Discord — the one sacred communication platform for gamers, revered by millions, is all grown up now. From 2015 till now, it caught the attention of different breeds of people as well due to its powerful features.
Phasing into the mature years, Discord has announced to change the iconic name#4digits username pattern into Twitter, Instagram, and other social media alike. All of this will be implemented in the next username update.
Let’s rummage through the upcoming username update on Discord, shall we?
Discord Overhauls Username: What’s New?
As of now, create or change your Discord username to anything, I repeat anything you want without bumping into the “Username Already Taken” message. The 4 digits number after each name is the discriminator between two similar usernames.
For example, seekNdestroy#1205 and seekNdestroy#9964 are two distinct names, only the digits after the hashtag being the unique recognizer.
Now, this is going to be a matter of obsolescence, as Discord’s new username policy emerges. The forthcoming update will let users contour usernames with a combination of lowercase letters (a-z), special characters (underscore & period), and numbers (0-9). The Display Name, however, can be off-the-rack.
That means more than one user can have a common name as their Discord display name. Not to mention, your old username will automatically be set as your Display name without the end digits. For instance, the former username seekNdestroy#1205 will transform into seekNdestory as the new display name.
| Changes | Old Discord Username | Discord Username Update |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern | name#4digits, such as PhiBi#3254. | New names must be alphanumeric including Lowercase letters (a-z), numbers(0-5), and special characters (period, underscore) such as psycho.killer247 or psycho_killer247. |
| Customization | Modify the username whenever you want | Changeable, but not frequently. Could be after a specific interval such as 3 or 6 months. |
| Unique Identity | Confuse people easily due to similar first names. Only the numbers make the difference. | Every username will be different. |
| Display Name | Set anything but abide by community guidelines. | No unique name is required. |
New Username Policy Through Discord’s Lens
The Co-Founder of Discord Stanislav Vishnevskiy stated “The technical and product debt we incurred years ago caught up with us and small issues that seemed to impact a few people started affecting tens of millions of people” in his article. Obviously, he referred to the old username structure.
But why is he considering it a liability or “Debt” in his word?
According to Discord, 40% of users confuse usernames with the current naming scheme, as people don’t or can’t really remember the last 4 exclusive numbers.
Adding more to the injury, give or take 50% of friend requests go downhill owing to incorrect username search queries due to mismatched letter cases and wrong unique digit identifiers.
The result? Trouble finding friends.
At the same time, another issue that I experienced many times, is that Discord username is case-sensitive. For instance, to find your friend JoHn, type John, and discover yourself in oblivion!
That is a big inconvenience. So, Discord owns up to all these issues and barges in with a username update.
When It’s Time, How Do You Change Discord Username?
Forcing users to immediately change to a new name is technically challenging for Discord. So, the upcoming weeks are when the transition will commence, as reported by Discord. A notification from Discord will inform the users within the app. The whole process might take months to complete.
First in, first serve — is the approach Discord will undertake. This means users with older accounts will be given the opportunity to change their name before others to help keep the well-known usernames.
So when the in app-prompt comes up, here’s how to change your Discord username:
Desktop
- Click on the gear icon in the bottom left corner beside the Discord Display name to open User Settings.
- Press the Edit button for the USERNAME.
- Type a new name and provide the account password and click Done.
Android & iOS
- Tap on the hamburger menu in the top left corner. This will reveal the server list and some bottom navigation menus such as Friends, Search, Notifications, and User Profile.
- Tap on the profile picture in the bottom right.
- Navigate to Account > Username.
- Create a new username according to Discord’s guidelines in the next step.
Is Discord Shooting At Its Feet?
The denominator after the username is what kept Discord unique from other social media, which comes to an end with the new update. It goes without saying, Discord brings to the fore the new username practice.
But how does the community respond? Not exaggerating, but it’s anarchy!
Almost everyone despises the new changes in the Discord username. To paint a picture, a poll ran by @Is Discord Down on Twitter, where 87.8% votes out of 3937 went against Discord’s new naming policy. The same trend is seen on Reddit and Quora as well.
From pointing out how awful Discord’s decision is, to threatening Nitro subscription cancellation has become a common response.
Some of the outraged fans strongly exerted their frustration, accusing Discord of being another “Dumb” tech company that tries to sweeten the pot for investors and keep the VC money flowing!
Though, Discord’s answer is they have considered everything before taking the big decision. Redundant to say, in this write-up, I’ve already reported Discord’s narrative on this.
That said, fans all over the world pointed out a few areas of concern that may become problematic with the new username practice.
After careful consideration, below I’ve summarized the key points netizens made:
- Risk of more spam messages, friend requests, and infringement of privacy since it was required to know the #4digits identifier to find a user. Which is hard to guess. But now, people may subconsciously get tempted to use their username similar to other social platforms, which leads to revealing their identity easily.
- Discord will lose the unique quality of being a platform for gamers with Freedom of Anonymity.
- Discriminator after the Discord username is much cleaner looking than using a bunch of special characters or symbols in a name that looks ridiculous, such as slimeEater#4328 becoming xxxSlime_Eater_x.
- 1/9999 users can have a sought-after name since someone else might own the name already.
- Ditching case sensitivity would be a sensible action to make things better on Discord.
Currently, all the backlash does not blow wind in Discord’s sail. From being a superhero, they turned into a super villain in an instant, just like Homelander. 
So what do you think of Discord’s historical move to change the whole username structure? Yay! Or Nay? Let me know in the comments.
