Cannot get articles or custom content types to load on front page I am new to drupal. I have Drupal ver 8.5 installed on my local MAMP. 

Unfortunately, though I am following a tutorial that is using version 7.28 (perhaps this is the issue). I cannot get my recently made articles OR custom content types to show on my front page.

a.) I have ensured that my URL under Front page > "Basic Site Settings" is blank.
b.) I have ensured that all my articles have "Promoted to front page" checked under the Promotion Options Tab.
c.) I have ensured that all my custom content types have "Promoted to front page" under the Promotion Options Tab.

What am I doing wrong?
By default, in a fresh Drupal 8 installation, your homepage is populated by the frontpage view. Make sure that your homepage URL under admin/config/system/site-information is /node. That is the default URI of the frontpage  view.

You can find the definition of that view under admin/structure/views/view/frontpage.

If you need a guide about the Views module, you can find it on Chapter 9. Creating Listings with Views.