What is GaiaOnline?
GaiaOnline is an online anime roleplaying community. This is a fancy term for an anime forum. Once you strip it all down to the basics, Gaia is a forum with lots of neat add-ons.

Gaia stands out from other anime forums because of its customizable avatars and gold economy. What, you ask? Read on.
 
What are these customizable avatars?
Sure, you can customize your avatar on some forums. You can choose a picture from the forum's image gallery. You can also upload a picture to an online image hosting service and edit your forum profile so that picture of yours will become your avatar. On Gaia, however, you get a little stack of pixels in form of a chibi human as your avatar. When you sign up, you get to choose its gender, hairstyle, hair color, eye style, eye color, and mouth configuration. When you're a new member on Gaia, your avvy has nothing except its white undies and peasant clothes that are incredibly ugly. With gold, you can purchase better clothes and items for your avvy.

Oh yeah, and your avvy is usually positioned at the upper right-hand corner of your screen as you navigate through Gaia. So you can admire how good your avvy looks. Or bemoan. Whatever floats your boat.