

Discord was an app that enabled real-time voice and text chatting, so friends could team up to conquer an obstacle, or just chat while exploring a game world. When Discord was initially released in 2015, many video games did not provide players with live voice chat to talk to one another while playing the game – or required them to pay premium prices to do so. But the small-group niche community is making a comeback with adults, and with kids and teens. This allows social media sites to suggest new spaces users might join, whether it’s a local neighborhood discussion or a group with the same hobby, and sell specifically targeted advertising.


Since the early 2000s, mass-appeal social media platforms have collected these small spaces into bigger ones, letting people find their own little corners of the internet, but only with interconnections to others.
