Strength in Internet Communities: Discord Servers to Join

Discord, one of the fastest-rising community-aggregating applications, continues to innovate as users find new ways to take advantage of its benefits. With its ability to unite everyone from global audiences to long-distance friends, its suite of features allows people to find niche communities, engage with content and share ideas. If you’re starting in the Discord world, here are some servers to consider joining to see the hype.

1. Twitch Streamers

Users on Discord spend approximately 4 billion minutes daily in voice-chat conversations, partly due to the rise of Twitch streamers. Streamers, who primarily play video games in front of a live audience, collect communities of fans who enjoy watching as a way to relax and casually chat with other gaming fans. 

The interactivity of live chats on Twitch streams seamlessly coincides with Discord servers as an extension of communications outside regular streaming schedules. Streaming moderators can use Discord as an avenue to keep in touch with dedicated and keep tabs on negativity like hate speech or breaches of a streamer’s rules. Joining a Discord server for a streamer you admire can help make valuable connections for your shared interests.

2. School-Related Servers

Even schools are aware of the powerful capabilities of Discord as a means to connect students. Some educators are inventive by making communities for individual classes to field questions or to engage in professional development with unique one-on-ones with other educators.

Students, no matter their grade, could use it to converse with peers individually or as a group, with or without the presence of a teacher, to:

• Share homework or project examples
• Ask questions about confusing assignments or topics
• Empathize and cope with stressful situations like exams
• Determine educational goals
• Analyze camaraderie within the classroom

However, educators must facilitate servers responsibly to ensure everyone has accurate expectations about Discord’s usage. This includes messaging etiquette to instructors and monitoring cyberbullying between students.

3. People You Support on Patreon

YouTube creators, photographers and TikTok influencers alike have created Patreons to support their creative expressions. Supporters can choose to subscribe via a monthly donation to specific creators, giving them access to perks, including access to private Discord servers.

Supporters choose to join these communities as a way to bridge the parasocial gap between influencers and their fans. However, some Patreon creators have reimagined their Discord communities to save kittens and encourage collaborating and sharing more art. Joining a Discord server of someone you support on Patreon could provide opportunities beyond passing conversations with internet handles to something more tangible.

4. Public Discord Servers

Most who are seasoned Discord users found communities by happenstance. However, there are plenty of public servers Discord recommends to help people find like-minded people with similar interests and points of view. They are filtered by tags, ranging from servers entirely devoted to:

• Minecraft, Fortnite, Valorant and other video games
• LGBTQ+ communities
• Memes
• Languages
• Cryptocurrency and the stock market
• Making friends and dating
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Music, art and creative hobbies

These communities get creative by engaging their communities with Discord Bots. They can do everything from playing background music to playing Jeopardy.

5. Your Own Community

It’s also possible to create your Discord server. It could be a collection of friends, near and far, for you to gather once a month to play video games while using Discord’s streaming feature. Over 150 million people log into Discord monthly for activities, including karaoke and doing homework together. 

You could start on a smaller scale this way, or you may choose to think larger. Especially if you’re involved with your community, you may want to create a club at your library to organize meetings and events over a server. You could also offer to host servers for community activism, like local environmentalist organizations hosting cleanups and fundraisers. The possibilities are endless for what you want to create and how you can use it to connect with others.

Discord Servers Change Internet Communities

Joining Discord servers could connect you to thousands of people worldwide — a feat unheard of in prior generations. The surprising benefits include strengthening communication skills, creating lifelong friendships and engaging more deeply in passion projects. So long as participation is responsible, Discord could offer the world a never-before-seen suite of communities for people of every background to join together.