Gaia Online
An anime-styled forum where your dressed-up chibi avatar appeared next to every post, and where browsing, posting and playing games earned the gold to dress it. In 2007 its members were making more than a million posts a day.
#Avatars
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Second Life
A world with no levels, no quests, and no way to win — just land you could buy and a currency you could cash out for real money. For about two years in the mid-2000s, Second Life was going to be the future, and every news network, embassy and corporation piled in to say so. It is still running, which surprises people.
Zwinky
Dress up a big-headed cartoon version of yourself, paste it on your MySpace, then wander Zwinktopia earning Zbucks for new outfits. Zwinky was the avatar craze of the mid-2000s — and, thanks to the browser toolbar it came bundled with, the thing that got a lot of family computers a stern talking-to.