MFAD Two Years In - Topic of the day 7/21/25
The discord is now two years old (or so), and certainly a number of things have changed in that time. How are we feelin about this place fellas/gals/non-binary pals? Do you still like discord as a vessel for fashion discussion and/or fashion advice? What is your personal favorite message ever sent here? Are you tired of meta posts? note: if you have any specific questions or issues about the discord, contact the mods by sending a DM to @Clark'sDesertBot š¬
157 Replies
im famous
discord is still better to me than reddit and I don't just say that as a salty ex reddit frequenter
evergreen content, as we've all found out dozens of times, is overrated
i use this 1000x more than i used the subreddit but i do think we could do a better job of indexing useful threads (cont below)
there are some things where we're like "damn, wish I had that link on tap and it wasn't just garbage/rotted"
alt. i wish people would search in discord the same way they were expected to on reddit
but also like half of the stuff we did have we decided eventually it was not good content anyways
people were expected to on reddit and never did either there
ah so nothing has changed
well then we are at 100% parity
correct
server is ok too many ppl chatting abt clothes tho
Honestly the past months I've spent on this discord have probably been the most focussed and impactful on my fashion journey in my entire life
I was always into fashion but being in this discord really helped me and it's an awesome place that I'm happy to spend my time
I browsed mfa back in the day but it never felt this good
i do think the talk shit to post fit pipeline is a lot more robust here
i also like that zach gave me a big bat i can swing at people who have bad opinions
The one thing I don't like is that MY FUCKING WALLET HURTS
I CAN'T KEEP SPENDING MONEY
it is much easier to target people directly on discord which is cool
feels more personal
frequented the reddit for many years and while it was fun to lurk in i appreciate the more communal nature of this place. I do miss some of the imgur inspo dumps that the mfa subreddit had in ~2022 but the discord space has done so much more for me in terms of personal growth, its nice to not just Be Looking At Pictures
#inspiration king
we are talking about ways to have bigger inspo threads though
this has been great for me because ppl will just tag me in good finds and i buy them which is so good because i wont secondhand shop or keep up with sales otherwise
especially for some of the more regular posters like zeo calla holf twiggy etc
No one tags me I can't help myself from looking
oh dw im in there
yea, zeoās business casual post there recently was some king shit, i really appreciate digesting the bigger and more considered inspo dumps
like holf and twiggy and deltic each post consistent enough inspo that it makes sense to collate all their stuff into the same place
it was a lot easier to hold onto links for the imgur dumps
felt more static
Yea discord is so dogshit why can't I save posts
thatās sort of fair but you can copy discord links and save them somewhere
Like are you kidding me I can't bookmark shit
SLACK LETS ME BOOKMARK
you can it just takes an extra step you big baby
yea for sure im just a lazy sack
Hello I am the average user and I am stupid as fuck
im not saying inspo here is worse by any means
i found chuck's old guide to guides/inspo which helped inform a lot of how I make discord inspo albums.
BUT
that said anything can be inspiring to anyone so adding something you deem valuable is worth it
Reddit
From the malefashionadvice community on Reddit: A Guide To: Guides
Explore this post and more from the malefashionadvice community
also the throttling of imgur has made it harder
big picture i enjoy mfad in general, and the discord as a more agile form of finding knowledge, feedback and connection. i think it's more useful given the state of fashion and fashion advice moving from super prescriptive to more ad-hoc
i certainly wouldn't be dressing as well or know as many wonderful people otherwise so thanks for continuing to have me lol
I donāt have a lot of big opinions on this space. Itās good. Talking to people here is good, posting and looking at fits is good, sharing my inspo is good.
