
A game if Wordle
There comes a time – if it hasn’t happened to you already – where you’ll see a flood of yellow, green and black square emojis on your Twitter timeline with the word ‘Wordle’ and wonder if we’ve all lost our minds.
Wordle is in fact a new online game created by Brooklyn software designer Josh Wardle for his partner, who loves taking on the puzzles printed in The New York Times.
Yes, the game’s name is a pun, because of course it is.
Limited to just one game a day – which Mr Wardle says “encourages you to spend three minutes a day” on it “and that’s it” – users have six chances to guess a five-letter word from the dictionary.
Each time a guess is submitted, each letter will turn a different colour. Black means the letter isn’t in the word at all; yellow indicates that the letter is in the word, but you’ve put it in the wrong place; and green means you have it in the correct position.
Oh, and letters can be repeated, just to make things a little trickier.
Mr Wardle told The New York Times in an interview: “I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun.
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“It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”
The game has taken Twitter by storm this week, with ‘Wordle 404 x’ trending on the site on Sunday after many failed to guess the day’s hidden word.
Of course, when a new trend comes along, the memes soon follow.
The Ever Given Wordle
One user suggested that we were all still recovering from a viral trend from last year, when the Ever Given cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal:
Everyone is posting their Wordle boxes out of a subconscious longing for her https://t.co/NODBLazE3n— Jennifer Morrow (@Jennifer Morrow) 1641577717
A lack of interest
In their own take on the ‘or sorry that happened’ meme, Netflix employee Marc Snetiker channelled the feeling experienced by those who maybe don’t care all that much about the latest viral game:
Wordle https://t.co/BktJ3OWMoB— Marc (@Marc) 1641400888
It’s not a Covid variant
Let us have this brief moment of respite. Please.
Based on the tweets in my timeline I assume the new variant is called wordle.— Hend Amry (@Hend Amry) 1641658417
It’s not Star Trek either…
I don’t know what wordle is exactly and the pictures people post don’t help and the vibe I’m getting is that game o… https://t.co/lyh4Wmc2vv— Paul F. Tompkins (@Paul F. Tompkins) 1641575492
And no, it’s not a Pokémon
That would be a Squirtle.
ok...so wordle is NOT a pokemon— astropolitical/sociophysical (@astropolitical/sociophysical) 1641529217
The struggle
It happens to us all.
Me staring at my remaining letters on Wordle after ten minutes and 4 incorrect guesses https://t.co/rdgLgiC1ID— David (@David) 1641688755
I’m just like everyone else. I start my day by trying to squeeze as many vowels as possible into a 5 letter wordle— Vinny Thomas (@Vinny Thomas) 1641655872
wordle: name a 5-letter word my brain: …TUNA wordle: literally any 5-letter word my brain: …QUENCH wordle: LITE… https://t.co/7cEstreizK— jonny sun (@jonny sun) 1641498619
struggling with this Wordle https://t.co/OKbChP7X00— Toby Earle (@Toby Earle) 1641746136
When one puzzle a day is not enough…
12am then: fuck should’ve gone to sleep hours ago 12am now: fuck yea new wordle— Annabel McCarthy (@Annabel McCarthy) 1641695908
Wordle Art
One of them looks pretty sus if you ask me.
this wordle shit easy ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ ⬛⬛🟩🟩… https://t.co/2kFecKehAp— jarvis johnson (@jarvis johnson) 1641605944
(youth pastor voice) Lately a lot of people are playing this game “Wordle.” But I know another fun game, with anoth… https://t.co/X5Sa5VjXWe— Joppingway (@Joppingway) 1641361919
first time playing wordle is this a good score 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟨🟨🟩🟩 🟩🟨⬜️⬜️🟨🟩 🟩🟨⬜️⬜️🟨🟩 🟩🟨⬜️⬜️🟨🟩 🟩🟨⬜️⬜️🟨🟩 🟩🟨⬜️⬜️🟨🟩 🟨⬜️⬜️… https://t.co/P6clTT9gLJ— lauren (@lauren) 1641386857
Accessible Wordles
It’s not really a meme, per se, but still important nonetheless.
With Wordle generating a grid of emojis when sharing it to social media, screen readers have a tough time understanding what all the squares mean and will read out each one individually.
Not fun.
So accessibility specialist Stacey Jenkins has this advice:
I am only going to say this once, I promise, but... Posting walls of emojis is inaccessible. Screen reader users a… https://t.co/GKXM4Pjg4n— Stacey Jenkins (@Stacey Jenkins) 1641288457
We don’t know how long this trend will last, but given the state of the world right now, we’re here for it.