GameStop's new Discord server is a disaster (for now)

This story about building communities, boiled down, in 1:55 minutes.

What's the fuss?

Long-standing video game retailer GameStop (or EB Games in Canada) just launched their own Discord server to strengthen their community. The initial few hours have been chaotic to say the least.

The situation

Discord is a free group-chatting platform, originally built for gamers, where any community can congregate over the Internet (think of it as an advanced chat room). 

• Allowing anyone to easily create their own online communities, aka "servers", has caused the rapid growth of the service with over 140 million monthly active users. 
• Now, Discord can add the game retailer GameStop to that user count.

GameStop announced the launch of their own Discord server via Twitter, quickly racking up almost 6,000 members. 

• Although GameStop touted their server as a place to connect with other obsessed gamers and to find others to play with, that's not what members have used it for so far.
• If you join today, you'll find a ton of memes, inane profanity, and unfounded stock advice instead.

Boiling it down

GameStop became a cultural phenomenon early this year thanks to the Reddit-based investing community WallStreetBets. 

• Through rallying millions of retail investors to purchase GameStop shares, the stock price reached unprecedented heights resulting in hedge funds who heavily shorted the shares to collectively lose billions.
• Because of this ongoing incident, GameStop is now mostly known for making millionaires than it is for video games, which is why stock talk has taken over their Discord server.

To properly sustain online communities, you need moderators. 

• Moderators are individuals who will manage the daily ongoings of community activity and help enforce the rules when they become broken - ultimately keeping communities safe.
• The too-few number of GameStop's Discord moderators were likely not adequately equipped to handle such a rapid influx of new members, resulting in the lawlessness that plagues the server today.

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