I like looking at pictures and talking about said pictures and I can do that here. I also have someone to validate irresponsible financial decisions which works for me.
yeah, i wish there were a better way to just have, idk, aggregated fits of specific posters who constantly put out great looks
#waywt-highlights
iām talking inspo not fits
i get the idea but the idea of a "good fit" can be so subjective i think the added guardrails may be limiting. it's a little more work to say "find someone who inspires you then check their fits" but yields better outcomes
plus you're forced to see other and maybe question why they don't seem as good to you
and i think working out who would get posted there and why would be a nightmare
80% of fits from this server that are in my inspo album donāt make highlights so
vs just like,, 45 reacts as an arbitrary community threshold for highlights
45 sometimes
but yes
oh idk the number tbh
it depends on how much art is posting tbh
mine always get in sooooo
oh, yeah, i just find scrolling through search results annoying
ok bitch
iām kidding
but, yeah, choosing who gets a good fit album would be Fraught
i know iām teasing!!!
taps signi think an adjacent idea that might be cool is people talking through some of the choices they made in their fits
it happens in #waywt but usually through external prompting; this might be a chance for people to see some of the connections between a person and their fit or chosen aesthetic
/suggest
;)
id love to read more about people talking through and gassing up their own fits and decisions
i feel like more discussion of outfit choices would be nice, yeah. i feel weird asking like "what is good about this fit, i can see it's good but don't understand why" but i should... get over myself on that probably
I love discord. Way better than reddit
One negative though is that the instant feedback really reinforces you staying on the constantly copping stuff treadmill
!
can u say more on this
i do think #recent-purchases dopamine trap is real but i donāt think you need to abc to farm fire reacts in waywt
outfit repeating is still goated
I joined in like september 2023 so only a few months after the start
Didn't come from Reddit, just googled fashion discord, found a few servers and this one stuck with me
Started my fashion journey on here (and it's been fun to see things grow along with other ppl who started from that same point), I had basically 0 knowledge and barely any interest, I was really here just to make myself look better to others.
It slowly ended up becoming a hobby
Had a bit of a break after throwing a tantrum leaving the server and really got into it a lot more as I figured out my life and dropped out of college in late 2024
Read and watched a lot of stuff and got some friends into clothes as well,
Came back in march and been active since (and hopefully less ignorant than I was)
love u guys like frfr
and all of the cool ppl who left and can't read this, love you as well :nooooo:
I think i am a magpie and just easily slip in to like
Buying cool clothes feels good and so does my friends saying i look cool
Therefore i need to keep doing it
And its not always the healthiest or most responsible thing!
accurate
there's maybe a thought of "what's the point in posting the same thing repeatedly/posting without something to show" but there's no real rules to it so
oh yeah outfit repeating rips
my summer wardrobe is like
just the same shit over and over w slight variation and it rocks
I agree that fit repeating is the way the truth and the light but if you are in a spot where you want the dopamine kick of highlights it can be a bit habit forming
i suppose
pretty sure i've gotten highlights from unintentional repeats; the change in context (for me or for someone viewing) may be enough
the real fire react was inside you all along
discord sucks im closing mfad goodbye
!
burying #recent-purchases as far as it is helps imo
u can just hide the channel
not posting brands in waywt helps too
eta that is a top 5 if not higher culture change from reddit that i appreciate, both as someone who couldn't afford/fit into apc skinnies in 2010 and someone who wears a mix of "random goodwill find" and "archive cdg"
posting in my vet mints
I'm glad we went to war for the menthol flavor
Ik thats a discussion thats been had a few times, but 2 years later, waywt still tends to be a bit homogenous at times
A few things I've noticed:
Even though there wasnt much of it to start with, there's less fits that fit under the streetwear umbrella now
(while if you go out it's still the thing people wear the most)
Love the wave of 70s flares posters though :letsfuckinggo:
And also there's been a growing interest in more and more avant garde stuff with some of the server's main (younger :blushiedog: ) posters, which I fw
That's in WAYWT (and QnA and chat channels) as a whole though, funnily enough there's a good bit of variety in WAYWT highlights which shows people are interested in different styles, there just aren't that many daring to try them
At least ppl arent pinning the BB in QnA anymore
(maybe all we need is more zoomers š )
Iām shocked that this place is only two years old. Didnāt know that.
