22 - What is Discord? (A Beginner's Guide)

What is Discord and why do gamers use it?

In this episode, we break down Discord for beginners — how it works, what servers and channels are, and why it’s one of the most popular communication platforms for gamers.

We explain voice channels, group chats, and how Discord helps build gaming communities. You’ll also learn how Discord impacts friendships, relationships, and daily routines.

Whether you're new to Discord or trying to understand how gamers communicate, this episode gives you a clear and simple explanation

Mivania - Personal Trainer
www.mivaniahenry.com
Instagram: @MivaMoves

gettinggamers.com
@GettingGamers (Facebook)
@getting_gamers (instagram)
@Juke_ish (Instagram, Twitch, Tiktok)

Art by Arielle:  Instagram @ProphetOPossum
Music: fesliyanstudios.com

Transcript

Juke: 0:00

Getting gamers. Hello and welcome to getting gamers. Your guide to understanding the gamers in your life. I am your host, juke and I am the type of person that has a lot of vocal stims. If you don't know what vocal stims are, they're just like little noise often associated to like emotional regulation that can be like positive or negative emotions, all sorts of emotions, just when you like, are feeling a big rush, not even necessarily a rush, but just sometimes you feel certain emotions and they trigger vocal stims, and sometimes they're also kind of like to fill the void. I just, I just make a lot of sounds in generals, I am a person that I speak in sound effects most of the time. I come from a family of people who speak in sound effects, especially especially on my Italian side, but on both sides, honestly, you know, the stapler becomes the Chaka Chak and your flasher on your at the car becomes the ticket tick. So, yeah, I'm a noisy person who speaks and has a lot of sound effects, and that happens a lot when I'm gaming, because gaming like, I just, it's not casual for me. I just get so, like, amped up, and I'm like, you know, and so I'm, you know, I'm just a noisy person. And I know for a lot of people, me, making these sounds is distracting and it breaks their focus, and stuff like that. Even at work, every time there's a new co worker or a new person in the team, you see that there's, like, this adjustment period where they have to get used to my sound effects. Because I am a manual laborer. I'm a landscaper, hardscaper, whatever you want to call it. And so, yeah, like, when I'm shoveling or I'm trying to, like, do something that's difficult, I'm gonna go, like, hi, yeah. Or like, when things, you know, I just make a lot of sounds, and people have to get used to that when they're around me, like new people. So this segue is perfectly into discord, because it's part of one of the issues I had and the anxieties I had about discord. But let's just talk about discord in general, because Discord is for some beginners, and some beginners, being me, it can be intimidating. So let me try to break down and explain in layman's terms what Discord is. So discord a platform where you can chat and do video calls and normal calls. It's not all that different from a Skype or a zoom or teams or even messenger nowadays. However, in discord, you can just communicate directly to your friends, or you can join different servers or make your own server, and the server is kind of like a group chat that can be more organized, and you can have like fun add ons. And I won't really be getting into the extra add ons of discord, like sound boards and bots. I would like to discover those along the way, but if you really want a deeper dive into it, let me know, and we can invite some gamers on to explain it, because I just I'm not well versed on all of that. So in trying to this, the to figure out how to describe discord in in a way that someone who's never used that type of platform could understand, I, at first, I was kind of trying to describe it like a big organized group chat, right? It's like a big group chat with sub chats and channels for video calls and audio calls, but I realized that for someone who's really never used that type of platform, that's just not giving a proper image, I just don't think that's helpful for someone who's never, really never heard of it. So hear me out. Imagine discord like a city like discord the app, imagine it is a city, and the different servers are houses and businesses in that city, because some companies will have, like, their own discord servers, and then some individuals will have their own discord servers. So Discord is a city, the servers are houses and businesses. So you can get invited into a server much like a house, or you can make your own and you can invite people inside. Now, the server being a house, in that house, there are different rooms, and you have access to those different rooms unless the owner of the house has set restrictions. So those rooms are what I mean when I say sub chats, every time you're in a house, you're in a specific room, whether you're in the entrance, the living room, the dining room, you're in a room in the house, some rooms are just chats, like in one of my servers, there's like a general chat. Then separately, we have a different room with another chat that's specifically for a game we play. So any conversations that's like in game, or about that game, or codes we have to share for that game are going to be in that chat. And in one of my old servers, we had another room or a separate chat called shit posting, and it was just for like memes and just like, that ridiculous nonsense stuff that we like sending each other, but that just clutters a chat, and that, like, makes you lose parts of conversations because we're cluttering it with shit, like with memes. So we would just have a separate category, a separate room for that to like, keep it all organized and be able to, like better, find what we need to find. And then some rooms in the house the server are voice channels or video like you can share your screen. You can share your webcam in those channels. When it comes to the voice channels, there can be many of them, just like many rooms. But