The Beauty of Discord and Staying Connected in a Socially Distanced Time
By Francine
Discord: you either swear by it or simply haven’t tried it yet. Online hangouts have been a major part of 2020, and as a result many people have made the switch to Discord when it comes to staying e-connected with their friends and other loved ones. But isn’t Discord just for people that play video games? Ah yes, a common misconception. When Discord launched in 2015, it became massively popular in gaming communities as it provided people with an easy way to communicate with their friends in game and stay in touch with their friends out of game. But many people from the early-launch days of Discord also used it for non-gaming purposes and this number has definitely increased this year.
Discord can be used for all types of activities, ranging from hosting a movie night with your pals to playing mini-games with bots. As Discord simply puts it, “Discord is for anyone who could use a place to talk with their friends and communities.” It’s customizability and user-friendly interfaces really makes you feel like you’re in the same room as your friends.
Before we dive into why Discord stands out from other conference applications, I will bring you on a quick tour of Discord in case you are not familiar with its layout.
Making your server
Anyone can make a server, once you create a server you can send out invite links to the people that you want in there. This means that you get to control who stays in the server and don’t have to worry about strangers randomly making an appearance.
It’s not just a place for a group text chat, yet it’s not just a place for video calls like Zoom. It is a beautiful mixture of various types of communication that allows you to maintain connections almost as if you were with your friends in real life. If you haven’t tried out Discord yet or are learning more about it, here are some reasons why Discord is the superior online hangout platform!
Voice chat, video chat, streaming
Discord has it all when it comes to interacting with your friends in a way that is as close to in-person as possible. You can even change other people’s volumes if they’re a little too loud or soft for your liking, making for a very user friendly experience. Discord even has a noise suppression feature to remove any background noise while you are speaking, reducing the amount of times you need to repeat yourself which is always a win. For those that want to host movie nights or enjoy TV shows as a group with their friends, Discord even allows you to share your screen so you can watch TV shows, movies, and YouTube videos together. Aside from movies and shows, you can also stream games you are playing so it feels like your friends are experiencing the game with you in real time! Pretty much whatever is on your screen, you can share with your friends.
Channels
I’ve often told people that Discord is pretty similar to Slack , is a similar platform that is typically used for work business, but Discord just has more features. Something that they both have in common is the ability to separate your server into multiple text and voice channels.These channels help organize the discussions in the server, this is extra useful for those that want to use Discord for larger groups or groups with multiple interests. It can also be used to emulate hanging out with your friends in real life. For example, you can designate a voice channel to be the “library” where you can quietly study with your friends or discuss classes and then designate another voice channel to be the general hangout space where you can e-chill with your pals. Having multiple channels is also great if you wanted to create a server with a large group of people for an organization or a class study group. You can have everyone in one server without worrying about it getting too cluttered or difficult to talk in if you create multiple channels!
Incredibly Customizable
The customizability of Discord really helps create an inviting environment and a struggle-free way to stay connected with your friends. A major feature is that you can add your own emotes to your server so you and for friends can share personalized emotes with each other! You can also choose your own nickname within the server and even assign people roles as a fun way to personalize your online hangout space. Discord also allows you to grant members certain permissions through these roles in the case that you are hosting a larger server and need to create some organization in the group. I’ve even seen some people give their servers a theme that can really make the server feel like home.
Listen to music together
This is something that truly sets Discord apart from other e-hangout services. You can have a bot that allows you to listen to music with whoever else is in the voice channel with you. Listening to the same music as your friends can really emulate being with them in person and it really reduces the feelings of isolation that can creep up very easily these days, especially if most of your interactions are based in text messages.
Play with bots
So there are bots that allow you to listen to music with other people in your channel. Firstly, what are bots and secondly, what other kinds of bots are there? Bots are AIs that you can place in your server to carry out automated tasks that range from user moderation to playing in-server mini games. An example of a popular moderation bot is MEE6; MEE6 can do many automated things such as greeting people once they enter the server, allowing people to gain XP and levels as they participate more in the server, as well as protecting the server from any unwanted behaviour in the case that you are using Discord for a larger community. On the other hand, there are bots such as TriviaBot so you can play trivia games with your friends within your server!
Seamless integration with games
Online multiplayer games such as Among Us have been taking the latter part of 2020 by storm and Discord has played a large role in bringing friends together through these games since it allows for seamless integration in these games. This allows you to interact with your friends in-game without having to set up something complicated; with the Discord overlay you’re able to see which of your friends are speaking without having to leave your game.
Whether you’re using Discord as an online space for your friend group or for a larger organization, it has so many amazing features that can keep you connected to almost anyone in your life with an internet connection.
