When I joined Steemit I was forced to join Discord almost right away. And it scared the living daylights out of me. It threw me off, because it was full of information and people chatting 24/7. Chats about cripto, schools, tips, chats bout' this, bots, commands and so on. It was overwhelming.

However, the same Discord community made me understand Steemit. From participating as mod in large communities, to taking a curator role in smaller ones, I feel like Discord has the power to really make the Steemit experience a lot better.

My pieces of advice for those wanting to join any Discord as a newbie in Steemit:

• Start small: Join smaller communities and then grow upward. One way to know about a large or small community: their reputation number (right next to their username). The larger the number, the more likely that said community is big -and more intimidating-.
• Learn to mute things: one of the most exasperating things about Discord is the constant alerts. Learn to disable that, if you're anxious, this will calm you down as the alerts will be popping up almost non-stop if you don't program it otherwise.
• Be yourself: I've seen so many people turn themselves into something they're not. Be yourself, regardless of how you may feel, there's a spot for everyone. And I mean it, Discord is open to many roles that you can play with.
• Large communities? Get 1 on 1: sounds funny but it's true. Try to chat with one or two users at a time, maybe in private. That will help you get comfortable with the hub-hub of Discord, where a chat can have over 20 people chatting non-stop at the same time.
• Participate in Podcasts regularly: these are a fantastic tool to know the communities, and to add experience to your skills. Join an online school for a variety of subjects, listen to a debate, sing karaoke, or something else entirely, just take your pick. These are amazing ways to humanize otherwise plain chats.
• Don't be intimidated by established rapport: if you're new, established digital friendships and the like might intimidate you. Camaraderie, jokes and the like are what people do in most of Discord's chats. You can join them asking, and participating positively in those chats. Their friendship doesn't make you an outsider, it makes you a new participant, entitled to respect and camaraderie as much as other members of the chat.
• Limit your time in it: Discord can be addictive at first. As you try to understand it, it puts it's little hands over yours and it turns into a very Anabelle-esque experience. Give yourself an standard time on Discord, then adapt it to your life outside of Steemit. That way you're balanced and happy with the results of your chat experience.

These are my bits of advice as far as Discord goes. Thank you for this post! I'm really happy that I'm not the only crazy person trying to understand this interesting platform. And yes, us crazy people are going to rule the world one day, as in the future the crazies resit mind control and all... No, kidding, but yes, Discord is overwhelming. Yet once you know it, life it's back where it should be.

-A.