The Future of Music Fandom Is on Discord | Pitchfork

Originally launched as a messaging app for gamers, the platform has become an intimate place for artists and fans to connect and build community. Can this fragile ecosystem last?

Save this story Save this story Several months into the pandemic, PC Music founder A. G. Cook was idling in rural Montana, conceptualizing the rollout for his first two proper solo albums, 7G and Apple . Live shows had petered out, so he wanted to orchestrate something “really intense and intricate online,” as he recalls. He plotted. He made some calls. Eventually, in August of 2020, he launched Apple Guild , a month-long alternate reality game in the chat app Discord. This byzantine simulation imagined the music industry as a medieval European merchant’s association—perhaps subliminally relat

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