You’re obsessed with Wordle because…
A couple of months back, I noticed green, yellow and grey coloured boxes appearing on social media without any explanation as to what they signify. The caption would always have the word "Wordle", and next to it, some numbers—e.g. "247 4/6". Must be something to do with some dumb game that's trending, I thought. A few days later, I learned that what people were sharing had something to do with a word game, and of course that piqued my interest, since I have always loved playing Hangman. In Wordle, you get six tries to guess a five letter word every day. If you use an alphabet in the correct position, it turns green; if it's placed in the wrong position, it turns yellow. If you use an alphabet that's not in the word, it turns grey. But why is Wordle so addictive and why are a lot of people so obsessed with it?
My partner and I usually play Wordle together, just before retiring for the night. Each of us tries to hide our mobile screens from the other while focusing on guessing the word of the day. If one of us finishes first, the other goes: "Just tell me the first letter!" or "Tell me the position of the letter E!" These desperate pleas are usually responded to with wicked little giggles and impish nos. No peeking, no cheating!
Trying to guess the same word is what makes this game an exciting activity for us. If I were to guess the word "FUNKY" while my partner were to guess the word "FUNGI", there wouldn't be any fun in it—it would be like doing two separate activities then. Because my partner and I constantly pull each other's leg, guessing the same word allows us to have a little healthy, playful competition. This seems to be one of the reasons behind why Wordle users feel a sense of thrill too—because everyone else is trying to guess the exact same word you are. That being said, a "loser" doesn't get to be so for too long because there's always tomorrow—a new competition to win, a new word to guess.
When I look at the visual scoreboard shared by others on social media, it allows me to literally see the journey others have made to reach the same goal as I have, minus spoilers. This, in turn, makes me feel certain human impulses. For starters, I feel sorry for someone whose first couple of tries was so unsuccessful that they didn't even get a single yellow or green box!
In these instances I thank Josh Wardle, the creator of the game, for choosing grey over red to mark a letter that is "incorrect" because I always associate red with the red ink on our school copies—more red equaled more mistakes, and such "bloodied" copies were something my classmates and I referred to as "post-mortem-ed" scripts! Somehow, it doesn't feel as terrifying if the "wrong" letter is coloured grey. Phew!
At other times I wonder why some Wordle users have, say, three yellow boxes in their third attempt, and then four grey boxes in their fourth attempt. I start judging that person, without wanting to. Why couldn't you just use those three letters in different positions to make an educated guess?! Why did you have to ditch those three letters and use completely new letters?! And then I tell myself: Ah, you must have wanted to see if a certain new alphabet is in the word, and so you inserted a random five-letter word containing that alphabet, without caring to see if it contains those three letters that you knew you had to use. You have very little patience!
Whether we do it consciously or not, looking at visual scoreboards can make us a tad bit judgmental. Some may even judge others for taking too many guesses and wear fewer attempts as badges of pride. That being said, there's an element of drama when I see a person having a Wordle crisis. You may even be inclined to think that a person guessing the right word in the first attempt probably cheated, while a person guessing the word in the second attempt probably faked it—you know, they probably already knew the word of the day, thanks to friends who actually solved it.
It is through such shared drama and anticipation that my partner and I, along with Wordle users in general, form a community of sorts, and therefore feel a sense of belonging.
Wordle is, in a way, like a book club, where every member is asked to read the same book and then come together to share their varied reading experiences. Members can talk about which parts of the book they have struggled with, which parts were disturbing or grotesque and which were delightful or unputdownable. For us Wordle "club members", this discussion of our challenges, frustrations, or excitements is all done through non-verbal and non-textual communication—through the sharing and seeing of visual scoreboards on a daily basis.
I believe this simplicity is what makes the game so popular. The rules are user-friendly and don't take more than 10 minutes of our day. Guessing one word a day leaves users with a sense of anticipation to replay the next day. I liken this to the anticipation felt by viewers of a television series, who wait for the next episode with eagerness.
The first time I played the game, I guessed the right word in my second attempt—it has yet to happen again. Does the game, then, have to do with luck or intelligence?
While sharing their Wordle scores on social media, I have seen boastful captions such as "Today's word was super easy" or a clapping emoticon to celebrate their success or going as far as calling themselves a "prodigy" or "genius". I have come across a screenshot shared by a friend, where he had four correct letters, and an incorrect one. And yet, despite multiple tries, he could not guess the right word. He started off with "MIGHT" where only the "M" turned grey while the other four letters turned green. So he tried other words like "FIGHT", "SIGHT", and "RIGHT" and still couldn't guess the right word. Can we really call this person unintelligent?
When it comes to playing crossword puzzles, you are required to have a large vocabulary and know the meanings of words. While playing Wordle, however, I once guessed the right word, "REBUS", without even knowing what it means. But Wordle does require us to use and exercise our brains. We need to be able to read smartly—read the keyboard, the boxes, figure out the blank spaces. If I type "MELON" (which I'm craving as I write) and only N turns yellow while the rest of the letter boxes turn grey, then I need to be able to keep in mind that none of those four alphabets should be used in my next guess. Now, let's say I type in "ICING" in my second attempt (my craving has shifted to cake), thereby changing the placement of N and using other alphabets that were not used the first time around. This time, the first two letters turn grey while the last three letters, "ING" get the green signal. Woot! Now I need to think of a five-letter word that ends with "ING", but the first two letters cannot be M, E, L, O, I or C. There are a number of words that could fit the bill—AWING, BRING, STING, SUING, SWING, THING, TYING. I just have to keep trying through a process of elimination, paying attention, relying on memory, and depending on logical reasoning.
Can I use these skills to guess the word for today? Can you?
Noora Shamsi Bahar is a writer, translator, and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages, North South University.