I feel like a lot of people, when it comes to discord and gaming, and when you're not in that world, sometimes you wonder why they need to be on a voice channel all the time, like, why did they need to be on a call and talking directly to their friends while they're playing? And I mean, we could go in depth. I mean, we won't have the time in this episode, but there's a lot of games that like it's necessary, or at least really, really helpful, to just be able to communicate directly with your friends. Just imagine a board game where it's a team effort, and not being able to communicate with your friends, it's difficult, but if people wanted to dive deeper, I think there could be, like, a nice, cool round table discussion about the need to discuss like well, the need to be directly talking to each other in game, and what interesting challenges it could bring to not have access to that, I don't know. Food for Thought. I'll think about it. So for many beginners, being introduced to gaming by someone often means joining a server that their friend or partner or whatever is already in. And yeah, it can be intimidating. Joining a group that has, like, its pre existing dynamics, it's, it's, it's just, in general, something that can be stressful. And then if you add on to that, the fact that you're joining this group to do an activity that you know you're bad at, and everyone else does for fun. So it's not it's like two little stressful things. It's like being the only one that's going to be bad at something, or one of the few that's going to be bad at something, with a new group, and then just entering a group that has, like, pre existing dynamics, two stressful things, in my opinion, anyways. So, of course, intimidating. But listen, if you're a beginner, I'm telling you, it's worth it. You have to trust that the gamer introducing you to all of this is bringing you into a group that are beginner friendly. Your gamer won't just throw you into a group that is about, like, very serious playing and like, you know, get mad for people who make mistakes, like they won't do that, and they'll bring you to a group that is there to have fun. Gamers, you hear me right. Make sure you think about which friends are good to play with beginners and which friends are, you know, like not gonna be the ones to bring your beginners to. You all know that, like you have friends like that that are just gonna ruin the experience for the beginner. Be smart about who you introduce your beginners to, but beginners, fellow noobs, there are many benefits to joining the discord, if anything, it helps introduce you to the sense of community that gaming can bring. And I think that's something that's like, often neglected, like people don't game, forget about how much community people get from gaming. And that's like, a great way to step into your gamers world, like, if you're making that effort, it's just such a great way to just get to know the world and just really understand more the dynamics and and what's really going on, why they're always talking to their computer well, to their friends on their computer. But you know what I mean? And to be honest, I think an argument can be made that you don't truly know what gaming with your gamer is like until you've gamed with his friends. I mean, unless he plays, like, exclusively solo, solo games. But typically they're gaming with people and like, that's when you get to really see what it's like to game with your partner or your gamer, you know, versus when they're just gaming one on one with you, because they're, you know, I don't know about you, but like, I know that, like, when I started dating a guy, I noticed their vocabulary changes, like, because I say cutesy stuff, like, I use cutesy vocabulary, all of a sudden the guy I'm dating is saying feet, sees instead of feet. And I'm like, No way this guy was saying feet. These when he was single, but now all of a sudden, he's like, oh, you know, pizzas. So you know, if you're gaming just one on one with your gamer, especially if it's a partner, it's not the same as discovering what it's like with their friends. Give it a try. I'm just you know, think about it. Another way discord could be helpful is, okay, let's be honest, your gamer is sweet and patient and introducing you to gaming, but he doesn't necessarily explain things in the way that works for your brain. So if you're on Discord with some nice people, they'll have different perspectives. I mean, there's been many times where I was on Discord and playing a game with my partner or my gamer and their friends and the other people online, like the people, the friends that other gamers on Discord, are giving me tips and advice and they're helping me through something, and the way they're explaining, it just really works for my brain. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't think that my partner or my gamer would have had those that like way of explaining, because everybody like learns differently. Everybody explains differently. But also, I think there's something to say about the fact that the people on Discord that are trying to help you, they're limited by the fact that it's audio only most of the time, and that forces you to have to explain in a different way, whereas your gamer helping you next to you is going to be like pointing at the screen and like, maybe helping you move the mouse or stuff like this, or clicking for you, like by habit, you know, but the people across the screen on Discord can only, like describe to you with their words what to do or with their like character on the screen, and that forces them to explain differently than they might if they were in person. And I think that's helpful too. There are probably more benefits to discord that I'm not mentioning it. It's just really worth a try. But like I said, I'll be the first to admit that it does take a little courage. Okay, so now, beginners, you're convinced. I have convinced you you will give discord a try. So what I really want to talk about when it comes to Discord is how much it helps create that sense of community that