How Starting a Discord Server Changed My Life

(genuinely)

About two months ago, I started a Discord server.
This is NOT an ad for Discord, to be clear—I just wanted to share my experience.

Discord is a messaging platform, and a “server” is an online space that can host multiple different chat “channels”—kind of like the modern-day supergroup version of internet chatrooms and forums (plus voice and audio chatting, in channels that allow it). And many of these servers (mine included) are available to access for FREE.

Up until about three months ago, I had barely even used Discord. What prompted me to start using it was the absolutely random happenstance of me becoming friends with a couple of Twitch streamers.

Twitch is a streaming platform that is primarily (but not entirely) used to stream video games, and Discord is the messaging platform most commonly used amongst the Twitch and gaming communities. When I first became friends with these streamers, it was by way of conversation via their Twitch chat, which is the equivalent of me having a conversation with someone in my comment section. That is to say, it’s not exactly ideal if you want to make new friends and have conversations with them. Because Discord was their primary form of communication (and because they both have Discord servers of their own), I started using Discord more often.

Being a part of their Discord communities made me feel more connected to the people I was interacting with on a near-daily basis, despite being in different parts of the world. It felt more like I was able to get to know people there than on any other platform I had previously used, and it felt good to make new friends with whom I shared a lot of similar interests.

On January 18th, when TikTok went down for all of 14 hours, I was completely blindsided by the profound sense of loss I felt. I had known that the ban was possible and that I would be losing my largest social media platform of over 700,000 followers, but I had been growing resentful of TikTok.

I was tired of being on the receiving end of the mental abuse that is the relationship between a content creator and the platform they’re on. I didn’t enjoy the gaslighting, the shadowbanning, the imposter syndrome as a result, and the absolute lack of any kind of creator support that goes along with being a creator on TikTok. I naively assumed that if TikTok went away, that weight would finally be lifted from my shoulders.

Almost immediately after TikTok went down, I realized how incredibly wrong I had been.

The mental and emotional gymnastics that all creators go through in order to stay sane while cooperating with platforms that treat us as income rather than as human beings had made me forget the real reason why I had stuck around in the first place–the people. I recognized how little I had done to keep my community together, and losing access to 700,000 of them hit me HARD.

That night, I spiraled into a deep and intense sadness. I couldn’t believe how ignorant I’d been, and I was kicking myself for not having done more. I felt like I had failed my audience by not being present enough and by not doing more to connect with them.

At this point in my life, I’ve learned from experience that if there’s something in your life that’s not working out, you’ve got to do whatever you can within your power to take action to change it. Because if you don’t do anything about your problems, nothing will ever change.

The following day, TikTok came back up, and I felt like I had been given a second chance. Despite still feeling deeply sad following such emotional whiplash in such a short span of time, I went into “problem-solving mode”. I recognized that the way I was feeling was because of the loss of my community, and I wanted to do whatever I could to prevent feeling that way again—to prevent failing my community again.

I started trying to think of other ways that I could connect with my community that didn’t involve having to dance around an algorithm just so that my message could be heard by the people who were already following me. I wanted a way to bring those within my community who care about the well-being of others together in a space that cultivated community rather than catering to short attention spans and advertisers. The answer, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, was to start my own Discord server.

The week following TikTok’s propaganda-laden return, I immediately started reaching out to my social media moderators and friends to ask for their help in building my new Discord server, and on January 25th—just one week after TikTok had initially gone down—we officially launched the Caring, Repairing, and Rebelling Discord community server.

One of the very first things I added to the server was the server description, which reads:

“My intentions with this server are to cultivate a community of empathetic humans who enjoy learning and growing together, and who understand that everyone should have the right to do whatever makes them happy, so long as they’re doing no harm.”

Within 48 hours, we had over 1,000 members.

As opposed to replying to post comments or answering appliance questions on live streams, I started having actual conversations with members of the community I had built. I began to realize this was what I had wanted all along. Within the first couple of weeks, something absolutely incredible happened–for the first time in years, my mental health started to not only improve, but become easier to manage.

I had spent the last several years living through multiple different traumatic situations while “pushing through,” which ultimately led to a mental burnout. I had spent the last year focusing on healing from that burnout, but had still been struggling. As cliche as it sounds, launching my Discord server and connecting with my community felt like it was starting to heal something inside of me that I hadn’t even realized was the issue.

I had set up channels for “post pings” (channels where you can sign up to be notified about when I post on other platforms) and for people to ask appliance questions, of course, but I also added channels where people could talk about everything from their hobbies and interests, to supporting each other during difficult times. In addition to witnessing multiple conversations between people who were supporting one another, sharing the things that make them happy, reaching out for support when they’re feeling down, and just talking about what’s going on in their everyday lives, I also participated in those conversations as well.

After a couple of weeks, I learned that the way I was running my Discord server wasn’t “normal”.

I had several of my “server members” (as Discord calls them) tell me that in many Discord servers, the server owner isn’t a very active member of the server, and that they’re usually more “hands-off”. They told me how much they appreciated my willingness to be a part of my community rather than just having my name be on it. Knowing what I know now and knowing how much more involved Discord has allowed me to be within my community in ways that other social platforms have failed, I think that’s a damn shame.

Today, the Caring, Repairing, and Rebelling community Discord server is nearly 2 months old and has over 1,600 members. I still actively participate in the server, and have started making new friends there, too. I truly feel like starting this server has changed my life for the better in ways that I never could have imagined–especially as someone who barely even knew how to use Discord a few short months ago.

I feel like I’ve not only found a restored sense of community, but of purpose as well.

And that’s why I’m writing this—to urge you to cultivate community, whatever that looks like for you. Because cultivating community is an act of rebellion against a regime that seeks to divide and separate us, and because you’ll never know how much of a positive impact your presence can make in the world unless you try.

If you would like to join the Caring, Repairing, and Rebelling community (it’s free to join and always will be!), here’s how:

1. Download the Discord app (can be found in your app store of choice) or go to https://discord.com/download for the desktop version.

2. Sign up for a Discord account and verify your email address.

3. Sign up for my email newsletter at https://renduh.com (I send out the weekly server invite link in my weekly newsletter—you can absolutely unsubscribe from the newsletter after joining the server if you want).

4. Wait for the server invite link to be emailed to you (the newsletter is sent out every Saturday evening) and follow the instructions in the email!