That means I joined like 4 months after it started?
yeah, though there was an established group and rules etc. from /r/malefashionadvice prior, to be clear
this is the post-reddit transformation
and that place had existed for over a decade
i appreciate that this space deals with problems swiftly. i've watched other servers die because mods/the community at large will let someone act out in wildly inappropriate ways that drive away once active users. i've only ever lurked on reddit because putting yourself out there is scary, and while it did take me a while to start actively engaging in this server i do so because i feel like it is a safe and creative space
posting fit hurts my brain but iāll make an effort for u
oh also positive subtle change is calling it MFAD and not male fashion advice anymore lmao
(unless I'm going crazy the server had its full name last year right?)
i think we did ye
in general i think it still skews menswear - masc - trad - ivy but i also donāt think that thatās inherently a bad thing AS LONG AS itās not at the expense of other stuff
this still isnāt the best place on the internet to get a prom dress recommendation but thatās more due to a lack of knowledge than anything
and having an identity or core means that, to some degree, it will attract other folks interested in that genre
appreciate it! i love killing
but we just had a bunch of rick posters join and the ones who are sticking around donāt seem to hate being here :)
(just fire reacting to it all I agree to it all, pretty much exactly how I see it :blushcatto: )
leaking mod chat just a bit
surprised we don't have a posts section for this sort of thing, or to mirror the substack guides. Seems like #fashion-discussion is partially used as that
Touched on above, one of the things that defines discord to me is that it rewards continuous active engagement more than Reddit, which can be a good and bad thing, especially when it comes to a consumptive hobby
I really like the culture of helping, which Iād imagine was the best piece of mfa on Reddit, though I didnāt go on there really
I do wish that there was less friction to ask people to critique your waywt, esp with styling suggestions gone.
I had this thought too. I don't know if I'm quite comfortable to put the (feedback appreciated) label on WAYWT posts, but I also would like to hear if anyone has cool ideas or directions that could add to the fit. I'm not necessarily seeking out the granualr feedback, but would still like to hear ideas - if that makes sense. The difference between the two is probably just a in-my-head thing at the end of the day
idk if a "takes feedback well" kinda user role would be useful for this scenario or if i should just pony up and tag the posts myself
we've kinda decided that a 'feedback welcome' role would probably not garner the same success that just saying 'feedback welcome' in your caption would
i donāt think thereās an icon that would effectively communicate that, yeah
we kind of have #fashion-guides but this is good feedback..
always feel free to dm @Clark'sDesertBot if you think a post should get highlighted for longer term retrieval or usefulness
I figured that, but maybe thats not a bad thing? āFeedback Welcomeā in caption (to me at least) reads more as: this fit needs something to me, any thoughts?
whereas a feedback greenlight role could read more as: if you have any cool ideas or observations that jump out, you are cool to share them with me
how about a big icon that says KICK ME
gang just open a q&a thread
sorry to be kind of a weenie but like
who is that one guy
I can't believe I'm saying this but
Just do exactly what Smiles does
I also think smiles has it right by putting it on all his posts
Yea
To that point, I think @Shrimp just had a really useful post in that QA to a high school student.
@braindrops and @Smiles are good models for this
bro is genuinely the feedback sourcing pioneer
absolutely fair, im just yapping
he invented the fit doctor thread
doc.., iām sick š¤š¼
you kinda just have to put in time cultivating the idea that you're always receptive to feedback bc this space for better or for worse will always err on the side of not giving someone feedback if they don't know that they want it
yeah part of me thinks making the act of welcoming feedback TOO easy could lead to feelings getting hurt but idk it might not be a problem
bc like i think it works for smiles all the time bc he has really thick skin for this sorta stuff
at its core this is a 'beginner' space so I think it's best to err on the side of being encouraging
Yea I'm ngl I asked for feedback and hurt my own feelings LMAO
your clothes are bad and you should send them to me does this help
ON IT BOSS
In that vein, is there a way to signal that language like ālevel upā is not all that useful. Iāve seen that a lot lately. Itās very looksmaxx adjacent.
