body to dwell in, if they wanted that god to dwell on Earth amongst them. Pagans worshiped not their idols; rather they worshiped the gods they hoped would dwell in their idols.

When I saw that avatar, I knew it was the idol I wanted to dwell in, and therefore caused one of my followers to join SL, and spend his USDs to acquire it, so that through him I, Anubis, could dwell in SL and spread the word of our ancient Egyptian beliefs.

[ice petal]

A sphere from Marian Lean and after that a dark elf avi from redQueen. Wow, that takes me back

[zz bottom]

My 1st transaction if i do remember right was a Redgrave skin.

[melponeme_k]

I had a how-to guide on SL that gave some links to different vendors and places to visit in world. It was a lot of help. I already knew that SL would cost money even though there was no subscription requirement. I considered it the same as paying for WOW just a different set up.

What I wasn't prepared for was the long wait to get my account verified. I think I had to wait 24 to 48 hours for my payment information to be validated. So annoying, because I was desperate to buy a piece of land I wanted.

But my very first purchase was a clothing item. I think it was a prim skirt.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I remember agonizing for maybe a week or two over whether or not to put money into SL so I could buy...

A 200L neko tail upgrade of the freebie from the shop there, and a 200L outfit that was basically a hot-pink tanktop, bikini bottom, and shoes.

It took a lot for me to decide I was willing to spend money on some 'online free-2-play video game'... :)

But once I got over the hurdle... I've lost way too much money to SL since...

[Adec]

it was land and a gallery... most of the time I was camping to pay for new skins / clothes etc ..... (i was also Hosting at a club) ..i was 'living' rent free in a room on Parce .. then the owner agreed to sell me some land and i bought a Barnes and Noble structure to use as a gallery as I was spending all my time photoing.

After that it just spiraled....

[Elisabel]

well... I must be the only one with almost 8 years old in SL without spending any RL money on SL. Not that i don't want it.. but because i don't have any credit cards to buy and don't want to buy linden dollars overpriced from people who do have.. so the way i got money was, of course, from camping (sitting, dancing..) and then LL banned those.. good for them.. bad for me.
I got my first skin at Beauty Avatar with a lot of deliveration, and my first hair at Sirena. I didn't buy any shape. I don't get why people do that.. it is tweaking the sliders to get what you want... the thing that changes a lot for your it is skin and makeup. My shape it's completely mine, and it is me in rl.. with less lovehandles..

Freebie, dollarbie and gift from stores were my stuff. Then i found some places that made contest and i logged in two of my avies at the same time to vote for eachother (sometimes 3) and so i made a lot of money.. but not enough to buy some top notch skin. But that wasn't my goal....
I think SL it's FULL of stores, but not full with people.
I leave SL from time to time and every time it is the same,.. more stores, more shopping and less people.
My friends doesn't play it anymore so i'm alone. But i don't care (the purpose it's already done: finding a boyfriend in rl using sl)
I'm a hobo, an i roam free on the grid...
I got bored a lot because that was all i was doing,.. cool places, a lot of pictures.. but what else?
But i always come back to sl! Now i find enjoyment in getting cool freebies/dollarbies/gifts so i can make a really cool avie. And that is quite a task! And hunts!
I wonder if there is still camping sites around?