Has Discord Gotten Worse in the Past Few Years?

[CrispySeaBreeze]

When I was a teenager in the late 2010s, I was super active on Discord, and had no trouble talking to people in most of the servers I joined. From around 2020 to now, it's been harder to find friendly servers. Many people just want to talk to those who are already their friends and ignore new members, just saying "welcome" and carrying on talking to someone else. Or, people will be polite, but rarely any discussion happens and most of the chat is people just saying hello and good morning, every day.
Originally I thought it was because I turned 18, had outgrown servers with mainly teens and joined 18+ servers, and that adults make a more boring crowd to chat with. Even if that were the case, I don't want to engage with annoying teens in all-ages servers.
Basically, I can't tell if it's gotten harder to find fun people/friends on Discord because of there being less friendly and fun people on Discord, or because of something to do with me becoming an adult around that time and my tastes and standards changing. As of writing this, I'm considering the latter being most likely, but definitely not entirely the culprit.
Have any of you that are active on Discord noticed something similar? Additionally, I'd appreciate it if you could link some servers you've personally enjoyed the communities in! I have a variety of interests and I'd love to make friends again! 

[Magic16]

Try other servers, some servers are kinda eh, others are kinda cool, it's really a numbers game.

[infernal.serval]

In my personal experience I've also felt like I was having a harder and harder time finding friends and solid servers on Discord, but I think it's less of a Discord-specific thing and more of an internet thing in general. I feel like Discord starting to suck for me coincided with other platforms starting to suck for me, like Tumblr. In some ways I'm sure its an age thing in my case-- I don't feel the need to use the internet for community in the same way I did as a queer and trans teen with no irl queer friends-- but I think people are becoming more burnt out and jaded by the internet in more popular online spaces. Around six months ago I pruned my Discord and now am only in Discord servers and chats from local groups/clubs with people that I see irl at least every so often. It's started to be a lot more fun again, and it feels much more relaxed and slow-paced. I think in general people feel more guarded with how comfortable they feel expressing themselves online because most things are fairly easily accessible to any random person that could stumble in with no context.

[Tiffany]

I think that my experience is different because I am not super active on Discord, the ones I have stayed apart of are my interest, the only reason I am not more active on them is I don't like the instant part of it chatting tbh.

[Watanabe_1994]

I haven't used discord since I was 16 (2021), I stopped using it because I started to distance myself from allot of my "friends" (I wouldn't really call them that) and I had absolutely no use for it. I just use internet forums and email now. I remember discord being bad even back then both its users and its employees are culturally and mentally brainrotted, heard gotten its worse now.

[lakes]

I just stay in a few servers with friends I've known for years and don't join any new ones. So I won't know. But I can tell you that my experience joining new servers sucked unless I was invited by someone I was mutuals with on social media or I was invited by someone in another server I'm in.
I do wanna get out more. So I don't have to rely as much on the internet, but every time I try, I feel like I take 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

[Magic16]

I think that my experience is different because I am not super active on Discord, the ones I have stayed apart of are my interest, the only reason I am not more active on them is I don't like the instant part of it chatting tbh.

That's interesting, because that's my favorite part of Discord. There's no algorithms, just a pure focus on "here right now".

It's basically modern AOL chat mixed with web surfing, anything can happen, anything goes.

[Tiffany]

That's interesting, because that's my favorite part of Discord. There's no algorithms, just a pure focus on "here right now".

It's basically modern AOL chat mixed with web surfing, anything can happen, anything goes.

I was always more into forums and not instant messaging to be honest, so because discord gives AOL/Yahoo instant messenger/chat vibes is why I don't love it. I like how in forums you can come and go and the conversation doesn't pass you by, but it does in chats like discord.