what
i mean idk maybe iām just immensely privileged in that i donāt associate the two
i think as a community we're very anti that sort of rhetoric already
yeah i nuke looksmaxxers on sight
do you wanna see my k/d or
LMAO
i think a lot of question askers use that language but we cant rly stop them from doing that when every content creator does it.
we love telling ppl to not talk like that alr tho
we do get the occasional qna post w that language but itās also gamer chat like i donāt inherently assume itās incel coded
Haha, nah. Iāll take it at your word.
but when it smells even slightly of incel we send them off team rocket style into the sun
Wait until they find out progress isn't linear
iāve been here a few months, probably coming up to a year, but didnāt regularly post fits until recently. iāve found this to be a very supportive and helpful especially via QnA.
Iāve also found doing more regular WAYWTās has helped me to push past wearing the same thing for a few days at a time if I liked the look of it.
need a standard distribution meme where both tails are just wearing whatever you like
ya but i like the role idea too lol
but ya just put it on every post tbh
only real solution
i just always stick it on even if i know the fit is a banger
i support labeling on a post-by-post basis; sometimes you may just have a question on one specific fit but for the most part wanna turn looks and stunt pretty in #waywt
though i've double-posted in #questions-and-advice for visibility saje
anyway ive fought this war a million times and lost its doomed
at least your fits are better
ya its great
One must imagine smiles happy
well
i am happy
but i could be better
and i do appreciate the zero tolerance on unsolicited feedback
even if it leads to something positive the consistency is the most important thing. if someone wants to dress in a fit i think is mid who am I to stop them
sometimes you gotta post your mid fits without feedback just to build confidence posting fits
i was bricked up in ehf for the longest time
I'm so so so happy that we're free from the shackles of /r/all
At least people have to put in a nanogram of effort to find and join this space rather than an inspo album of white tee shirts getting some loser to post slurs on reddit
or worse, tell me they live in florida or texas
I like it here
I also appreciate how for a server this large, generally most of the toxic behavior is filtered out/ not tolerated
I like simply having a place to post fits. The exercise of taking the photo and sharing it has helped me improve how I dress. I need to add that I'm open to feedback more often on my posts
I find most of the people here to be kind and warm, even if I don't always understand or connect with some of the lore/history here
I appreciate the diversity of both people and styles here, but would love to see a lot more of both.
My only wish is for maybe a slight turn of the dial towards more earnest discussion/posting but that's just my own personal preference
do you have examples of other spaces where itās more the way you want
iām thinking of the other forums and discords i know and am having trouble
I definitely feel a lot more lost than I used to, though I'm not sure if that's the format or if it just coincided with fashion moving away from my own taste
one thing I do kinda miss about reddit is I don't know if people will ever really now get to see how many users and how many posts I destroyed
no one will ever be able to quantify the destruction anymore
Sorry, I'm assuming this is a reply to mine as it's directly above?
There are some mellow brand focused discords that I like the atmosphere of quite a bit. The members tend to skew a bit older probably and they are not open to the public so they just naturally will have different dynamics though. I don't have a history of being very active in internet fashion forums so I can't tell you much more.
I think in general, what can help skew towards more earnestness is two things.
