Comment by PaulDavisThe1st
9 hours ago
> Discord is the 9,000lb gorilla of this form of social media, and it's actually quietly one of the largest social platforms on the internet. There's clearly a desire for these kinds of spaces, and Discord seems to be filling it.
The "former type" had to do with online socializing with people you know IRL.
I have never seen anything on Discord that matches this description.
I'm in multiple Discord servers with people I know IRL.
In fact, I'd say it's probably the easiest way to bootstrap a community around a friend-group.
Is this a generational thing? All my groups of this type are on WhatsApp (unfortunately).
Maybe, but at least in my circles it’s a structure thing- until the group actually can be organised in a single chat sanely something else will be used- but as soon as multiple chats are required the thing is moved on discord.
might be a regional thing instead, i don't know many americans with whatsapp -- all of my friends are on discord.
You're essentially saying you haven't seen anyone's private chats.
I'm in a friend Discord server. It's naturally invisible unless someone sends you an invite.
Yeah same as sibling comments, I'm in multiple discord servers for IRL friend groups. I personally run one with ~50 people that sees a hundreds of messages a day. By far my most used form of social media. Also as OP said, I'll be migrating to Matrix (probably) when they IPO, we've already started an archival project just in case.
And you won't. I will NOT invite anyone from "social media" to any of the 3 very-private, yet outrageously active, servers, and that's why they have less than 40 users collectively. They're basically for playing games and re-streaming movies among people on first name basis or close to it. And I know those 40 people have others of their own, and I know I'll never ever have access to them either. Because I dont know those other people in them.
And I know server like these are in the top tier of engagement for discord on the whole because they keep being picked for AB testing new features. Like, we had activities some half a year early. We actually had the voice modifiers on two of them, and most people don't even know that was a thing.
Idk most of the people I "met" on the internet happened originally on IRC. I didn't know them till a decade or more later.