[alienmothership]

tl:dr: it depends on the server, and the wide age range of users, and the average age of users in a particular server.

i used to live in discord vc when i was in my late teens and early 20s, and was active in dozens of servers.
 
as ive gotten older, i have less and less time to spend on discord. ive also met more people irl, so im not getting 90% of my human interaction from discord anymore. but its hard to justify arguing about random things for hours with random people, especially when its political crap. its not worth it to argue with reactionaries.

i think the discord userbase has aged a bit, sure there are lots of the 13-17 still joining the platform, but now you have users in their 20s and 30s, and the older crowd is less likely to interact with the younger users.

as ive grown older, ive also avoided larger servers or servers catering to a younger userbase. im now mostly in a handful of smaller servers and very rarely even look at some of the larger servers im still in.

i run a small server, many of the people there i know irl. the server is 18+ other than a few exceptions for people i know irl who are almost 18...

a excelent example of why im wary of the younger users...., i joined a local lgbtq+ server a year or 2 ago, and noped my way out of there in a few hours, when i realized that the likelihood that a minor might post something sexual, text or image, was very high, just by seeing what and how users where talking about and DMing each other.

i dont need that noise, i dont want anything to do with that.

in addition, i was in a local server that wasnt explicitly 18+ but the users where almost exclusively 18+. we where used to making jokes and using dark humour and roasting each other. we had new users join, participate, then one particular user blew up at me and accused me of being a pedophile for trying to "sexualize a minor" because said user complained about not bushing their teeth and then their gums would bleed, and i said their teeth would fall out and they would "look like the toothless hookers downtown"


this has only re-enforced in my mind that its prudent to avoid minors online entirely, as they will do whatever they want without regard to anyone else, they will act 18 or play the minor card when it suites them. ie they are dangerous to me, as an adult.

[lakes]

in addition, i was in a local server that wasnt explicitly 18+ but the users where almost exclusively 18+. we where used to making jokes and using dark humour and roasting each other. we had new users join, participate, then one particular user blew up at me and accused me of being a pedophile for trying to "sexualize a minor" because said user complained about not bushing their teeth and then their gums would bleed, and i said their teeth would fall out and they would "look like the toothless hookers downtown"

Yeah, I won't say that that was pedophilliac, but I think saying that is kinda unintentionally mean to say to a kid struggling to take basic care of themself. That said, I don't like being in servers filled with teens because it's uncomfortable talking to them online and I never know how to respond to kids being immature. I don't wanna be too harsh, but when I don't say anything, it feels like I'm letting them away with stuff they shouldn't be.

[alienmothership]

Yeah, I won't say that that was pedophilliac, but I think saying that is kinda unintentionally mean to say to a kid struggling to take basic care of themself.

i understand your perspective, and while i do agree that that type of humour generally may not be very kind, the server culture was of us using that type of crude humour to each other on a regular basis.

said user was a regular participant and on the regular said and posted worse things.

i just really dont appreciate that minors online can and will act like adults when it suites them, and then will pull the minor card when it suits them. they can say whatever they want to whomever they want but woe be anyone who says anything to them that they dont like.

we cant have it both ways. imo either we need segregation between adults and children (not ideal for a number of reasons), or there has to be some precedent where if your voluntarily choosing to participate in spaces with adults, you cant alternate between wanting to be treated as an adult 1 second, than a child the next second, whenever it suites you.

[lakes]

i understand your perspective, and while i do agree that that type of humour generally may not be very kind, the server culture was of us using that type of crude humour to each other on a regular basis.

said user was a regular participant and on the regular said and posted worse things.

yeah, i guess i didnt know the culture there

i just really dont appreciate that minors online can and will act like adults when it suites them, and then will pull the minor card when it suits them. they can say whatever they want to whomever they want but woe be anyone who says anything to them that they dont like.

we cant have it both ways. imo either we need segregation between adults and children (not ideal for a number of reasons), or there has to be some precedent where if your voluntarily choosing to participate in spaces with adults, you cant alternate between wanting to be treated as an adult 1 second, than a child the next second, whenever it suites you.

yeah, i think part of it is because of kids and teens (especially teens) internalizing the contradictory way we as a society treat them, but not having the necessary maturity to know what being an adult or acting like one would actually entail.

[ttaxyy]

I've been using discord for around 9 years, and to be honest, I don't think it's a place to make new friends, unless you're really lucky. It's useful to keep in touch with people you're already friends with, but entering a new server is kind of a gamble. Will it be a tight-knit community where people ignore newbies? Will it be inactive except for that one channel about discussing a super specific thing? 80% of the servers I join, I never touch again after the first day.
I'm not sure if this is a new issue, I think that's just how discord works.
Discord has gotten worse in other aspects, though. Like privacy and AI usage and stuff...