One is discouraging blanket cynicism/negativity. Critical discussion of a brand/style/etc is good and healthy to the extent it is actually expanded upon. Reactionary "x is bad" can ice serious discussion and should be met with a push to expand on one's thoughts / opinions
The second is just being supportive of posters who are engaging earnestly, which is simple enough
I watched a good clip of ocean vuong recently talking about exactly this sort of topic (in the poetry field) - how cynicism is misinterpreted as intellectualism, and how young folks are afraid of seriously and earnestly trying for fear of the "cringe"
I say all of that with the disclaimer that I still like this space a lot and don't think it has a problem. Just expressing my own preference for tone of discussion
not a crit of you but side eyeing ocean vuong and the ultimate bad cringe of writing romantic stuff about jeffrey dahmer and then also talking about it at a book talk lol
i def like the vibe of this sub more than the reddit
This sub has so much variation in style here its very good
Only thing i wish is that there was more in terms of the fashion guides
the reddit def outperforms on that front
But being able to get on demand help and look back through convos is way easier here
Oh boy
Feedbackwelcome wise I think Iām gonna do an every so often dump of my last couple fits for feedback in qna- not a perfect substitute for in the moment feedback but still works ok plus lets people see trends and stuff
Letās see if Iāve posted 5 fits in 2025 to do this with lmaooo
speaking only as a vested party with no real agency, what kind of thing could be put in a guide that
- is large enough in scope that it can't be handled via specific and directly questions in #questions-and-advice and
- isn't so dependent on context (time of writing, culture, etc) that it becomes dated in a year or excludes large swaths of people
i guess if you know the answer write a guide and send a modmail to CDBot
a fit checkup if you will
A fit colonosco
py
im sticking with mine thanks
Yk maybe thatās a good point
A lot of the guides or whatever online are def dated
Also they are really subject to link rot but I suppose thatās just a result of the platforms used
This is a problem in multiple appearance centric hobby spaces fwiw. Social media is kinda primed to rewire thought patterns in a way that lets you be easily misled and marketed to and place the burden of malcontent on you not striving or working or spending enough to be the best version of yourself
Tbh refreshing as hell to have a space that has a zero tolorance policy for the looksmaxxing bullshit. Skincare server is a goddamn warzone sometimes :yea:
I also didnt realize this server was so young. Ive lurked on r/mfa for years before joining discord but i dont have a reddit account so it was properly just lurking. Im gonna be brave and admit i did follow some of those ye olde reddit closet capsule "guides" because i've never taken an interest in presenting myself the way i've wanted to before then, and the structure made learning how to dress feel less scary. But i like to think i've cultivated some Opinions and Taste since then
I think understanding certain information as generalizations or rules of thumb is helpful to give newbies a kickoff point to start formulating their own preferences and goals (even back then, when i followed the guides, i'd also be like "wow i dont agree with this, im not gonna listen" at certain points), the problem just arises when someone has absolutely no desire nor interest in figuring out what they like/dislike and want internet strangers to hold their hand to help them idk mog the haters
Itās wild itās only been two years. I like the discord much more than the reddit, I just wish it was a little easier to search
Agreed this discord is better in most ways. Super grateful to the mods and other people who keep it running so well and so positive. Also to all the regs creating a friendly atmosphere.
All that aside, I do find Discord to be unwieldy and confusing as a platform, at times.
Iāve actually never been on the subreddit so I canāt compare it to that but Iāve come to value this space a lot
Iāve never had any friends who were into fashion so being able to talk about my interest to likeminded people has been a real treat :blushcatto:
It's funny looking back and comparing Reddit to Discord. Think I was on-and-off on Reddit MFA for 13 years before eventually becoming a mod and also helping set up the Discord. I definitely prefer Discord for being more intimiate. There's something too about there being a barrier to entry which makes it seems people are more purposeful when sharing or asking fashion.
Main gripe is I do missing the scrolling apect of Reddit and those big mega inspiration albums. But that's more a thing about how I liked to consume media. Comparing apples and oranges, etc.
Also I love the custom emojis. Really adds to my user experience massively :xd:
Thatās so real, Iām missing the custom emojis when chatting outside the discord by now:xd:
I'm in another server for actual gaming and there's so many times I want to hit the :xd:
š just doesnāt do it anymore
This is how they get you w discord nitro
i got fed up of spending Ā£8.99 a month on emojis lol
wait what
jesus christ
yeah