My husband read about it on Slashdot too in 2011 or so.  He mentioned it to me.  I said "Why not buy a few."  He said, "The feds might think we are involved in something and come knock our door down."   I said, "Hmmm.  I guess it is better not to risk that."  He also mentioned that it was used for drugs quite a bit. (I did not know how anonymously it could be purchased or I may have argued with him a little more about it not being that risky) Then we waited until the money laundering laws kicked in and figured it was somewhat a stamp of approval.  So, it would have been nice if we had bought at $1 instead of a few at $100. Oh well. Better late then never. 

I'm always unable to answer this kind of questions, how have I found out a community, probably a bad google search?

Slashdot, 2010. Back when your laptop could do this:

I first heard about Bitcoin in the summer of 2011, when Chuck Schumer spoke out about Silk Road and asked the DoJ to do something about it.  I sorta kept bitcoins in the back of my mind and waited for over a year after that to actually buy some, but glad I finally did.  Thanks, Chuck!  They've been the best "investment" I've ever made, by far.  If I ever get the chance someday, I'll have to buy you a beer or two for bringing them to my attention!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110605/22322814558/senator-schumer-says-bitcoin-is-money-laundering.shtml

slashdot April/May 2010 

I  saw this thread and couldn't wait a few hours to respond to this interesting question.  I copy and pasted my first post from the Newbie forum below.  Original post can be found here:  https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/200700.0  Loving bitcointalk.org so far and hope to be here a while.

I am a recently disabled professional that has been relegated to crashing at family and friends' houses for the past few months. All my hosts are conservative leaning despite liberal social tendencies. Such tendencies are seemingly the cost of home ownership and religious affiliation in some regions.  One such host watches Bill O'Reilly like it is a requisite Sunday revival passing out salvation candy.

Whilst attempting to swallow my own vomit; I overheard Mr. O'Reilly say, "Bitcoin," no less than 5 times during a 60 minute program. Bill spoke of Bitcoin like Glenn Beck does about 'gold'.

What can I say; maybe it was the 'O'Reilly bump'; but I was immediately interested. At the time I had about $2000 to my name in good old greenbacks. It was February 2013 and as cold as I can remember it ever being.

I was freezing and bored. Being a natural risk taker; I plunged into the coin with $1000 of my very limited resources. I told no one of my seemingly ridiculous actions for fear of being committed to the state mental hospital by my conservative hosts. My recent plight of transitioning from making five figures a month, to deciding whether to buy groceries or pay for insurance probably made the risk easier to assume.

As a genXer; I was born for a time of freedom from fiat and the control it exacts on its naïve holders. Sadly this control often masquerades as security.

Mr. O’Reilly opened my mind to both right-winger logic and the value of something seemingly valueless. Bitcoin was trading at around $20/BTC at the time of my entering the market. This was considered bubble level by many at the time.  The next few months left me wondering how much Bitcoin Mr. O’Reilly held as he pimped its merits.

Needless to say, I am now much more financially able to meet my needs via both BTC and paper fiat. I still don’t get right or left wingers no matter how much Fox News or MSNBC I’m forced to watch.  Regardless, I think everyone can agree on at least some of the merits and freedoms that a vehicle like Bitcoin affords its users.

As a bonus, I now feel a sense of purpose to educate and inform those that know less than me; and to learn from those with more understanding than I can hope to acquire, about our beloved crypto-currency. It has been life giving for a young educated person searching for purpose and principle in a world that is at times devoid of either.

Just a couple more hours of reading and I can play with others on bitcointalk.org.

Where would you post and what would you say if you could post somewhere other than the noob-pen? If you have something of value to add and just can’t wait to clear the noob hurdle, post it here.  Someone just might read it. You did.

I am PWI and I approve this message.

I read an article on heise.de, it's a german news page for it-news.
I thought, it sounds good, give it a chance.

From memory, early 2011.  The earliest mention of bitcoin in my gmail account is late May 2011.

If memory serves, it was in my peripheral vision from hackernews posts.  I vaguely recall the BTC1=US$1 parity celebration being mentioned in headlines.  That may have even been what finally caught my interest.  Of course, I regret not paying attention sooner - at the time I recall seeing the word and it meaning nothing to me, and moving on to the next most interesting post. 

I was mining with my meagre setup in the low single digits, but it was closer to US$10 (the first time, on the way up) before I managed to buy any on gox (June 2011 I think).   

April 25 Overclock.net, a user called reflex99  posted a thread about earning money with your GPUs and two days later I had 4 bitcoins.