I was talking about earlier. So most gamers I know talk to their friends way more often than I do the gamers that I've dated in my life. Game daily, if not daily, at least weekly. So speaking to your friends, like daily or weekly, the same friends, that is like a good frequency of like, speaking to your friends, I'm like, I know some people will have, like, their best friend that they talk to daily, but like a group of like five people who speak daily, unless it's one of those big group friend chat, like words, those group chats like a friends, but even at that, you always have that ghost friend who never talks. Never talks blah blah. But then when they're gaming, they're like, let's say, five people logging on and talking once a day or once a week. It it's a lot. I mean, I have friends I talk to once a week. I'm not trying to say that. I'm like a hermit, but I don't know it. These are important people. If you're talking to them that frequently, and when you think about it, it's not just a like, it's not just the frequency of them talking. It's the fact that they're basically doing team building exercises every day, or once a week, or however frequently they're playing like think about at work, like business, team building exercises. I don't know, different times summer camp sometimes had those exercises. And it's about, like, often, like playing sports together and different, like teamwork activities with, like, a little extra challenge to it. If you think about it, that's what they're doing. They're regularly doing team building exercises with the same friends, and I don't know like that forms a bond, whether you like it or not, and whether you think the gaming is valid or the relationship is valid because it's online, there's a bond being formed there. It's like undeniable, but really, having known and dated so many gamers, I feel like at the at the start, when you first get to know them, a lot of times, they come across as introverts, but then living with them, you realize, no wait, these guys are definitely way more extroverted than Me. And people seem to think I'm extroverted because there's not that many people in my life that I want to talk to every day, and I just don't feel like I have the energy for that. I think we talked about introverted and extroverted in another episode, but like the quick and easy version of it, is, if you recharge your energy when you're socializing with people, then you're extroverted and you if you recharge your energy when you're alone, then you're introverted. Like, this is really, really simplified. But like, for a lot of these guys that I know, like the whole daily routine of gaming and playing with their friends is they're like, decompression, recharging for the day. And for a lot of them, it is. Is also a social event. It's not solo. Like many people do, play a lot of solo games. I don't want to deny that, but for a lot of people, it's a social thing too. And I think some people don't realize that extroverted. It's expanding now with with all these different ways of being too able to like, communicate and socialize. I think, I think that for me, that the vision of what an extrovert is has really changed ever since I've started interacting way more with gamers. So I've been talking a lot about the friendships that are formed between these people that often meet online. And even in the Reddit episode that we did recently, we had a partner of a gamer who was like, denying the validity of those friendships and of those conversations that their gamer was having with the people their friends online. And I think an argument can be made that they might have, like, stronger or more intense friendships than you realize, because think about, like, the stereotype of of like, guys watching sports and yelling at the TV, right? Gaming is it's pretty much the same thing. Like, it's it gets heated, and there's arguments and and people feel strong emotions. Like, think about the dude yelling at the TV, he's not even playing, and he's feeling those emotions. Imagine if he was playing these arguments, that they're having, that there's a lot of conflict and conflict resolution and hard conversations, and that's a muscle that people practice. And I think that like friendships that go through those ups and downs, and that power through them, that like have these arguments and these heated moments, and succeed at powering through them, are actually quite strong friendships, if you ask me, and obviously, like, not all gamers are yelling while gaming, and, like, being aggressive. I don't want to paint that image of gamers, but I'm not going to deny that it gets intense. Even I have strong emotions sometimes, and I'm like, Whoa. I can't believe I felt that strongly. I mean, do you ever see a calm, introverted looking gamer dude dating a loud, hot headed person? Chances are that guy has friends he has been gaming with for years that have frequent emotional outbursts, and people are wondering, oh, how can he handle such a loud, hot headed person. His bros are like that too. He handles them daily or weekly or whatever, you know, okay, yes, I've obviously been several times the loud hot headed person dating the calm looking gamer dude. And even as the hot headed, you know, big reactor, I've always wondered, like, Can he really handle this? He's so calm, like, I'm so chaotic, it's gonna be crazy for him. But then I meet his friends, and I meet the guys they're gaming with, and you're like, Oh, okay. He handles this type of, like, hot headed, big reactions all the time. It's no big deal. He has practice. He's a gamer. And speaking of discord and relationships, I do think that discord can bring some challenges to relationships. Like, out of discord, yes, there can be heated conversations, and the relationships within the friends online on the servers can also, like, go through challenges, just like any relationship can. But I think discord, in itself, with relationships out of discord, can bring some challenges. And I think gamers you, if you can be honest for a second, I think some of you, Discord does a bit have