Can someone explain to me what's good about these large discord servers? It's only useful when it's just >20 of irl and close friends.
Every single one I checked out was just full of terminally online, deeply unwell people that always wind up talking about the same things (porn, tranny porn, grooming, pedophilia and anime porn) regardless of the server's original subject matter.
As someone who doesn't regularly use Discord (or any social media or instant messaging app) I really enjoyed the Merchants' guild.
Granted, the general chat was caffeinated middle schoolers with smug anime faces or Sam Hyde avatars circle jerking the same things day in and day out. But that's how every Discord I've ever seen is. Well, that or dead. Comes with the territory and no one's forcing anyone to read #general.
If you sticked to the game-specific channels or the other medicated channels (Fitness, Vidya etc.) you could have perfectly reasonable conversations without the e-peen autism that accompanies sites like Reddit (karma), message boards (join date, post count) or most Discords (roles). The server was big enough for everyone to be effectively anonymous and equal with no special roles for anybody. Much like the way 4chan operates, those rare times when 4chan actually lives up to its potential. And with a similiar atmosphere to 4chan (or Kiwi Farms) in the sense that the only enforced rules were no spamming and no child porn. That's actually a rare thing to find these days, places with a sense of free speech where you can relax and don't have to worry about tranny pronouns or able-shaming accidentally.
Not to mention the paywall however small it might've been provided a barrier against the worst third worlders and pre-teens. You'd be amazed at the difference $1 a month makes in your audience. Especially on a site predominately used by children.
Most importantly however the Merchants' guild had #memes, which was all memes all day. Pretty good ones too. Are there better places for memes? Maybe, but I don't know of any. A lot of it was recycled 4chan content, but 4chan is like searching for gold in gigantic piles of shit. This was that same shit but reasonably boiled down and with all the fighting and autism removed (no text in #memes). I don't sit on the computer 24/7 nor do I want to. MG's #memes was always there one click away when I had a moment to relax with some funny pictures.
Where else is a man to go for memes? Twitter? Forget about the "hate speech" rules, I just don't want to see all the "recommended" posts that are somehow always about tranny communism or some other depressing e-drama shit. Nor do I want to maintain a "collection" of users to sub to. Reddit? Any sub larger than 100k is tranny communism or advertising, and like I said I don't want to sit on the computer all day so I can't be bothered to keep up with the lates up-and-coming hipster subs that still have some soul. Also the whole site layout lends itself to the desperate "internet point farming" culture where content is mainly posted by a small fraction of internet addicts trying to recreate the "success" of earlier posts they saw. Instagram? No thank you. Same as Twitter but somehow even more cancerous and designed for phoneposters by phoneposters. What else is there? I don't know, I'm old.
I guess the answer lies in Seth's post. Go outside. Memes are fun and all, but if I have to wade through the corporate faggotry and all the other mind poison filling the internet these days to acquire them chances are I'll just feel worse after what was supposed to be relaxing entertainment. The Merchants' Guild filled a niche and did a great job at it, but these things are rarely made to last. You simply can't build your community around a sentiment of "no rules" and expect it to live forever. Not that I would discourage anyone from trying, but that sense of temporality and "getting away with it" while skirting the rules of the platform was always a part of the excitement I suppose.