This Week in Discord

For those who don't know: Discord is the texting platform of Gen Z. Features like integrated bots, voice and video calls, personalized emojis and flexibility of text channels make its conversations extremely customizable. 

There are three types of interactions.

Individual DM: a private conversation with just one person

Group DM: a private conversation with multiple people, but with less customizability/complexity than a server

Server: a group with multiple people with nuanced controls like permissions to perform certain actions, etc.

I will be highlighting key interactions in each of these types from this week.

Individual: YMCA guy

For a student council project a few months ago, I needed bikes. I heard from community members that there's an annual YMCA Dump and Run fundraiser where people sell things like used furniture, clothes, and bikes. I volunteer so I can go to the volunteer presale and get access to bikes earlier. There, I meet fellow volunteer, a college student who happens to work at the Campus Bike Center. We exchange contact information, I go home.

At home, I quickly realize that the "college student" is actually a high school senior, the driest texter I've ever met, and someone who's asked me on a date. Upon further inspection, my 6th sense is telling me he's got an asian fetish too.

Well shit.

After successfully initiating operation "ghost YMCA guy," I think I'm safe. And I am.

Until a month later, when him and his random-old-white-guy-in-a-baseball-cap profile picture shoot me the following:

"How busy are you these days?

I've got college essays due tomorrow, but maybe this weekend we could try to hang out?"

Individual portion: 0/10 points

Group: a Jr/Sr study group with 5 people

This is the group with which I study at 3AM the day before major deadlines. The college app seniors and eyebags juniors make a wonderful team of grinding out assignments like a little melting pot of depressed, panicked productivity. This also means that the groupchat is a wonderful breeding ground for out-of-pocket early in the AMs conversations.

One of our tamer conversations this week was about skincare routines. Apparently Anuprova likes Aveeno (alliteration aplenty)

Most of them, though, I can't disclose for legal reasons. Let your imagination run wild.

Group portion: 10/10 points

Server: a friend server with 6 people; 4 people with full permissions

This one's a little more wholesome than the last few. A little more ironic, too, since the conversation was about using Discord less.

I texted about during my late nights a couple times too many, or about how I was procrastinating my assignments a tad more than last year. I was worried about it, sure, and even had a couple conversations before this trying to evaluate what was different about this semester to mildly derail it. But I wouldn't have changed much without project "Make Jojo Sleep."

After my first PE class, I find myself looking at a worried friend. She explains that from my Discord messages (and more importantly, my timestamps), my lifestyle is worrisome. I hear her out, and then reflect on my learning and survival systems for the rest of the day. Later that evening, at the end of a 1127 word conversation on Discord, we agree to stop texting as a whole until 7PM each school night. The whole server needs to follow the "embargo" or suffer public humiliation in the form of our :angery: emoji.

The whole thing made me realize how important our little Discord server is to me. I think something about the dark background of Discord makes us all open up more than the blinding whites of GroupMe or Messages do. And when I text, people are actually watching and listening, and they'll have a difficult conversation to make sure I don't fail school. Those are good friends using a good text service. 

Guess who got 10 and 9 hours of sleep the two days after?

Server portion: 10/10 points

Overall: 20/30 points, D+