a bit of a hold on you, right? I know many people that on their days that are free. Let's say they don't have to get up and go to work or whatever. They enter a Discord server as soon as they wake up. And I think the mentality there is that, like they just want to know when someone logs in that way, they can be available to play when someone's there, and then they'll do the rest of their tasks or whatever around that, and that doesn't necessarily always happen. I think some people can benefit from having a bit more structure around that, of not making yourself available on Discord until you're actually available to game like you've done all the things you need to do with your day, and knowing that someone logging on to discord. If you see that happen, it will maybe distract you, and you might end up, you know, you don't know how long, because sometimes you're like, Oh, I'll wait for someone to log on, play a game, and then I'll go back to my chores. But then halfway through your game, two other people log on, they want to play a game after that, and then your hours in, and I think that does impact people's lives. It does impact like a household and relationships sometimes. So the gamers that I have met in my life, I think they find most success in their overall life when they do create that structure, for example, telling yourself that you log on. Once you did a certain number of tasks or tours or like scheduling your gaming in advance, which many people do they schedule in advance? Hey, tomorrow at six, are you free? I want to game. I think it's important to acknowledge that it's a totally normal part of the human experience to have a hard time controlling ourselves while doing our favorite hobbies, and it's also an important part of growth and growing up, to learn to pace ourselves with these hobbies and learn to prioritize. So scheduling time to play with your friends is not foreign to most gamers. I think maybe some people might have FOMO like that, fear of missing out, that if they don't log on, they're going to miss some gaming with some cool people, and you know, then they'll hear about it and blah, blah. But I think a complaint that we hear a lot about gaming from, like non gamers or people in relationships or living with gamers, is issues having to do with contribution to the household and scheduling forces you to be honest with yourself of how much time you actually have in your day to allocate to gaming if you aren't ready, necessarily, to take that step to like scheduling things directly with people you're nervous, or whatever other great ways would be to like write directly in the chat. Hey, I won't be able to log on before this time. Is anyone planning on being online at that time, etc. But I think in general, when it comes to structure, setting yourself goals of things you want to achieve before you start gaming, and being realistic about your contributions to your household are going to make a big difference, versus just logging on to discord as soon as your day starts, and just letting things happen on their own when I think about managing household relationships and discord. I think about a particular friend, so I talked about among us and the group that I play with in the previous episode. So one of the friends in that group, and everyone, if anyone in that group is listening to this podcast, they will know who I'm talking about, because he's the only one who does this, and it's the sweetest thing he will like, eventually in the night, because we end up playing up later at night, we'll say, be right back, guys. I'm gonna go tuck my girlfriend into bed. It is the sweetest thing. And every time I'm like, wow. Like, it's such a simple thing, because if you think about it, gamers, if you can tell your buddies, be right back, I gotta go take a shit, and they wait for you, which, from my experience, they seem to wait. It's super normal, right? Everybody understands you gotta go to the washroom. BRB, we're gonna wait to start the game, or whatever. Then they can wait. When you say, be right back. I gotta tuck my girlfriend in to bed. Or sometimes he says, Be right back. I gotta go. I'm gonna go draw my girlfriend a bath. Takes two like, it takes a few minutes to draw your girlfriend a bath. Everybody can go grab a snack, go smoke, whatever. There's always a natural break. But like, he's taking the time. Say, be right back. I'm gonna go take care of my partner. If your friends can wait for you to go take a dump, if your friends can wait for you to go smoke your cigarette, then yeah, they can wait for you to prioritize your relationship. Like, think about it. Other gamers, if you're thinking about like, not wanting to be patient about these things your buddy, if he's depressed because he got dumped, he's not gonna be playing good. His like relationship health contributes to him being a better player. The happier he is, the better he will play. That's just in general, like any sports when it comes to eSports or other sports, like your mental health will affect your game. So there's no reason for your buddies to be like, annoyed or impatient about that. And okay, maybe sometimes, like, this is not this does not happen in my group, but other groups, like, I'm a manual laborer, I know that some guys are going to make comments about being whipped or whatever. Who cares? There's so many comebacks to a guy telling you you're whipped. Just take care of your relationships. It will make a world of a difference. And in my group, no one complains. I don't think I've ever heard anyone even sigh or puff at the idea that we had to wait for him again. We've waited for guys to go smoke a cigarette. We are very happy to wait. I think in general, most of us just have respect for the maturity that he has of taking care of his relationship. And I just think it's inspiring, honestly. So I think a lot of these tensions between gamers and non gamers can be resolved by, like, simple little actions, good communication, and just like, you know, figuring out what your priorities really are, because if your if your relationship is not the