Ever since i found out they existed I have been obsessed with virtual worlds. Just the concept of being able to make your own avatar and walk around in a stylized space is still so cool to me. When I was a kid I would sign up for whatever i was able to find, usually with one of my parents's e-mail adresses...
The social aspect usually wasn't what drew me in, i would usually just buy clothes for my avatar, wander around aimlessly and play minigames. It also didn't help that my english wasn't very good yet, so for a lot of sites I barely understood anything that was going on.
The only virtual world I'm really active on as of now is Gaia Online. It started out as an anime forum, and the forums are still a major component of the site today. I really like making avatars in Gaia, since the site is so old you can get a variety of different styles and graphics with the clothing items, including that real skungy "vintage" look with the gray shadows and airbrush highlights. pictured above is my gaia online house!

GAIA ONLINE OUTFIT GALLERY

Towns 2 exploring

Towns 2 is kinda the real "virtual chatroom" of Gaia, but it's basically a ghost town now. regular Towns doesn't work. I went exploring the other day and found some cool locations. I really love the graphics of Towns, they have a unique mid-2000s virtual world vibe.

First, I went to Gold Beach. I hadn't been there before but it's cool looking, and really large too.

I found this little deserted island too. I was actually watching a video about The Sims: Castaway while exploring which was fitting.