The communication platform Discord has expanded greatly over the nine-ish years since its launch, growing from a humble bit of chat software into a juggernaut of the social internet. Users love it for texting, voice calls, or video calls with friends or strangers with common interests. It’s like Zoom, but more flexible and fun. It's Slack, but without that feeling that your boss is always checking your online status. Facebook, without an algorithm that prioritizes the types of posts that turned your aunt into a racist.
Discord is primarily intended for gaming and niche interest groups. Since it was originally built for gamers, and you’ll still find a lot of communities dedicated to gaming on the platform. During the pandemic, Discord expanded its reach in an effort to appeal to more than just gamers, and the platform has grown into a space where the conversations reach far outside of gaming territory into music, culture, politics, art, finance, and weirdo AI art.
But that’s a move the company has since walked back, citing the fact that more than 90 percent of Discord’s users still use the platform for gaming. Still, Discord is a multimedia experience, so you can use it to stream videos, play board games remotely with friends, listen to music together, and generally just hang out. The platform is free, though you can pay for some premiums.
It's also a little complicated. Discord is a sprawling, layered platform, with tons of options and settings to wade through. Let’s start with the basics.
How Do I Discord?
You can hop onto Discord on your phone or your computer. There are mobile apps for Android and iOS. On a computer, you can run it in your web browser if you want to keep it simple, or download a desktop client to use the more advanced features like game overlays. There are free downloads for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can add Discord to Xbox and PlayStation consoles and use Discord’s voice chat on those platforms directly.
The very first thing you’ll have to do after opening the software is choose a username. Discord used to allow you to use any name, then would attach a random string of digits to make it unique. But in May 2023, Discord changed it up, requiring users to select unique usernames instead. You can still change your display name to whatever you want, and will be able to change your avatar and header pics as you please. You’ll have to link your username with an email and password to keep it yours. (Be sure to secure it with a two-factor authentication.)
Next, Discord will prompt you to start or join a server. Servers are the main forums on Discord, and likely what you came to the platform for. Think of them as micro communities, each with different users, rules, and in-jokes. Some are public, while others are private and require an invitation to join. There are servers for your favorite games, bands or music genres, political ideology, or just hubs for sharing some random memes. Whatever you’re into, there’s probably a Discord server for it.