priority, and you realize that, like gaming is more important to you than your relationship, then, then that is valid data about your relationship that you have to acknowledge. Now, another interesting phenomenon that happens with discord. And this is the last thing then the episode will be over, because I think we've gone on enough is the fact that you meet people through their voice first. And this, for me, was a really interesting experience, because I've never been someone who like, Facebook stalks people, or like, you know, social media, deep dives into people. I've had situations where people updated. Kind of find it weird that I didn't deep dive into their online life. I just don't have the time for that, and I just It doesn't give me the image that I need. So if I'm not doing it for relationships and friendships, I'm not doing it for people that I've met online and that I'm gaming with, like it's just I don't it's not my thing, even though I know it's really common, it's just not my thing. And so these people that I was gaming with, I was added to the discord, which often on Discord people have, like, fun different like profile pictures is it's very rarely a picture of the person. I don't think I know any of my friends that their profile picture on Discord is themselves. And then on Messenger, we had a group chat, but the pictures in the group chat are so teeny, tiny, and we have all bunch of silly nicknames. It's not the same name. It's either their real name or a silly nickname that we put but it's not their their gamer tag, whereas on Discord, it's their gamer tag. So you know, so there was just no pictures for me to associate to people's voices and gamer tags, and I just didn't put the effort. So eventually, along the way, sometimes people would send a picture of someone at work or or I would get a recommendation of someone to add on social media, and realize, Wait, that's that person. And I think it happened like three, four times with with just my group on among us, of the people that I hadn't met yet to be like, that's what they look like, what and it was never what I imagined. I don't know it was the first time that that happened to me, where I just met someone through voice only and not realized what they look like, and then realize what they look like and then meet them in person, some of them, some of them. I haven't met in person yet, and I don't know it's fun. I know that like online friendships is not new anymore, and this is common to people to like meet online and then meet in person and stuff like that. But I think most people put more effort to finding out what people look like, and because I didn't, and I got to, like, know, like, for months, I was talking to these people once or twice a week. For months, I didn't think about going to see what they looked like. And I don't know I thought it was so fun. It was a cool thing of realizing what how my brain fills the blanks and and then comparing that to reality. I had fun with it. So in the end, it took me years to get comfortable being on Discord with people, and I think it took me years and the right group and practice. But now I'm just, I like it, I I wish I had a server of my own. Should getting gamers get a discord? Oh, my God. The thing is, I don't know, like what I would really do with that, because I know that a lot of podcasts and different like content creators have discord channels. But then, if I make a discord channel, does that mean that I'm necessarily like, does that mean I'm engaging myself to game with people? Because I don't game all that much, and the more I work on the podcast, the less time I have to game. I don't know, and even among us, we haven't been gaming like we haven't played in a while. Now. Let me know if you guys are interested in creating a getting gamers Discord server. I am open to gaming sometimes with people. I just want to engage myself to gaming regularly, because I can't commit to that right now. And if you are in discord servers for like, different content creators or different podcasts or whatever, how does that work? What am I supposed to like? Is it just there so that we can all talk? Or am I supposed to do something interesting with it? I guess I have to have to really deep dive into that. I need, I need to make money so I can hire people. This is too much work. Okay, so let me know. Write in, write to us on social media, getting gamers.com, AD, getting gamers, etc, etc. Oh, my God, I forgot. I want to plug someone. Yes. In the meantime, while we are waiting to get sponsors. Let me plug someone in my life. So today, I am plugging me, Vanya. She is a fitness trainer, fitness coach in Montreal. She is so good. I have been following her fitness journey online for a long, long time. And now she has adventured herself into personal training. And I know so many people who actually go see her like all stages of life. If you're a beginner or you're trying to get back into going to the gym, if you're you know, early 20s or in your 60s, it doesn't matter. She takes everyone she's so positive, and she just shines bright. I love her energy, and she's a great coach, like I know people who go to her consistently. So before I forget, I want to make sure I don't forget the social media is on the website. So the website is me, Vanya, henry.com, so I'm going to spell it, M, I V, A n, i A, H, E, N, R, y.com, it's obviously going to be in the description, as always, and her Instagram is Miva moves so m, I V, A, M, O, V, E, S, Miva moves on Instagram. Go check her out. Go send her some love, follow her, like her posts and all that jazz to help boost the algorithms. And if you're in the among area and you want training, definitely check her website. Schedule a training with her. It's worth it. I think you'll find that she's a really great coach. So I think that's all for today. So tune in in two weeks on Tuesday and Gigi, our podcast. Art was made by the wonderful Arielle, who can be found on Instagram at profit opossum. And our intro natural music was made by David theski from thespian studio. Studio

Unknown: 31:50

job's done.